The nominations for the 77th British Academy Film Awards are out! David Tennant will host the 2024 Bafta Film Awards on Sunday 18 February at the Royal Festival Hall, London.
Leading the contenders for Best Film is Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s grand biopic of J Robert Oppenheimer, the morally conflicted American physicist known as the “father of the atomic bomb”. In a strong year, though, Oppenheimer has competition in the form of Martin Scorsese’s magisterial epic Killers of the Flower Moon, smart French legal drama Anatomy of a Fall, deftly bittersweet Christmas comedy drama The Holdovers, and Poor Things, an outrageous comic romp from director Yorgos Lanthimos.
Poor Things is also up for Outstanding British Film, but otherwise this category gives a chance of glory to UK movies that might consider themselves unlucky not to be listed for the big prize. Nominated are Ridley Scott’s historical barnstormer Napoleon; The Old Oak, a fiercely humane drama from veteran director Ken Loach; delightful London-set romantic comedy Rye Lane; sunny kitchen-sink drama Scrapper; and crowd-pleasing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel Wonka. Also shortlisted are films that can expect to do well in the acting categories too, namely All of Us Strangers, a profound romantic fantasy set in an apartment block; and challenging Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest. Sensitive coming-of-age saga How to Have Sex also earns a place on the list.
As for those top acting prizes, Cillian Murphy heads up the Leading Actor race for his turn in Oppenheimer. Barry Keoghan, winner of Best Supporting Actor last year, tries to go one better with his eyebrow-raising performance in Saltburn, while another leading contender has to be Bradley Cooper for starring in, as well as directing, the musical labour of love Maestro. Cooper’s film is a biopic about conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein - awards juries do love actors playing real people, which means that, alongside Murphy and Cooper, Colman Domingo is shortlisted for playing a 1960s gay rights activist in Rustin. Also listed are Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers) and Teo Yoo, star of deeply emotional romantic drama Past Lives.
The likely winner of Leading Actress comes from a film that has otherwise been ignored in the major categories: Fantasia Barrino in musical literary adaptation The Color Purple. Similarly, Barbie, the ingenious toy spin-off that helped Oppenheimer to become a hit by being released on the same day, spawning the “Barbieheimer” phenomenon, gets its biggest nod here with a nomination for Margot Robbie. Emma Stone (Poor Things), Carey Mulligan (Maestro), Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall) and Vivian Oparah (Rye Lane) complete the line-up. Sandra Hüller pulls off a very rare feat by being nominated for both Leading and Supporting Actress in the same year: there she is again in the latter category for her work in The Zone of Interest.
Films overlooked in the main acting categories include wicked satire American Fiction, for which Cord Jefferson has an Adapted Screenplay nomination, and true-story thriller Society of the Snow, which - along with Ukraine war documentary 20 Days in Mariupol - is nominated for Film Not in the English Language.
Finally, don’t forget the nominations for Animated Film: shortlisted there are The Boy and the Heron, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Elemental and Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse.
See below for your full guide to where the Bafta nominees are streaming!
