This year’s BAFTA nominations have been revealed, with papal thriller Conclave leading the race.
Starring Ralph Fiennes as a clergyman responsible for the selection of the next Pope, the film is up for 12 awards – including best film, best director, best actor, and best supporting actress for Isabella Rossellini.
Spanish-language musical Emilia Perez, which tells the story of a Mexican cartel boss who undergoes gender affirmation surgery, is another best film nominee and has 11 BAFTA nods in total – with star Karla Sofía Gascón up for best actress and co-stars Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez both in the running in the supporting actress category.
The Brutalist, an epic drama starring Adrien Brody as a Hungarian architect attempting to build a life in the US after the Second World War, has nine nominations – including best film and best actor, and supporting nods for co-stars Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones.
Elsewhere there are seven nominations each for Wicked, Anora, and Dune: Part Two, six for A Complete Unknown and Kneecap, and five for Nosferatu and The Substance.
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In the performance categories, Gascon is up against Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths), Mikey Madison (Anora), Saoirse Ronan (The Outrun) and Demi Moore, whose performance in body horror The Substance won her a Golden Globe earlier this month.
Fiennes and Brody’s best actor competitors are Timothee Chalamet, for his portrayal of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, along with Colman Domingo (Sing Sing), Hugh Grant (Heretic) and Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice).
Kieran Culkin, another recent Golden Globe winner, makes the best supporting actor shortlist once again for his performance in A Real Pain, alongside Pearce and Yura Borisov (Anora), Clarence Maclin (Sing Sing), Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown) and Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice).
Ariana Grande, who stars as Glinda opposite Erivo’s Elphaba in Wicked, and Jamie Lee Curtis, for her performance in The Last Showgirl, make up the best supporting actress shortlist.
For 14 of the 24 acting nominees – including Culkin, Grande, Gascon, Gomez and Moore – it is their first BAFTA film nomination.
Erivo and Chalamet are both previous recipients of the rising star award, which is voted for by the public.
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In the best director category, Conclave’s Edward Berger is in the running alongside Brady Corbet, for The Brutalist, Denis Villeneuve, for Dune: Part Two, Jacques Audiard for Emilia Perez, Coralie Fargeat for The Substance, and Sean Baker for Anora.
Baker also has nominations for best original screenplay, casting and editing, making him the most nominated individual this year.
The BAFTAs also includes a category for outstanding British film, with Conclave also shortlisted here alongside films including Steve McQueen’s Blitz, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, and Irish-language film Kneecap – which stars the rap trio of the same name in a semi-autobiographical account of their rise to fame.
In total, there are 42 films up for awards, spanning a range of genres.
“The film industry has delivered in spades once again,” said BAFTA chief executive Jane Millichip.
“The skills on display from creative and technical practitioners across the board are phenomenal,” added BAFTA chair Sara Putt.
Arts and entertainment correspondent
What do you get if you bring several priests, a Mexican cartel leader and an architect together under one roof?
Not the world’s most niche fancy dress party, but 2025’s BAFTA film awards shortlist.
Jazz hands and jump scares are the order of the day. Horror is unusually well represented this year, with The Substance, Heretic and Nosferatu all receiving nods, while musicals are also dominating thanks to Emilia Perez, Wicked and, arguably, the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.
Speaking of music, it’s very good news for Irish language rappers Kneecap, whose self-titled semi-true biopic is up for best British film and five other awards. It’s somewhat ironic given that while they rap about wanting Irish independence, the film qualifies as being British as they’re from Northern Ireland.
In the leading actress category, it’s all to play for as none of the nominees has ever won a BAFTA. Fans of ’90s nostalgia will be hoping the Demi-ssaince continues after Demi Moore’s Golden Globe win last month for her performance in body horror The Substance.
Hugh Grant, up for lead actor, last won that BAFTA back in 1995 for his breakthrough performance in Four Weddings And A Funeral. This time around, he’s in the running for a very different role, as a creepy killer in Heretic. He’s nominated alongside another ’90s winner – Ralph Fiennes, who last picked up a BAFTA for supporting actor in 1994.
The nominations this year really showcase a diverse range of genres – and with no clear frontrunners in some categories, could this be the most competitive BAFTAs we’ve seen in a while?
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The nominees for this year’s rising star award, which is the only BAFTA prize voted for by the public, have already been announced, with Marisa Abela, Jharrel Jerome, David Jonsson, Mikey Madison and Nabhaan Rizwan in the running.
And Harry Potter star Warwick Davis has also been revealed as the recipient of this year’s BAFTA fellowship, the organisation’s highest honour, for his “trailblazing work” as an actor and for his charity supporting people with dwarfism.
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The BAFTA nominations come at a difficult time for the industry, with the organisers of several US awards ceremonies, including the Oscars, pushing their own announcements back and holding more low-key events due to the wildfires in Los Angeles.
However, the Oscars ceremony is still currently scheduled to go ahead as planned on Sunday 2 March.
The BAFTA ceremony will be held at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London on Sunday 16 February.
