This is one of the oddest awards seasons I’ve ever covered/watched. Between the newly spread-out awards show schedule, the shunning of the Golden Globes and the Omicron variant leading to a blitz of postponements, it’s just been so weirdly muted around all of the Oscar campaigns. Anyway, the BAFTA nominations are here and they barely have any connection to the American Oscar season. Usually, it’s not this wide of a chasm between Oscars and BAFTAs. While the guild awards are truly the best indicators for the Oscars, usually the BAFTAs are close behind. Not so much this year. Some good news, however: no Nicole Kidman for Being the Ricardos, THANK GOD. And no Kristen Stewart for Spencer. Lolz. You can see the full list of nominations here. Here are the big categories:
Best Film
Belfast
Don’t Look Up
Dune
Licorice Pizza
The Power Of The DogOutstanding British Film
After Love
Ali & Ava
Belfast
Boiling Point
Cyrano
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
House Of Gucci
Last Night In Soho
No Time To Die
PassingDirector
After Love, Aleem Khan
Drive My Car, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Happening, Audrey Diwan
Licorice Pizza, Paul Thomas Anderson
The Power Of The Dog, Jane Campion
Titane, Julia DucournauLeading Actress
Lady Gaga, House Of Gucci
Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza
Emilia Jones, Coda
Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person In The World
Joanna Scanlan, After Love
Tessa Thompson, PassingLeading Actor
Adeel Akhtar, Ali & Ava
Mahershala Ali, Swan Song
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power Of The Dog
Leonardo Dicaprio, Don’t Look Up
Stephen Graham, Boiling Point
Will Smith, King RichardSupporting Actress
Caitríona Balfe, Belfast
Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
Ariana Debose, West Side Story
Ann Dowd, Mass
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Ruth Negga, PassingSupporting Actor
Mike Faist, West Side Story
Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
Troy Kotsur, Coda
Woody Norman, C’mon C’mon
Jesse Plemons, The Power Of The Dog
Kodi Smit-Mcphee, The Power Of The Dog
The love for Licorice Pizza surprised me, but I do realize that Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies are usually more beloved overseas. The British Film Academy also made a real effort to nominate actors of color. Before this year, no Black actor had ever been nominated in the Best Actor category (not even Idris Elba or Denzel!!) – they made a point of nominating Will Smith, Mahershala Ali and Adeel Akhtar (who is Black and South Asian). I’m also pleased to see the nominations for Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga for Passing and Jessie Buckley for The Lost Daughter. While I understand why Olivia Colman can’t win everything, I definitely thought her work in The Lost Daughter deserved nominations across the board.
(I also think they made the right decision to not nominate Kidman and K-Stew. I wonder if BAFTA president Prince William threw a fit about Spencer not getting any major noms.)
Photos courtesy of Netflix, IMDB.
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Nicole Kidman SHOULD NOT BE nominated for anything. She was a horrible choice for Lucy and I will die on that hill
eh im not for or against kirsten for Dina it was Okay sorry …I think her best acting i have ever seen from her though ( but that was a low bar to begin with)
I will gladly join you on that hill.
I think she killed it as Lucille Ball. My mother and I bonded over Lucille Ball and old reruns of I Love Lucy and both felt like she 100% did a great job in that role. Our issues were with the script. So I guess I’m dying on the other side of this mountain, lol.
@superashes, I agree about Nicole. The general public seem to be mad about Nicole’s portrayal because she didn’t play “Lucy” as in the sitcom, but she portrayed Lucille Ball perfectly! And I too felt the script did no one any favors. The movie just didn’t flow well and it was a bit of a herky jerky feeling.
You aren’t alone, I loved watching reruns growing up and I think Nicole Kidman was wonderful. in the role. I didn’t love Javier.
Even Lucille Ball’s daughter said she played her to perfection. Go figure. To me this is like when Margot Robbie played Sharon Tate, and people were lined up to hate on her performance. Meanwhile Sharon Tate’s sister thought she had done an amazing job with the role, and even cried listening in on set because she had reminded her so much of her sister.
I was never not aware of “Here’s NK trying to capture Lucy’s husky voice,” etc. etc. etc. I was always taken out of the movie and instead kept evaluating her imitation of Lucy. Very distracting.
