Numlock Awards: BAFTA has reshaped the race

The Brits have weighed in.

Numlock Awards is your one-stop awards season newsletter. Join Walt Hickey and Michael Domanico as they break down the math behind the Oscars and the best narratives going into film’s biggest night. Today’s edition comes from Walter.

The BAFTA Awards have come and gone, and have either cemented or shaken up the race, depending on your category. We’ve got a few contenders who are now destined to head into Oscar night as frontrunners regardless of how the rest of he race shakes out, we’ve got a few races where our hunch is damn good, and then chaos and madness in a few others.

Let’s hop in, in escalating levels of uncertainty.

Best Director

Yeah, we’re done here. Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another) has won everywhere we care about in direct competition against each of his rival contenders.

Is there anyone else in this category who has a case that they’re going to get that Oscar for direction? Sinners, I grant you, got the most nominations, but it appears that director Ryan Coogler is in pole position to win Best Original Screenplay; I don’t predict that category (I don’t think there’s enough reliable precursor awards to make a forecast I can stand behind) but it seems like this may be a situation where the Academy will find a way to split the difference between two movies they loved.

(For what it’s worth, whether it’s a good thing that the Writing categories are completely dominated by writer-directors these days is left to the reader. I certainly view it as more evidence of the Oscar Chum issue)

Best Actress

Another situation where everyone in the category has had a chance to win, but only Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) has managed it so far in head-to-heads. We will have to wait on the SAG Awards (rebranded to the Actor Awards, recently and regrettably) to see if this category is still really competitive heading into Oscar night, but either way Buckley will enter the evening as a frontrunner.

Best Picture

Listen, there’s still a lot more race left to run, but so far One Battle After Another is well ahead of the competition. There are still some odds-and-ends awards that can shift a few points around on the board but aren’t super predictive (editing, writing, cinematography) but the two leviathans on the horizon are the PGA Awards this coming Saturday and the SAG Awards on Sunday. There’s still runway for a significant shift in momentum, but it’s got to happen this weekend.

Best Supporting Actress

We’ve got a three-person race, essentially. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) won at BAFTA, Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another) at the Golden Globes, and Amy Madigan (Weapons) at the Critics Choice. For the time being, Mosaku is in the lead, but SAG is going to designate our frontrunner. Either way, this race will be tough to call.

Best Supporting Actor

Sean Penn (One Battle After Another) nabs a win! This category is super exciting at this point, and it’s really an open field. The three races we’ve had so far — BAFTA, Golden Globe, Critics Choice — have all broken in a different direction. The SAG Award is the most predictive prize in this category, and whoever gets it is going to be the frontrunner heading into Oscar night. For now, Sean Penn has leapt to frontrunner. It’s also worth noting Stellan Skarsgard is not nominated for a SAG Award.

Best Actor

The BAFTAs have sent this race into chaos, after honoring Robert Aramayo for his work in I Swear. This is a super interesting win that, in the local argot, really throws a spanner in the works for the punters.

Aramayo was not actually Oscar-eligible this year; the film has not been released stateside, and so technically he’d be eligible for the Academy Awards next year. I have not seen the film myself, but he’s supposed to be superb in it. It’s worth noting that Aramayo also won the rising star award, and when it comes to the acting races the UK does like to recognize — sorry, recognise — and center — sorry, centre — British labor — sorry, labour.

On one hand, this could mean that the Brits didn’t have the votes for Chalamet to keep the momentum up, and this reveals a fundamental weakness to his bid. On the other hand, we could chalk this Aramayo win up to the UK just getting their eyes on something big ahead of the rest of the world getting it, like a new Alan Partridge show, or an invasive domestic surveillance programme. And on an inexplicable third hand, maybe it’s just a Local Boy Makes Good situation. Too early to say.

Either way, the SAG Awards just got a whole lot more interesting.