'Oppenheimer', 'The Zone of Interest' and 'Poor Things' Reign Supreme at the 2024 BAFTAs

The 77th BAFTAs took place on Sunday. David Tennant hosted, complete with a kilt, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor sang ‘Murder on the Dancefloor.’ The big winner of the night was, of course, Oppenheimer, which took home awards for Best Film, Director, Lead and Supporting Actor, and Cinematography, among others. Emma Stone won Best Actress, The Zone of Interest played well, and Mia McKenna Bruce was crowned the rising star of the year by the British public.

I feel like a broken record complaining about BAFTA and how the ceremony itself is treated. It’s prerecorded, edited down, and put into a two-hour slot that sidelines a ton of winners into an end-show montage rather than giving them time to shine. We get a bunch of musical performances and bad jokes (and one excruciating ‘motivational speaker’ bit from Nick Mohammad), but a decent chunk of categories are seen as superfluous. Oh, and it’s all spoiled if you check Twitter before the premiere on BBC One.

I also complain a lot about how BAFTA seems far more interested these days in acting as an Oscars precursor than as a celebration of British film, which is its ostensible goal. This year, they at least had a good excuse since the major frontrunner for the Academy Awards is Oppenheimer, from a British filmmaker. They also gave awards to The Zone of Interest, the UK’s entrant in the Best International Feature category and Outstanding British Film category, and Poor Things, a British production based on a legendary Scottish novel. Most of the victors were, it must be said, pretty expected. Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Robert Downey Jr. further secured their statuses as Oscar frontrunners, for one.

One surprise win was the Adapted Screenplay victory for Cord Jefferson and American Fiction, which beat Oppenheimer, Poor Things, and The Zone of Interest (Barbie was categorized as original by BAFTA but lost to Anatomy of a Fall, with Arthur Harari and Justine Triet ensuring us all that she doesn’t plan to murder him.)

This year’s nominees were controversial, with notable omissions for Lily Gladstone, Greta Gerwig, and others. BAFTA is somehow less committed to diversity than the Oscars, which would almost be impressive if it weren’t so aggravating. Randolph’s win was especially welcome in this context, as was her trying to shoot her shot with Chiwetel Ejiofor when he gave her the award. The BAFTAs continue to have massive problems that they seem confused as to how to rectify them. My advice: just do the show live, give all the categories their time, and maybe concern yourself less with what your cousins across the pond are doing.

BEST FILM
Oppenheimer

BEST DIRECTOR
Christopher Nolan — Oppenheimer

BEST LEAD ACTOR
Cillian Murphy — Oppenheimer

BEST LEAD ACTRESS
Emma Stone — Poor Things

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Robert Downey Jr. — Oppenheimer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Da’Vine Joy Randolph — The Leftovers

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Justine Triet and Arthur Harari — Anatomy of a Fall

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Cord Jefferson — American Fiction

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Mstyslav Chernov and Raney Aronson-Rath — 20 Days in Mariupol

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
The Boy and the Heron

BEST CASTING
Susan Shopmaker — The Leftovers

BEST FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
The Zone of Interest

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Hoyte Van Hoytema — Oppenheimer

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Holly Waddington — Poor Things

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Shona Heath, James Price and Zsuzsa Mihalek — Poor Things

BEST EDITING
Jennifer Lame — Oppenheimer

BEST MAKE-UP AND HAIR
Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston — Poor Things

BEST SOUND
Johnnie Burn and Tarn Willers — The Zone of Interest

BEST SCORE
Ludwig Göransson — Oppenheimer

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Simon Hughes — Poor Things

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
The Zone of Interest

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR, OR PRODUCER
Earth Mama — Savanah Leaf (Writer, Director, Producer), Shirley O’Connor (Producer) and Medb Riordan (Producer)

BEST BRITISH SHORT
Yasmin Afifi and Elizabeth Rufai — Jellyfish and Lobster

BEST BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION
Ross Stringer, Bartosz Stanislawek and Aleksandra Sykulak — Crab Day

EE RISING STAR AWARD
Mia McKenna-Bruce

This year’s BAFTA Fellowship was awarded to Samantha Morton, while the award for outstanding British contribution to cinema went to June Givanni, a film curator who was signalled out for her work on documenting pan-African cinema with the June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive (JGPACA) in London.