78th British Academy Film Awards
The 78th British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTAs, were held on 16 February 2025, honouring the best national and foreign films of 2024, at the Royal Festival Hall within London's Southbank Centre. Presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, accolades were handed out for the best feature-length film and documentaries of any nationality that were screened at British cinemas in 2024.
The BAFTA longlists were unveiled on 3 January 2025. The EE Rising Star Award nominees, which is the only category voted for by the British public, were unveiled on 7 January 2025. The nominations for all the other categories were unveiled on 15 January 2025 by previous BAFTA Award winners Mia McKenna-Bruce and Will Sharpe.
The Spanish-language French musical crime film Emilia Pérez received fifteen nods in the longlists, followed by Conclave with fourteen. Conclave went on to receive the most nominations with twelve, followed by Emilia Pérez with eleven and The Brutalist with nine. The Brutalist and Conclave ultimately won the most awards with four each.
Winners and nominees
The BAFTA longlists were announced on 3 January 2025. The nominees were announced on 7 January 2025. The winners were announced on 16 February 2025.BAFTA Fellowship
The BAFTA Fellowship recipient was announced on 10 January 2025.- '''Warwick Davis'''
Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema
The Outstanding Contribution Award recipient was announced on 6 February 2025.- '''MediCinema'''
Awards
Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.Ceremony information
The ceremony took place at the Royal Festival Hall within London's Southbank Centre on 16 February 2025, hosted by David Tennant for the second year in a row. BAFTA digital channels broadcast pre- and post-ceremony content. The ceremony was broadcast as deferred live, with an approximately one-hour delay, on BBC One in the United Kingdom and on various BritBox platforms internationally. In his introduction to the ceremony, Tennant performed "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers before his monologue full of dad jokes; his scripted gags were of a similar tone throughout. Though the ceremony overran significantly, editing kept the broadcast ceremony to a "brisk" two hours.The Best Children's & Family Film was awarded for the first time in 2025, having been announced in 2023 as the first new category since the introduction of Best Casting in 2020. During the ceremony, Deadline Hollywood suggested there was "a little too much overlap" between it and the Best Animated Film category. Other changes to the awards for 2025 include the introduction of new requirements for nomination to the Best Film and Outstanding British Film categories.
The nominees in 2025 made it the most genre-diverse ceremony, with horror and musicals well-represented among more traditional award ceremony genres. In terms of individual nominees, Anora filmmaker Sean Baker earned the second-most nominations for an individual at a single ceremony with five and filmmaker Rich Peppiatt became the most-nominated debut director at the BAFTAs with four personal nominations for Kneecap.
During the technical awards, the ceremony sound cut out as Best Sound was presented, though this was fixed for broadcast. Multiple winners were noted for their lack of acceptance speech preparation and the endearingly rambling comments they made instead, including Nick Park and Jesse Eisenberg. Ahead of the acting and other major awards being announced, Take That performed their song "Greatest Day", which featured prominently in nominee Anora. Two awards later, the first of two montages of other awards to not receive as-live broadcasts was shown; this included Emilia Pérez winning [BAFTA Award for BAFTA Award for Best Film|Best Film Not in the English Language|Best Film Not in the English Language], the clip notably cutting out director Jacques Audiard paying tribute to controversial star Karla Sofía Gascón in his speech. Winners considered surprising were David Jonsson for the EE Rising Star Award and Mikey Madison winning Best Actress in a Leading Role, while A Complete Unknown failing to win any of its six nominations was considered a surprising snub. Favourites in the supporting performance categories, Zoe Saldaña and Kieran Culkin won their categories, which was said to make them all but guaranteed to win at the 97th Academy Awards.
There were relatively few political comments made at the ceremony, with Tennant making jokes about Donald Trump—though some, including comparing Trump to the character Beetlejuice, as well as jokes about Conclave, were cut from the broadcast; Peppiatt saying that everyone "should have their language respected, their culture respected and their homeland respected"; and Edward Berger accepting Outstanding British Film for Conclave by vaguely referring to elections in Germany and describing the time as "a crisis of democracy". When presenting Best Film, Mark Hamill referred to "troubling times" before deliberately not naming Trump. In reference to which comments were cut, the BBC stated editing decisions were "made due to time constraints".
In Memoriam
The In Memoriam was accompanied by actor Jeff Goldblum performing "As Time Goes By" on piano and paid tribute to the following:- Alain Delon – actor, producer
- Anouk Aimée – actress
- Samantha Davis – actress
- Pat Heywood – actress
- John Amos – actor
- Louis Gossett Jr. – actor
- Mitzi Gaynor – actress, dancer, singer
- Reuben Barnes – projectionist, technical manager
- Phyllis Dalton – costume designer
- James Earl Jones – actor
- Shelley Duvall – actress
- Jim Abrahams – director, writer
- Roger Corman – director, producer, actor
- Jenne Casarotto – agent
- Lynda Obst – producer
- Teri Garr – actress
- Donald Sutherland – actor
- James Hambidge – art director, production designer
- Ray Chan – art director, production designer
- Robert Towne – writer
- Jon Landau – producer
- Kris Kristofferson – actor, musician
- Gena Rowlands – actress
- Dame Joan Plowright – actress
- Lisa Westcott – make up & hair designer
- Loulia Sheppard – hair designer
- Paul Engelen – make up designer
- Robert Watts – producer, production manager
- Adam Somner – producer, assistant director
- Norman Spencer – producer, production manager
- David Korda – producer, financier
- Dick Pope – cinematographer
- Roger Pratt – cinematographer
- David Lynch – director
- Dame Maggie Smith – actress
Statistics
| Awards | Film |
| 4 | The Brutalist |
| 4 | Conclave |
| 2 | Anora |
| 2 | Dune: Part Two |
| 2 | Emilia Pérez |
| 2 | A Real Pain |
| 2 | Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl |
| 2 | Wicked |