I don’t think there was any big plot to leave KStew out. She hung her head and looked mournful in that bad blonde wig. That was her performance. It is surprising that they left Olivia Colman off, though, she was great.
I’m sure there will be some royal “expert” who will claim that Will blocked Kristen from being nominated.
Which isn’t true. There was zero Royal influence on the nominations, I say that as a voting BAFTA member. Spencer was included in every category, it just clearly didn’t grab the voters (of which there are hundreds.) I am fuming over Olivia Colman though. Gaga, really?!?!
The only award Gaga should be getting for House of Gucci is a Razzie.
Oh, man – I rented Spencer this week for a plane ride. It was terrible. I don’t understand who thought this movie was a good idea or that it should win awards. Between K-Stew’s whispery speaking voice, to making Diana seem absolutely batsh*t crazy, to being so boring that I feel asleep and woke up and rewound and fell asleep again 3 times. I never did make it to the end, No way that movie should be nominated for anything.
Kristin’s bad acting blocked Kristin from being nominated. I had high hopes for that movie given the buzz, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why anyone would find that performance award-worthy. The whispery voice was so hard to understand – Diana was not hard to understand, nor were the other actors hard to understand, so it is nothing to do with getting used to the accent. She was just bad.
William can breathe a shy of relief, KStew wasn’t nominated and won’t be there. I’d be surprised if many of the American actors make the trip to London for the awards. Hopefully, there will be LA based set up for the Americans like the Oscars did last year.
Coda is the next movie I need to see. I have actually seen a good portion of these movies. I’m pulling for The Power of the Dog and Belfast. I’m so happy Kidman is not nominated. Her performance is over rated.
Coda is SO GOOD! You will love it!
I really liked Belfast; but I heard about the animal abuse in TPotD and I just can’t bring myself to watch it (also don’t care for the “westerns” genre).
CODA is a lovely, small film with a touching story with really good performances all around. Emilia Jones had to learn an American accent; learn ASL; learn how to sing; and worked on a fishing trawler to prepare for the part. Marlee Matlin was clearly having a fantastic time as the frisky mom.
@ FHMom, I highly recommend it! I enjoyed every moment of the movie, from the script to the actors as well as Marlins insistence of having actual deaf actors playing the parts, as they should have been. It’s an extremely well done and I was moved by the film. I felt that I was seeing an documentary regarding the lives surrounding the hearing impaired. Showcasing how one child is under the immense pressure as not being hear impaired and how their lives were all dependent on her alone.
CODA is really good.
Tessa Thompson! Ruth Negga! Ann Dowd! Jessie Buckley! And finally, the luminous Emila Jones!!
All finally get recognition for what were definitely among the best performances of the year.
BAFTA noms will help these actresses with the Oscar Nominations for sure since many academy members are British. Fingers crossed!
I am thrilled for Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson. That film is incredible and their performances are fire
It was one of my favorite movies and I’m thrilled for both of them although I’m pulling more for Ruth. She is a wonderful actress.
That reminds me, I started watching it, got interrupted, and never finished! Must finish it soon.
House of Gucci was one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a long time. I literally dozed off for a few minutes during it.
Passing was one of my favorite movies of the year, so good to see it widely recognized. And I really don’t get all the love for Don’t Look Up? I mean Leo getting nominated instead of Denzel or Andrew Garfield is ridiculous.
Leo getting nominated IS ridiculous. He was sleep walking through most of the movie and could not even pretend to be attracted to Cate Blanchett as a mistress or the actress who played his wife. We’ve seen his personal preferences but he was supposed to be acting. Despite the star studded cast, this felt like a campy TV movie.
Has Leo ever had chemistry with a female costar other than with Winslet in Titanic?
@FF tbf he had great chemistry with Claire Danes in Romeo + Juliet. I find all of his work pre-Titanic fantastic. After that he started to play it safe and his acting lost a lot of its spark.
I thought Leo played his role insincerely, IMO. “Campy TV Movie” is absolutely right. I think Jennifer Lawrence had the better tone, she played it for real. It was like Leo was winking at the audience the whole time, “look at me being a shlub!” .
