The common layman’s shorthand for the BAFTA Awards is that they’re the “British Oscars,” in the way that the César Awards are the French Oscars or the Goya Awards are the Spanish Oscars. Yet the comparison isn’t quite correct: Where the Césars and Goyas exclusively recognize their own national cinemas, the BAFTAs, like the Academy Awards, officially have no borders.
As it is at the Oscars, a production of any nationality can compete at the BAFTAs — and as it is at the Oscars, that means American films frequently rule the roost. So it is this year: three of the five best film nominees (“One Battle After Another,” “Marty Supreme” and “Sinners”) are all-American, one (“Sentimental Value”) is a European co-production with a sliver of BBC Film involvement, and the one recognizably British film in the pack (“Hamnet”) is still a U.S. co-production with Chinese auteur Chloé Zhao at the helm and Steven Spielberg, no less, among the producers.
Almost every year, the BAFTA nominations are met with widespread grumbling in the U.K. industry about the lack of recognition for the home team. In recent years, such widely celebrated British films as “Aftersun,” “All of Us Strangers,” “The Zone of Interest” and “Kneecap” have failed to land a best film nomination, prompting the question: if the BAFTAs aren’t for the Brits, who are they really for? For pundits, they’ve certainly become a useful Oscar bellwether in the decades since they shifted their schedule to precede the American show. But shouldn’t they mean more in their own right?
The consolation prize for disgruntled local talent is the best British film award, which five years ago expanded its field to 10 nominees — in theory to better reflect the breadth and diversity of British cinema, though the risk of greater expansion is that exclusions become more pointed. This year’s 10 nominees in the category run the gamut from the classical prestige fare (“Hamnet,” the Claire Foy starrer “H Is for Hawk,” and the period showbiz biopic “Mr. Burton”) to populist entertainment (“28 Years Later” and “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” an Emmy nominee Stateside but a theatrical release in the U.K.) to indie crowd-pleasers (“I Swear” and “The Ballad of Wallis Island”) to darker festival-nurtured fare (“Pillion,” “Steve” and Lynne Ramsay’s “Die My Love”).
But it’s an eyebrow-raiser that there was no room on the list (which, not incidentally, features no black filmmakers) for Akinola Davies Jr.’s moving, atmospheric childhood story “My Father’s Shadow” — a Cannes sensation that won its director best director at the British Independent Film Awards and the breakthrough director prize at the Gotham Awards across the pond.
Also frozen out were Harris Dickinson’s punchy, Cannes-awarded homelessness study “Urchin”; Paul Andrew Wilson’s “Dragonfly,” with its shattering, BAFTA-longlisted performances by Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn; and Alex Garland’s immersive combat drama “Warfare,” which at least eked out a best sound nod. Davies Jr. was recognized instead in the outstanding British debut category, alongside the makers of “Pillion,” “Wasteman,” “The Ceremony” and “A Want in Her,” while Dickinson’s acclaimed debut was unlucky enough to miss out there, too.
Even for those films that did crack the best British film list, though, the recognition can feel tokenistic. Only four of the 10 nominees — “Hamnet,” “I Swear,” “Pillion” and “The Ballad of Wallis Island” — popped up in other categories. For the other six, it was their only nomination: nothing for Jennifer Lawrence’s powerhouse performance or Seamus McGarvey’s BIFA-winning cinematography in “Die My Love,” no recognition for the impressive technical accomplishments of “28 Years Later” or “H Is for Hawk,” and not even a rising star mention for BIFA-winning “Steve” standout Jay Lycurgo. Some might argue none of those were nominated for Oscar either, though that seems as good a reason as any for BAFTA to fly its own flag a little higher.