What happened at the 2025 BAFTA awards?

The BAFTAs are often seen as an indication of who will win at the subsequent Oscars. This means that, when coupled with other award ceremonies such as the Golden Globes, by the time that the Oscars roll around, the winners are predictable. However, this year’s BAFTAs left a lot of categories difficult to estimate. On 16th February, David Tennant hosted the ceremony, opening with a performance of I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers and getting Selena Gomez, Anna Kendrick, James McAvoy and Colman Domingo to join in.

Conclave took home awards for Best Film, Best British Film, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing. This Vatican-set thriller, adapted from Robert Harris’ novel of the same name and directed by Edward Berger, turns the theological tradition of voting for the new Pope into a political thriller. Despite the film’s success, its nominee for Best Actor, Ralph Fiennes, did not win, in spite of his being a frontrunner to win the award. It instead went to Adrien Brody for his role in The Brutalist. The Brutalist also won awards for Cinematography, Best Score and Brady Corbet won Best Director for the film. Adrien Brody plays a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who immigrates to the US.

In addition to winning the BAFTA for Best Casting, Anora has won multiple awards for Best Picture, including the Palme D’Or at Cannes

One of the more surprising winners of the night was Best Actress winner Mikey Madison for her role in the anti-romantic comedy Anora. The 25-year-old was also nominated for the Rising Star award, but instead won in the leading category, despite Demi Moore (The Substance) being widely tipped for the award after winning at the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards. In addition to winning the BAFTA for Best Casting, Anora has won multiple awards for Best Picture, including the Palme D’Or at Cannes Film Festival. This, combined with Madison’s Best Actress win, tipped speculation towards the possibility of Anora being more successful at the Oscars than previously thought.

Other award winners were more predictable. Kieran Culkin’s win for Best Supporting Actor for his role in A Real Pain was widely expected. His co-star, and the film’s writer/director, Jesse Eisenberg, accepted the award on his behalf. The movie centres around two cousins tracing their Jewish grandmother’s past in Poland, and also picked up the award for Best Original Screenplay.

The film has garnered a lot of negative publicity of late, due to the resurfacing of racist tweets by its star

Emilia Perez, the French-made film musical about a Mexican cartel leader, picked up two awards: Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Supporting Actress, where Zoe Saldaña won over co-star Selena Gomez. The film has garnered a lot of negative publicity of late, due to the resurfacing of racist tweets by its star Karla Sofia Gascon. Despite this, the film’s director thanked Gascon in his acceptance speech, although he had distanced himself from the actress following the controversy.

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Foul also won two awards, with Aardman picking up BAFTAs for both Best Animation and Best Children and Family Film.

The EE Rising Star award is the only award to be voted by the British public, and is purposed to honour young acting talent. Previous winners include James McAvoy, Daniel Kaluuya, and Lashana Lynch. The 2025 award went to David Jonsson, known for his roles in Alien: Romulus, Rye Lane, and Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy. 

The most prestigious award of the night is the BAFTA Fellowship, which is the highest honour bestowed by the British Academy. This year, the award went to actor and television presenter Warwick Davis, who accepted the award in front of his two children, and thanked his “wonderful wife Sammy who died almost a year ago”.

Finally, the BAFTAs honoured charity Medicinema with the award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. Medicinema is a charity which provides cinema experiences to people in hospitals specifically designed to accommodate beds, wheelchairs and medical equipment in order to improve well-being and quality of life for NHS patients and their families.