Baftas 2024: Everything you need to know ahead of the ceremony

That season has arrived again this year. Throw on your ballgown (Prada or Primark, we don't judge), pop the champagne, and enjoy a night of glitz and glamor as stars compete for the coveted BAFTA film award. Let's.

Here's everything you need to know before the ceremony.

Bafta (short for British Film and Television Academy) is an arts charity that champions British talent on both the big and small screens. The annual film awards ceremony is one of the UK's most prestigious cultural events, celebrating international and national talent. The awards aren't as good as the Oscars, but they're definitely up there.

Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, a film about the life of the man who helped develop the atomic bomb, was nominated for 13 awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), and Best Supporting Actress (Emily Blunt). , is on top.

British-born director Nolan is the favorite to win the Best Director award. It's hard to believe given his back catalog (which includes Dunkirk, Inception and The Dark Knight Rises), but if he wins at the weekend, this will be his first BAFTA win.

If Oppenheimer's Robert Downey Jr. wins Best Supporting Actor as expected, it will be his second time at the BAFTAs, the first time in 31 years since he last won Best Actor for Chaplin in 1993. Awarded.

Yorgos Lanthimos' brilliantly outrageous “Poor Things” garnered 11 nods, making it second only to Oppenheimer. Emma Stone is the frontrunner in the Best Actress race, but Lanthimos missed out on the Director nomination.

Other films expected to be successful on the night include the French courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall, the nostalgic comedy-drama The Holdovers, the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, and the fantasy film Don't forget the romance All of Us Strangers, the black comedy thriller Saltburn, and of course the box office bulldozer Barbie.

Margot Robbie's loss of a Best Actress Oscar nomination may have left some moviegoers disappointed, but the Barbie doll star has a (albeit slim) chance of competing at the BAFTAs in the same category. be.

Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon has been nominated in nine categories, but Scorsese and his female star Lily Gladstone are missing from the shortlists for Best Director and Best Actress. ing. Jonathan Glaser's The Zone of Interest also has his nine nods.

Jacob Elordi, who starred in Euphoria, Saltburn and Priscilla, is one of the frontrunners for the BAFTA Rising Star Award, which is given to up-and-coming actors, and won Best Supporting Actor for Saltburn. It has been nominated. However, he recently made headlines when he was accused of grabbing a reporter by the throat in Sydney. He is not expected to attend on Sunday.

Emerald Fennell's film was given a complete snub when the Oscar nominations were announced last month, but will the BAFTAs show even more love to what's already undoubtedly a cult British classic?

Saltburn's five nominations also include Best Actor (Barry Keoghan) and Best Supporting Actress (Rosamund Pike).

It missed out on a Best Film nomination, but that wasn't all. Barbie also missed out on the nomination, as there were only five slots left. Perhaps there is an argument that he should expand the number of Best Picture nominees at the Academy Awards to 10, similar to the Academy Awards?

Danielle Brooks' Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for The Color Purple was repeated at the BAFTAs, but unlike the Academy Awards, Fantasia Barrino, star of the musical adaptation, was nominated for Best Actress. There is also room for him to be mentioned as a candidate.

When it comes to German star Sandra Hiller, she's just greedy, come on. Not content with just her Best Actress nomination for Anatomy of the Fall, she also received her Best Supporting Actress nomination for Jonathan Glazer's chilling Nazi drama Zone of Interest. He has put his name forward. Seriously, she absolutely deserves both.

Other winners at this year's BAFTA include Samantha Morton, who has had success on TV shows such as The Walking Dead and starred in films such as Minority Report and Where to Find Them. He is a recipient of a fellowship. She was previously nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the 2020 film Control.

This is the organization's highest honorary award for contributions to film.

Fun (and admittedly geeky) fact – if Barbie or Anatomy of a Fall win Best Original Screenplay, it's going to go to a couple. Greta Gerwig wrote Barbie with her husband Noah Baumbach, and Justin Tolier wrote Anatomy of Autumn with his partner Arthur Harari.

Where do I start? Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling will be among those carrying the flag for the Barbie Doll Awards, which are nominated in five categories.

Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan as the Maestro, Christopher Nolan as Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, and Robert Downey Jr. all appear on the red carpet (not in Murphy's natural habitat) .

Poor Things' Emma Stone, Rustin's Coleman Domingo, The Holdovers' Da'Vine Joy Randolph and Paul Giamatti, and All of Us Strangers' Paul Mescal will be in attendance.

Saltburn's Rosamund Pike is among the big-name actors in attendance, as well as Sandra Haller, who stars in Anatomy of a Fall and Zone of Interest.

We really hope Michael J. Fox makes an appearance as well. Davis Guggenheim's film Still: A Michael J Fox Movie is nominated for Best Documentary.

Prince William is the BAFTA chairman and will attend the ceremony, but his wife, Duchess Kate, who is still recovering from abdominal surgery, will not be attending.

This year it will be directed by former Doctor Who star David Tennant. It's not that the Scottish actor lacks a sense of humour, but he's not about to unleash a Ricky Gervais-style rant on an A-list audience.

“We want it to be a night of celebration. We want it to be a night of generosity and joy, in a way that doesn't offend people or harass them in any way,” he said. Ta.

Perhaps that would be a wise choice.

When Rebel Wilson joked about Will Smith's marriage while hosting the show in 2022, the King Richard star wasn't there. A few weeks later at the Oscars ceremony, comedian Chris Rock made a joke about the actor's wife Jada Pinkett Smith, and Smith slapped him on stage. ah.

Presenters included David Beckham, Dua Lipa, Bollywood star Deepika Padikone, Hugh Grant, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Idris Elba, Gillian Anderson, and Andrew Scott (unfortunately “All of Us Strangers''). (lost out the Best Actor award for “The Best Actor'').

There certainly is. Sophie Ellis-Bextor is set to belt out her 2001 banger Murder on the Dance Floor, which marked her comeback since appearing in the infamous nude scene with Barry Keoghan at the end of Saltburn . Look at Barry in the audience. Barry probably won't jump up and take it off, she'll stay in her seat.

Bafta introduced reforms to increase diversity in 2020. That included focusing on underrepresented groups to grow the electorate.

In 2024, there will be six people of color in the acting category. Last year, nine people were selected, accounting for 40% of the acting candidates.

But that didn't translate into wins, and nearly every winner in every category was white. So it will be interesting to see if last year was an anomaly.

Women are not represented in several categories, including Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Original Score, and Sound.

However, four of the five nominees for best British debut are women, and all nominees for best casting are women.

Inevitably, the British Film and Television Academy focuses more on homegrown talent than the academies across the pond. Nominees for outstanding British film include the delicious Wonka, Saltburn, Zone of Interest, Ridley Scott's epic Napoleon, and Molly Manning Walker's striking debut How? 'To Have Sex' and the warm and wonderful south London rom-com 'Rye Lane'.

Manning Walker's Consent film is also in the running for best debut feature by a British writer-producer and has a good chance of winning.

The 2024 BAFTA Film Awards will be held on February 18th at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Center in London. There will be a one-hour delay between the live event and the broadcast, but you can watch all the action on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 19:00 GMT to 21:00 GMT. International viewers can watch through streaming services such as Britbox International.

Learn more about the films in this year's awards race.