2024 BAFTA Preview and Predictions — Will Oppenheimer Sweep?

The BAFTAs are happening this weekend. We will be posting a prediction podcast in a few hours but perhaps a quick analysis of how we think this might go, with predictions.

The BAFTAs are usually hard to predict. I liken them to herding cats. They don’t follow the consensus like we do over here. The really interesting thing about them is how their Best Picture winner has differed so greatly from the Oscars, given the two different kinds of ballots.

They have five slots for Best Picture, but six for the acting and directing categories, oddly enough. Their Best Picture winner is a plain plurality. So, in the era of the preferential ballot at the Oscars, we’ve seen it go like this:

From 2009-2013, identical:

2009 — The Hurt Locker
2010 — The King’s Speech
2011 — The Artist
2012 — Argo
2013 — 12 Years a Slave

From 2013 onward, things get weird.

2014 — Boyhood (Oscar: Birdman)
2015 — The Revenant (Oscar: Spotlight)
2016 — La La Land (Oscar: Moonlight)
2017 — Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Oscar: The Shape of Water)
2018 — Roma (Oscar: Green Book)
2019 — 1917 (Oscar: Parasite)
2020 — Nomadland
2021 — The Power of the Dog (Oscar: CODA)
2022 — All Quiet on the Western Front (Oscar: Everything Everywhere All at Once)

This year seems like the year that will break the recent trend and hand Oppie the win on either ballot. We don’t know, of course. With actors in play and a fairly cerebral film, one never knows how they’ll land. Beyond Oppenheimer, we will test the power of Anatomy of a Fall vs. Poor Things for that second-place slot. What I mean by that is whether we will see Sandra Huller pull off an upset in Best Actress (she is nominated twice) or in Supporting Actress or whether they love Poor Things more.

It will also test whether The Zone of Interest is preferred over Anatomy of a Fall in their “foreign language” category. It makes more sense to call it a “foreign language” since The Zone of Interest is a homegrown product from the UK. Calling it an “international feature” seems a little…off.

At any rate, Zone probably has the advantage here. Whether Da’Vine Joy Randolph can pull in a clean sweep of the categories remains unknown. If she is going to lose anywhere, it will be here and only because of Sandra Huller, who is nominated twice.

The Zone of Interest beat both Oppenheimer and Poor Things at the London Film Critics, but that doesn’t mean much, considering TAR won last year. Parasite and Nomadland are the other films that have matched. They do tend to match with BAFTA more than they do with Oscar: Power of the Dog, Roma, Three Billboards, La La Land. But not so much with Oscar.

Lately, there has been some buzz about Zone by certain pundits, saying it’s “surging,” and that might be true, but unless it has the support of the actors, it isn’t going to make waves at the Academy.

It’s hard for me to imagine any voting body passing up Oppenheimer, but it’s not exactly a critics darling. It will be interesting to see where it lands with BAFTA. That will help us decide how strong the frontrunner is and whether it can stand the tension of these next few weeks.

Here are our BAFTA predictions:

Best Picture
Oppenheimer — Sasha Stone, Marshall Flores, Mark Johnson, Ryan Adams

Best Director
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer — Stone, Flores, Johnson, Adams

Best Actor
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer — Stone, Flores, Johnson, Adams

Best Actress
Emma Stone, Poor Things — Stone, Flores, Johnson
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall – Adams

Supporting Actor
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer — Stone, Flores, Johnson
Paul Mescal, All of Us Strangers — Adams

Supporting Actress
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers — Stone, Flores, Johnson
Rosamund Pike, Saltburn — Adams

Original Screenplay
Anatomy of a Fall — Stone, Flores, Johnson, Adams

Adapted Screenplay
Oppenheimer —  Flores, Johnson, Stone
All of Us Strangers — Adams
Winner: American Fiction

Cinematography
Oppenheimer — Stone, Flores, Johnson, Adams

Costumes
Poor Things — Flores, Johnson, Adams
Barbie — Stone

Editing
Oppenheimer — Stone, Flores, Johnson, Adams

Makeup and Hair
Maestro — Flores, Adams
Poor Things — Stone, Johnson

Production Design
Poor Things — Stone, Flores, Johnson, Adams

Original Score
Oppenheimer — Stone, Flores, Johnson, Adams

Sound
Oppenheimer — Stone, Flores, Johnson, Adams
Winner – The Zone of Interest

Visual Effects
Napoleon — Flores, Adams
Poor Things — Johnson
The Creator — Stone

Casting
The Holdovers — Stone, Flores, Johnson
All of Us Strangers — Adams

Animated Feature
Boy and the Heron — Flores, Adams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — Stone, Johnson

Film Not in the English Language
Anatomy of a Fall – Flores, Johnson, Adams
The Zone of Interest – Stone

Documentary
20 Days in Mariupol — Stone, Flores, Johnson, Adams

British Film
Poor Things — Flores, Johnson, Stone
Saltburn — Adams
Winner: Zone of Interest

Rising Star
Jacob Elordi — Flores, Johnson, Adams
Ayo Edebiri — Stone
Winner: Mia Mckenna-Bruce

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