‘Conclave’ takes Best Picture at 2025 BAFTA Awards, thwarting ‘The Brutalist’ and ‘Anora’
The 2025 Oscar race took a detour across the pond on Sunday as the BAFTA Film Awards were handed out, with the hometown favorite Conclave finishing on top.
Conclave came in with a leading 12 nominations, and it finished with four overall wins — Best Film, Best British Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing — on an evening when voters spread the wealth. The Brutalist scored for Best Director (Brady Corbet) and Best Actor (Adrien Brody). The Best Actress race featured a surprise, with Anora star Mikey Madison upsetting Golden Globe and Critics Choice winner Demi Moore (The Substance). It was an otherwise quiet night for Anora, with just one other win for Best Casting after a scorching weeklong stretch that saw the film rack up top prizes from the Critics Choice, Directors Guild, Producers Guild, and Writers Guild.
Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez) and Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain) continued their domination of the supporting categories. Both came into this event with Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards in tow. Emilia Pérez also won Best Film Not in the English Language, with director Jacques Audiard thanking his controversial star Karla Sofía Gascón despite previously distancing himself from her racist tweets. But those were the only two victories for the crime musical. A Real Pain was a real surprise, though, winning Best Original Screenplay for its filmmaker and star Jesse Eisenberg.
The BAFTAs are especially important in the run-up to the Oscars because the British Academy, comprising 13,000 industry professionals from around the world, overlaps with the American Motion Picture Academy. Scroll down to see the complete list of winners.
Last year the top eight categories were the same at the two events: Best Picture (Oppenheimer), Best Director (Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer), Best Actor (Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer), Best Actress (Emma Stone, Poor Things), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer), Best Supporting Actress (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers), Best Original Screenplay (Anatomy of a Fall), and Best Adapted Screenplay (American Fiction).
However, the year before that the two Academies disagreed on all of those same eight categories. And in the race for Best Picture, the two awards bodies are especially prone to parting ways. Only two of the last 10 BAFTA champs went on to win the top Oscar: Nomadland (2020) and the aforementioned Oppenheimer (2023). But these awards could still help clarify a race where momentum has been shifting, from Golden Globe winners Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist to surprise Critics Choice, Directors Guild, and Producers Guild champ Anora.
The BAFTAs were hosted for the second year in a row by former Doctor Who star David Tennant, who drew roars from the crowd with repeated attacks on “villain” Donald Trump, including a joke comparing his hair in The Apprentice to the towering architectural feats in The Brutalist. (Some of Tennant’s Trump jokes were reportedly edited out of the BBC broadcast of the BAFTAs.)
Here’s the complete list of winners.
Best Film
Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
[winner] Conclave
Emilia Pérez
Director
Anora, Sean Baker
[winner] The Brutalist, Brady Corbet
Conclave, Edward Berger
Dune: Part Two, Denis Villeneuve
Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard
The Substance, Coralie Fargeat
Original Screenplay
Anora
The Brutalist
Kneecap
[winner] A Real Pain
The Substance
Adapted Screenplay
A Complete Unknown
[winner] Conclave
Emilia Pérez
Nickel Boys
Sing Sing
Leading Actress
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths
[winner] Mikey Madison, Anora
Demi Moore, The Substance
Saoirse Ronan, The Outrun
Leading Actor
[winner] Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Hugh Grant, Heretic
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Supporting Actress
Jamie Lee Curtis, The Last Showgirl
Selena Gomez, Emilia Pérez
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
[winner] Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez
Supporting Actor
Yura Borisov, Anora
[winner] Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
Animated Film
Flow
Inside Out 2
[winner] Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Wild Robot
Children’s & Family Film
Flow
Kensuke’s Kingdom
[winner] Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Wild Robot
Film Not in English Language
All We Imagine as Light
[winner] Emilia Pérez
I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui)
Kneecap
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Documentary
Black Box Diaries
Daughters
No Other Land
[winner] Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Will and Harper
Outstanding British Film
Bird
Blitz
[winner] Conclave
Gladiator II
Hard Truths
Kneecap
Lee
Love Lies Bleeding
The Outrun
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer
Hoard
[winner] Kneecap
Monkey Man
Santosh
Sister Midnight
Casting
[winner] Anora
The Apprentice
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Kneecap
Cinematography
[winner] The Brutalist
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
Nosferatu
Costume Design
Blitz
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Nosferatu
[winner] Wicked
Editing
Anora
[winner] Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
Kneecap
Make Up & Hair
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
Nosferatu
[winner] The Substance
Wicked
Original Score
[winner] The Brutalist
Conclave
Emilia Pérez
Nosferatu
The Wild Robot
Production Design
The Brutalist
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Nosferatu
[winner] Wicked
Special Visual Effects
Better Man
[winner] Dune: Part Two
Gladiator II
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Wicked
Sound
Blitz
[winner] Dune: Part Two
Gladiator II
The Substance
Wicked
British Short Animation
Adiós
Mog’s Christmas
[winner] Wander to Wonder
British Short Film
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing
Marion
Milk
[winner] Rock, Paper, Scissors
Stomach Bug
Rising Star Award
Marisa Abela
Jharrel Jerome
[winner] David Jonsson
Mikey Madison
Nabhaan Rizwan