The 2025 BAFTAs Were All Very Predictable

Awards season made its jump across the Atlantic for the BAFTA Awards. The stars lined up to smile politely at jokes they didn’t get and pick up more hardware for their bulging shelves. The biggest award of the evening went to Conclave, while the rest of the masks were spread across the board to the people and films you expected to win. Well, except for Best Actress.

The BBC has never fully figured out how to make this ceremony work as a TV event. Like the Oscars, they’re pleading to an audience that doesn’t care about it, but they also don’t give us the full event. Getting a host for this job has proven tough in recent years after Stephen Fry decided to stop doing it. So bless David Tennant, an endlessly talented and charismatic man who will screech his way through ‘500 Miles’ by the Proclaimers (while wearing a kilt) because how else is he supposed to remind people that he’s from Paisley? Hosting any awards show is a totally thankless endeavour so hey, why not embarrass yourself just to ensure that, at the very least, it’ll be memed? It’s an impossible gig to do even half-well, and he was game. Just don’t expect him to incorporate musical theatre into his vast repertoire any time soon.

I’d still rather just have the full uninterrupted ceremony and all of the awards handed out on-air rather than the condensed version we get. If it’s a call between a wonky opening monologue full of easy gags and, you know, celebrating cinema, I know where my vote goes. I know I do this rant every year but it remains extremely insulting that BAFTA and the BBC have decided to treat so many below-the-line winners so shoddily. It’s a once-a-year event, so why throw these talented people who have worked their entire careers to reach this point under the bus? Was the Take That performance nexessary?

It doesn’t help that BAFTA remains so largely focused on pandering to the Oscars narrative and doing so at the sacrifice of British cinema, which is meant to be its priority. Granted, it hasn’t been that for a while, and endless rejigs of the nomination process to diversify the lineup have only further revealed the problem (and the staggering whiteness of it all, which is somehow worse than the Oscars.)

That made a lot of the winners rather predictable. Some categories have been locked in for months now and who would BAFTA be to change it up? Zoe Saldana won Best Supporting Actress for Emilia Perez. It also won Best Film Not in the English Language, with director Jacques Audiard thanking everyone who worked tirelessly on the film, including that one racist. Conclave won for adapted screenplay and Outstanding British Film while Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain beat tough competition like Anora and The Substance to win original screenplay. That win was more surprising that Kieran Culkin picking up yet another supporting actor trophy for the film. The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody cemented his frontrunner status with another Best Actor win, as did Brady Corbet winning Best Director. Conclave picked up the most awards of the night, the exemplification of a consensus pick that everyone can be pretty happy about. And it’s British so, you know, wave that flag. You may now vape in celebration.

I’m always more interested in the non-Oscar films here. It was exciting to see the Irish comedy Kneecap win an award for its director, Rich Peppiatt, in the field of Outstanding Debut by a British filmmaker (it’s the most wonderfully un-British movie ever.) Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl took home two trophies, one for Best Animated Feature and another in a new category, Best Family Film. A special award for outstanding contribution to British cinema went to MediCinema, an organisation that helps to bring film to hospitals to allow patients and their families some respite from their situations. The Rising Star Award, the only one voted on by the public, was given to David Jonsson, who you might recognise from Industry or Alien: Romulus. The fellowship award was presented to the iconic Warwick Davis, who is an undisputed legend of film, TV, and activism. Name a film and he’s probably been in it. His speech was very moving, particularly as he talked about his late wife.

If there was a surprise in the evening, it was the Best Actress award going to Mikey Madison of Anora. It’s a brilliant performance and a great win because it really does feel like she’s been shut out all season from other organizations as Demi Moore became the frontrunner. But I couldn’t cheer it on because it came at the expense of Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Hard Truths. If you want to know who gave the best performance of 2024, it was Jean-Baptiste, and the Academy totally ignored her and Mike Leigh’s phenomenal film. So, it didn’t seem outlandish to hope that BAFTA would care about this legendary British actress and do what the Oscars would not. Nope. They’re chasing their American cousins for validation. So yeah, I was mad.

The best parts of the show came from the speeches, whether it was Madison voicing her support for sex worker rights or Tennant speaking about the importance of diversity and investment in the arts. This is the stuff I care about as a film lover and pop culture hot takes merchant, and it baffles me that the BBC and BAFTA seem to think people crave anything but that. Guys, if we’re watching your show then it’s because we care about film and want to celebrate it! Just show us all the winners, let the speeches go on, and stop making David Tennant sing.

You can check out the full list of winners at the 2025 BAFTAs here.