Baftas 2024: The full list of winners and losers
The 77th British Academy Film Awards, also known as the Baftas, have come and gone, with Christopher Nolan and his biopic Oppenheimer taking home the lion’s share of prizes. Not only did it claim the big award of the night, ‘Best Film’, but Robert Downey Jr also won for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ and Irish actor Cillian Murphy raised the golden Bafta mask for ‘Best Leading Actor’.
Yet, as it is in such ceremonies and competitions, not everybody can be a winner, and with every great success is an unfortunate loser. This list will explore every inch of the 2024 Baftas, uncovering who won and who lost, picking apart the small indie films that saw success, as well as the blockbuster greats that were left to count their cash instead of their trophies.
The Baftas also provide a pretty good idea of what we might expect to win at the forthcoming Oscars, so there may indeed be more pain to endure for our losers and more late-night celebrations for the winners. Still, the Baftas did make some pretty surprising omissions, with Barbie failing to get nominated in the ‘Best Film’ category and ‘Best Leading Actress’ Oscars frontrunner Lily Gladstone also losing out.
Take a look at the complete list of winners and losers from the 2024 Baftas below.
Bafta winners:
Oppenheimer
It doesn’t take a genius to work out why Christopher Nolan’s grand biopic Oppenheimer has made the list of winners, with the director sweeping up the majority of the big categories, taking home the awards for ‘Best Supporting Actor’, ‘Best Leading Actor’ and ‘Best Film’ among many others. An American and British co-production, Oppenheimer became symbolic of the Baftas’ eagerness to promote the future of commercial British cinema.
With an all-star cast that includes the likes of Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jr, the film tells the story of the grandfather of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph
It hardly came as a surprise when Da’Vine Joy Randolph won the Bafta for ‘Best Supporting Actress’, which she received for her incredible performance in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers. Her character, Mary, is a grieving mother, having recently lost her son in the Vietnam War, and Randolph plays the part beautifully.
Yet, it was her acceptance speech that was truly special, winning the hearts of viewers across the world. Not only did she call Payne a “singular talent”, but Randolph also highlighted her love for her character, stating that she “showed us all what’s possible when you look beyond your difference and how healing the simple act of empathy can be”.
The Boy and the Heron
Becoming the first film not in the English language to take home the award for ‘Best Animated Film’, Hayao Miyazaki’s celebrated Studio Ghibli production finally gained the plaudits it rightfully deserves. Thought to be Miyazaki’s final film, the movie tells the story of a young boy who ventures into the world of the dead and goes through an odyssey that leads to considerable self-discovery.
Beating out the likes of Oscar-favourite Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Pixar’s Elemental for the main prize, Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s achievement at the Bafta Awards is no mean feat.
Earth Mama
Savanah Leaf’s first feature, Earth Mama, took home ‘Outstanding Debut By A British Writer, Director Or Producer’ at the ceremony. The movie tells the tale of Gia, a single mother expecting her third child while grappling with the foster care system and adoption. A beautiful study of motherhood, family, race, class and community, Earth Mama is truly deserving of its award, representing the diversity, strength and poignancy of much of contemporary British cinema.
Speaking to Far Out, Leaf said, “I try to show many sides to the story so that it really just brings about questions and conversations and maybe makes people feel a little less alone with what they’re going through”.
British Cinema
Speaking about British cinema being a real ‘winner’ from the 77th Bafta Awards may sound a little obvious, but this ceremony, in particular, showed just how strong the industry is and can continue to be in the near future. Not only did Oppenheimer, a British and American co-production, take home the lion’s share of awards, but Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things also performed immaculately in the technical categories, and Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest also won big.
Elsewhere, Savanah Leaf’s excellent indie debut was recognised, and even the excellent Mia McKenna-Bruce took home the EE Rising Star award, rounding off a thoroughly excellent night for the British film industry.
Bafta losers:
Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese hasn’t had a great time at the Baftas in recent years, with his latest film, Killers of the Flower Moon, failing to win anything despite nine nominations. This comes four years after his previous crime movie, The Irishman, also failed to secure any Bafta trophies despite being given ten total nods. It might not be a conspiracy just yet, but Scorsese is clearly on a bad streak of luck.
Killers of the Flower Moon was an outside shout for ‘Best Film’ at the Baftas but was, quite simply, not good enough in comparison to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which took home the gold.
Barbie
Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig, might have helped to save cinema in 2023, encouraging viewers to come to the cinema with a fantastic pink carnival of colour; it seems to have run out of firepower, coming away from the Baftas empty-handed. Nominated in five different categories, including ‘Best Original Screenplay’, ‘Best Leading Actress’ and ‘Best Supporting Actor’, the film failed to capitalise on any.
Indeed, maybe, with the benefit of hindsight, Barbie was just a capitalist and contradictory studio exercise after all. Its lack of awards success would certainly suggest that people may now be seeing it this way.
Saltburn
Poor, poor Saltburn. At one point in 2023, it looked as though Emerald Fennell was going to stir up a whole load of commercial praise and claim some awards glory at the same time, but, as Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s drab performance rather neatly symbolised, love for the film has all but disappeared. Failing to win in any of its selected categories, it’s clear that Saltburn was all bark and no bite.
If anyone can be bummed out by their lack of trophies, it’s Rosamund Pike and Barry Keoghan, whose leading performances make it the carnival of fun that it is, with the latter even putting his family jewels on the line for the hope of success. Alas, no.
Paul Giamatti
It feels a bit harsh to call the excellent Paul Giamatti a ‘loser’, yet here we are. Indeed, Cillian Murphy seemed destined to take home the award for ‘Best Leading Actor’, becoming the very first Irish performer to take home the prize, leaving Giamatti to lick his wounds, despite the American giving a far better performance in the tender festive drama, The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne.
Unfortunately for Giamatti, it will likely be a similar case at the Academy Awards, but there he may even face stiffer competition, coming up against not just Murphy but Bradley Cooper and Jeffrey Wright, too.
The Baftas
What a weird, strange and stilted awards show. It’s remarkable, really, that, despite having been going for 77 years, the Baftas always feels the same bizarre show, like the monstrous love child of the Oscars and the Golden Globes. Indeed, the show and its voters got the winners list pretty bang-on, yet, for some ridiculous reason, on the telecast at least, cut their acceptance speeches short in order to get back to some inane waffle from David Tennant.
You’d think that the Baftas might have learned something from the Oscars by now, but it will forever be in its shadow until they stop so desperately trying to make horribly unauthentic, seat-sinking ‘viral’ moments.