So I actually think Leo was good in Don’t Look Up, and I’m not usually a fan at all of Leo’s acting (I mean, not since I was a tween and Romeo + Juliet), The movie itself was weird, because it can’t really be satire or parody when it’s literally just things that happen all the time in the real world, but Leo was SO un-Leo in the movie that I enjoyed his performance.
I think the BAFTAs must just hate Denzel because I cannot believe that he’s never been nominated before. He’s had so many good roles for decades.
And his Macbeth was good, certainly miles above whatever Leo was doing in Don’t look up.
Did people really believe Kristen had a chance at the BAFTAS after she couldn’t even get a SAG nomination? Come on now… William didn’t need to do anything about that.
The Oscar is between Gaga and Nicole (for the horror of film twitter). I hope Penélope Cruz manages to get a nomination though, easily my favorite performance of the year.
Also so happy with the CODA love! Rooting for Troy Kotsur, that scene of him and Emilia on the truck made me cry.
Bwahahaha Daisy, I agree with you on KStew & Spencer, that mess needed nothing.
I had no idea Jessie Buckley was Irish until I just googled her. She was awesome in Fargo and I’m Thinking of Ending Things! She does midwestern American really well.
I love the memes of William blocking KStew’s nominations, but it makes sense when you remember The Crown continuously getting snubbed by BAFTAs as well (only one acting win in all its seasons to Vanessa Kirby for playing Margaret)
I wonder if it’s stuffy British people being all “well.. actually” about their royals and the history being shown in the series/movies?
It would have been fun to see KStew get nominated and then watch Wills and Kate have to plaster a smile on their face for the cameras.
No, it’s really nor that deep lol. We had over 200 films to view. Spencer was a snooze, simple.
I was kind of hoping for Peter Dinklage for Cyrano, but I think people are angry at him.
I agree with everything you wrote @kaiser. In addition to the more inclusive best actor nominees, it should be noted that 50% of the best director nominees are women.
I was going to comment of this issue as well!!! For once it’s not ALL WHITE MEN that are subpar directors. For once we have a good percentage of women directors!! Let’s hope that the Academy folks take notice. We are sick of the all white, male dominated nominees when they are awarded based solely on their skin color and power in Hollywood.
I feel like my partner and I are in the minority here cos it seemed like everyone was raving about it but we thought No Time To Die was a complete waste of time, it was just so bland! And they basically made no use at all of the brilliant Rami Malek, they could have had a million other people play the minimal role/screen time they gave him. Isn’t Bond supposed to be decently about the villain, at least 30%? Eurgh. Please let it not win Best British Film
I would think that if Rami was unhappy with the role and screen time, he would not have agreed to be in the movie.
Screen time would be established after shooting – in editing.
I was not a fan of it. For the most part I’ve been 50/50 on the Craig Bonds – I either LOVE them (Skyfall, Casino Royale) or hate them. except that I can never get QoS and Spectre right lol, I love one and hate one but always forget which is which hahaha.
I was hoping The Sparks Brothers documentary would get a nomination. Edgar Wright did a fantastic job and it’s one of my favorite music documentaries ever.
It was great, wasn’t it? Informative without being intrusive, and so very entertaining. Love those brothers!
Yes! It’s over 2 hours long, but I wanted more! The Mael brothers are true enigmas. My only complaint is that we didn’t get more information about Ron’s snowlgobe collection, lol
I don’t think anyone mentioned here but the voting system for the BAFTAS is diferent than the other awards. Only the two most voted get an automatic nomination and the other four are chosen by the jury. This explain KStew, Nicole and Olivia not showing up there and women actually being nominated for directing (apart from Campion who’s the favorite). I think the only suprises were Andrew Garfield not getting through straight vote and the jury not picking Denzel.
It makes sense to me that Jessie Buckley was nominated over Colman, her role was arguably more prominent and more compelling. Although in a perfect world they both would have been nominated.
Alana HAIM. So nice seeing her here!
Also, I feel bad for Jamie Dornan not getting nominated. He’s been game with the awards season and Belfast is getting love all over the place. He’s also an underrated actor.
“Don’t Look Up” is not good. Why is it getting so many nominations?
It’s funny that I have had it in my que for months but after reading the reviews, I hesitate watching it. I have no desire to spend my time watching mediocrity when there are so many better options to spend my time on.
