BAFTA Nominations: Snubs and surprises, and what it means for the Oscars

The BAFTA nominations yesterday shook up the awards race with some surprising inclusions and omissions.

In recent years, the BAFTAs have not been a very accurate predictor of the Oscars, but they have been indicative of the final results.

The BAFTAs have a somewhat convoluted way of picking nominees in the directing and acting races. After the top two or three (depending on the race) vote-getters are ascertained, there are juries in place that will select the rest of the nominees for each of those categories. This makes the results a little difficult to parse, but that doesn’t stop anyone from speculating.

The BAFTAs had been criticised locally in the past for not being “British” enough. After a review in 2020, the Academy took steps to rectify that with measures like jury intervention in major races, the introduction of ‘viewing groups’ (where each voting member is given a group of 15 films that they are encouraged to watch before voting), as well as multiple British-only categories – allowing for movies like All of Us Strangers, Rye Lane, and How to Have Sex to shine.

Surprise – Best Director

This category was full of shocking surprises. Even though he was unlikely to win, it’s notable Martin Scorsese was snubbed for Killers of the Flower Moon. Yorgos Lanthimos was also shut out even though Poor Things landed 11 nominations. Most surprisingly, Greta Gerwig wasn’t nominated here in spite of Barbie being shot and produced in the United Kingdom. Two of those spots were taken by Andrew Haigh for All of Us Strangers, and Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest, both British filmmakers. And the surprise nomination here was Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall, the only woman director in the category.

Snub – Killers of the Flower Moon

It’s more than a little odd to say that a movie with nine nominations (the third-highest haul this year) was snubbed, but here we are. Scorsese didn’t get a nomination. Neither did Leonardo DiCaprio in lead, but he also wasn’t nominated for the SAG Awards. At this point, it’s safe to assume he’s not going to get an Oscar nomination. Most shockingly, Oscar frontrunner and Golden Globe winner Lily Gladstone was snubbed by the BAFTAs. This is a major blow, considering her closest rival, Emma Stone, was nominated and will likely win.

Snub – Barbie

Looks like the Barbenheimer train has decoupled; Oppenheimer is surging ahead with 13 nominations, while Barbie landed only five nominations in spite of being on 15 longlists. Importantly, the doll movie was left out of the Picture and Directing races, despite many considering those categories to be locks for the biggest movie of the year. Greta Gerwig went from a potential triple nomination to just one for Original Screenplay with partner Noah Baumbach. It’s been a slow but steady decline for Barbie’s fortunes in the last couple of weeks. But consider that both the Globes and BAFTAs are ‘international’ compared to the Oscars, so all hope is not lost yet.

Surprise – Sandra Hüller

German actress Sandra Hüller landed an impressive double nomination – Lead Actress for Anatomy of a Fall and Supporting Actress for The Zone of Interest. Double nominations are rare but not impossible. That being said, Hüller is the first double nominee for films not in the English language. There’s been a growing trend in the last few years favouring foreign films in major categories outside the ‘Foreign Film’ ghetto. Hüller could be a beneficiary of that trend, with a potential historic double nomination next week at the Oscars as well.

The BAFTA ceremony will be held on February 18, streaming on Lionsgate Play.