Oppenheimer Takes Home Top BAFTA Prizes, But That’s Not the Whole Story

Oppenheimer was the big winner at the BAFTA Awards 2024, just as it is expected to be at the Oscars in a few short weeks. But that’s not quite the entire story, either.

Last year, the BAFTA Awards completely diverged from the Oscars in their choices for best picture, directing, writing, and acting—and yet they still offered some hints as to how the Oscars would ultimately go. The British Academy’s choices particularly signaled surging support for All Quiet on the Western Front, first in a leading nominations tally that foreshadowed its strong representation at the Oscars, and then in a dominant showing in the actual wins. All Quiet went on to win four Oscars, several of them slight upsets; as BAFTA indicated, it had momentum. A similar dynamic unfurled the year before. The Brits didn’t even nominate CODA for best picture, but by handing it best adapted screenplay over presumed favorite The Power of the Dog, they teased where the wind was blowing.

This is what BAFTA, a similarly large industry-wide voting body, signals when it comes to reading the Oscar race. This is a group with its own tastes and preferences—they basically ignored Everything Everywhere All it Once before its historic Oscars performance—but it’s rare for a contender to gain heat at one awards show without the other.

And this year, BAFTA reminded us that it may not be all Oppenheimer all the time. The group loved Christopher Nolan’s epic biopic, handing it awards for best picture, director, supporting actor (Robert Downey Jr.), and a slew of below-the-line achievements. But the film lost best adapted screenplay to American Fiction and a few other films saw some momentum gains as well. The Oscars are their own beast, so this relative spreading of the wealth serves as a reminder that there’s still some game left to play before Oscar voting kicks off next weekend—and that several awards remain up for grabs.

Let’s start with that screenplay win for American Fiction, fascinating since BAFTA totally ignored that movie otherwise: Cord Jefferson’s biting comedy didn’t even make its best film longlist and its Oscar-nominated stars Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown were both left out. American Fiction overperformed, by contrast, with the Oscars, and seems to remain on an upward trajectory. While Barbie (which lost original screenplay at BAFTA) will add to its competition in the Oscars’ adapted race, American Fiction should be considered a screenplay favorite at this point even over the dominant Oppenheimer, since it’s a movie ostensibly more well-liked Stateside than in the U.K., based on the nominations tallies alone.

Over in original screenplay, Anatomy of a Fall pulled off what at this point was a widely expected win, overtaking the likes of Barbie and The Holdovers. If you’re looking for a movie presenting a CODA-esque surge, it’s probably this one, following its dizzying week on the campaign trail in Hollywood. No doubt, though, that those backing the French thriller had hopes for Sandra Hüller to nab best actress over front-runner Emma Stone. Since she’s not nominated at SAG, it’d be a true shock to see Hüller win at the Oscars, while Stone and Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone (snubbed by BAFTA) have cleaned up with the televised awards thus far. Indeed, Stone hasn’t lost any of them yet.

This was always the place for Cillian Murphy to even the score with Paul Giamatti for best actor, and indeed the Irish star took home the BAFTA. If Giamatti wins SAG next weekend, as I suspect he will, that race will truly be coming down to the wire. It’s more than we can say for either of the supporting races. With both Robert Downey Jr. and Da’Vine Joy Randolph winning here, at this stage it’s near-impossible to see anyone standing in their way. 

Sunday’s show provided some good news for The Zone of Interest, which beat Oppenheimer out for best sound in addition to its win for non-English language feature, the Oscar equivalent of which it’s widely expected to win. Jonathan Glazer’s stark drama going home with more than one award on Oscar night would mark a real triumph for such an avant-garde contender. Poor Things is also faring extremely well, taking home BAFTAs for production design, visual effects (where the Oscars snubbed it), Stone in lead actress, and more. The film is a box-office hit in the U.S. It remains to be seen just how widely the Academy will embrace it, but signs are looking good.

All of this is to say, there remains plenty of intrigue afoot in this Oscar race. But yes, Oppenheimer won the top prize, and everywhere else it needed to—and then some. The Academy won’t replicate all of these choices, but it’s hard to see that headline changing on Oscar night.

Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.

“I Need Six to Eight Pardons”: Inside the Secret Scheme to “Find” Trump’s Votes

Simone Biles Talks Marriage, WAG Life, and the Paris Olympics