The premise is good and the cast is talented. It just isn’t funny and goes on way too long.
I didn’t love it, but I am glad I watched it. The ending was very powerful, and I thought about it for days afterwards.
I couldn’t make it to the end. It was sooo long . All the jokes were in the trailer.
IMO, the jokes weren’t the best part of the movie, and I didn’t see it as a comedy. It was a slog to get to the ending, but seeing the world end really makes you think. It’s hard to imagine, and CGI can really make points that words don’t sometimes.
I also loved the end, after almost turning it off because, I don’t know, it wasn’t that great.
I think ppl don’t understand that while Kristen (mediocre) performance was beloved by the critics for some reason it didn’t connect at all with the audience and the movie especially just look at its audience rotten tomatoes score, so her being shut down by both the Sag and bafta isn’t that surprising.
KStew doesn’t connect with audiences which is why she was trying to go the critical acclaim (she does seem to have a lot of critics who love her performances) and prestige awards route to justify her career.
She hasn’t been doing it via box office post-Snow White.
Rotten Tomatoes measures the extremely online crowd, disproportionately young white men who have misogynistic values. It is not an accurate reflection of the average moviegoer.
A great (or even good) movie about Diana has not yet been made, but I will say I did appreciate that Kristen and her director decided to take *some* risks.
The Kristen Stewart hate is tired. She’s a young queer woman who got typecast in a wildly popular vampire fantasy and has gravitated to queer roles in both senses since then. Not a lot of Kristen Stewarts out there and as a queer woman I have to say I always enjoy her work and I find a lot of the criticism very uninformed. It’s more you don’t understand what she and her director intended, less that their choices were objectively bad. Or you just don’t like a weird and difficult movie.
People found her performances mediocre before she came out as queer, and I rarely see her acting ability specifically yoked to her queerness. I’ve seen more disdain for Twilight as a brand tbh, but the consensus even then was more on the side that she and Pattinson were better than the material they were given.
Nevermind that Anna Kendrick seems to have moved in fine from that franchise.
Some people think Stewart has been overly pushed since and that she tends to repeat the same schtick with her acting and often looks bored and aloof. Audiences do not engage with her generally of late, the series of flops that she’s headlined indicate that. I’m baffled as to why she doesn’t just start directing.
So that said, please stop coming in to tell people what their opinion is. Some people just don’t think Stewart is a good actress, some people think she overrated for what she puts out. That isn’t some kind of hate campaign. Plenty of people liked her performance in Spencer and plenty didn’t. The SAG and BAFTA boards just likely thought their other choices were better.
If anything, her internet stans that push this narrative are doing way too much. It has the opposite effect. I swear it would be easier for Stewart to just improve her acting instead of going this route.
Much better list. Stewart has been rewarded disproportionately due to her high profile compared to other and far more accomplished performances. Especially Ruth Negga has been criminally overlooked in some of the American awards nomination. But also Renate Reinsve.
Stewart had a great publicist who really worked hard to get Kristen’s name out there early. The first award she was up for was Venice Film Festival which she did not win, Penelope Cruz won it. That should have been the hint that the industry was not on board with her performance. However, critics were very much on board except the major critics that were the most important. The hype for Kristen Stewart was huge but the hype didn’t seem to matter to the industry people, only to the critics. I too think she was rewarded disproportionately due to her profile and hype.
Congrats to them for managing to get more than one PoC nominee per category.
Let’s see if the Oscars can manage the same.
Yes, please! The Oscars are historically blinded by the lack of recognition with regards to women, especially WOC, POC and Asians.
Everyone on social media is obsessed with Licorice Pizza, Twitter makes me feel like a weirdo because I haven’t watched it yet.
It’s also to be noticed that the BAFTA chairman is British Indian and his primary focus since taking office has been to introduce diversity. Looks like it’s happening !
The awards campaign for Kristen has been illuminating. She has a lot of haters and I don’t fully understand it. Like I get with some actor they have a persona that turns people off but it’s also usually followed up by certain actions to reinforce it.
So many people project onto her this sullenness that really isn’t there anymore. And if she tries to be more out going with her personality, those same people act as if she’s groveling for acceptance.
10 years after the last twilight movie and many can’t let up.