LONDON (AP) — The atomic bomb epic “Oppenheimer” won seven awards at the 77th British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, including best picture, best director and best actor, cementing its front-runner status for next month's Oscars .
The gothic fantasy “Poor Things” won five awards and the Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” won three.
Christopher Nolan won his first BAFTA award for best director for “Oppenheimer,” and Cillian Murphy won the best actor award for playing physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
Murphy said he was grateful to play such a “colossally knotty, complex character.”
Emma Stone won best actress for her role as the wild and feisty Bella Baxter in “Poor Things,” a steampunk-style visual spectacle that won awards for visual effects, production design, costume design, and makeup and hair.
“Oppenheimer” led the way with 13 nominations, but missed the record of nine trophies set by “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” in 1971.
It won the best picture race against “Poor Things,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Holdovers.” “Oppenheimer” also won trophies for editing, cinematography and music, as well as the best supporting actor award for Robert Downey Jr.
Da'Vine Joy Randolph won best supporting actress for her role as a boarding school cook in “The Holdovers” and said she feels a “responsibility that I don't take lightly” to tell the stories of underrepresented people like her character Mary .
“Oppenheimer” faced stiff competition in what was widely considered a vintage year for cinema and an awards season energized by the end of actor and writer strikes that paralyzed Hollywood for months.
Kingsley Ben-Adir, from left, Cord Jefferson, winner of the adapted screenplay award for “American Fiction,” and Bryce Dallas Howard, pose for photographers at the 77th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA, in London, Sunday, February 18 . 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
“The Zone of Interest” – a British-made film shot in Poland with a predominantly German cast – won both best British film and best film not in English – a first – and also won the award for its described Sound as the real star of the film.
Jonathan Glazer's disturbing drama is set in a family home just outside the walls of the Auschwitz death camp, whose horrors are heard and hinted at rather than seen.
“Pre- or post-Holocaust walls are nothing new, and it seems clear right now that we should care about innocent people being killed in Gaza, Yemen, Mariupol or Israel,” said producer James Wilson. “Thank you for honoring a film that challenges us to think in these spaces.”
The Ukrainian war documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” produced by The Associated Press and PBS “Frontline,” won the award for best documentary.
Bryce Dallas Howard poses for photographers upon arrival at the 77th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA, in London, Sunday, February 18, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
“This is not about us,” said filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, who with an AP crew captured the harrowing reality of life in the besieged city. “This is about Ukraine, about the people of Mariupol.”
Chernov said the city's history and its fall into Russian occupation is “a symbol of struggle and a symbol of faith. “Thank you for strengthening our voice and let's just keep fighting.”
The awards ceremony, hosted by “Doctor Who” star David Tennant – who entered in a kilt and sequined top, carrying a dog named Bark Ruffalo – was a dazzling taste of the Oscars with a British accent and was accurate watched for clues as to who might win at the Oscars on March 10.
The original screenplay award went to the French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall.” The film, about a woman on trial for her husband's death, was written by director Justine Triet and her partner Arthur Harari.
“It’s a fiction, and we’re doing reasonably well,” Triet joked.
Cord Jefferson won the adapted screenplay award for the satire “American Fiction,” about the struggles of an African-American writer
Jefferson said he hopes the film's success “maybe changes the minds of the people who are responsible for releasing films and television shows and allows them to be less risk-averse.”
The historical epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” had nine nominations for the awards, officially known as the EE BAFTA Film Awards, but came away empty-handed.
Naomi Campbell poses for photographers upon her arrival at the 77th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA, in London, Sunday, February 18, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
Britain's Prince William, President of BAFTA, arrives at the 77th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA, in London on Sunday, February 18, 2024. (Jordan Pettitt/Pool via AP)
Susan Downey (left) and Robert Downey Jr. pose for photographers upon their arrival at the 77th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA, in London, Sunday, February 18, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
Cillian Murphy poses for photographers upon her arrival at the 77th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA, in London, Sunday, February 18, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
There was also disappointment for the Leonard Bernstein biography “Maestro,” which had seven nominations but did not win any awards. Neither did the mournful love story “All of Us Strangers,” with six nominations, and the barbed class war dramedy “Saltburn,” with five nominations.
“Barbie”, one half of the 2023 box office hit “Barbenheimer” and the most successful film of the year, also came away empty-handed with five nominations. “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig did not receive a directing nomination at either the BAFTA or Oscars, which was seen by many as a major snub.
The British Film Academy introduced changes to increase diversity in the awards in 2020, when no woman was nominated for best director for the seventh year in a row and all 20 nominees in the lead and supporting actor categories were white. However, Triet was the only woman among the six best director nominees that year.
The Rising Star Award, the only category decided by a public vote, went to How to Have Sex star Mia McKenna-Bruce.
Before the ceremony, nominees including Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Emily Blunt, Rosamund Pike, Ryan Gosling and Ayo Edebiri walked the red carpet at London's Royal Festival Hall alongside presenters Andrew Scott, Cate Blanchett, Idirs Elba and David Beckham .
Prince William was the guest of honor in his role as President of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He arrived without his wife Kate, who is recovering from abdominal surgery last month.
The ceremony included musical performances from “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham, who sang “Time After Time,” and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who sang her 2001 hit “Murder on the Dancefloor,” following his appearance in ” Saltburn” shot back into the charts. ”
David Jonsson poses for photographers upon his arrival at the 77th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA, in London, Sunday, February 18, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
Andrew Scott (left) and Paul Mescal pose for photographers upon arrival at the 77th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA, in London, Sunday, February 18, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
Sandra Huller poses for photographers upon her arrival at the 77th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA, in London, Sunday, February 18, 2024. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
Film curator June Givanni, founder of the June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive, was honored for her outstanding British contribution to cinema, while actress Samantha Morton received the Academy's highest honor, the BAFTA Fellowship.
Morton, who grew up in foster care and children's homes, said that “representation is important.”
“The stories we tell have the power to change people’s lives,” she said. “The film changed my life, it changed me and it brought me here today.
“I dedicate this award to every child who is in care or has been in care and did not survive.”
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Hilary Fox contributed to this story.