Battle after battle defeats Hamnet and Sinner at BAFTA, while I Swear’s Robert Aramayo wins Best Actor | Baftas 2026

‘Battle after Battle’ Paul Thomas Anderson’s anti-comedy, about a washed-up revolutionary who tries to protect his daughter from a ruthless military officer, dominated the BAFTAs, taking home six awards including Best Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The film is based on Thomas Pynchon’s film Vinland, He was nominated for 14 awards at Sunday’s ceremony, the most of any nominee — including nominations for stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Chase Infiniti and Teyana Taylor.

“Anyone who says movies aren’t good anymore can get angry right away, because this is a great year,” Anderson said. “We have a line from Nina Simone that we stole in our movie. It says, ‘I know what freedom is, it’s not fear.’ Let’s keep making things without fear.”

In accepting the best director award earlier, Anderson also paid tribute to the film’s late producer Adam Sumner, who died in 2024. “You might think your greatest export was Alfred Hitchcock or Charlie Chaplin, but for me it was Adam Sumner,” he said.

“Three weeks into our film he found out he was sick, and he made it through production. If you’ve ever worked with someone who’s so sick, it’s absolutely miraculous. It makes you take notice and reminds you of the privilege of this work that we do. Thank you for sending it to me.”

Meanwhile, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, the vampire thriller that explores racial and cultural erasure, took home three awards – Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score and Best Supporting Actress.

Hamnet, Chloe Zhao’s film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about William Shakespeare, his wife Agnes, and the tragic death of their son, took home two awards, including Outstanding British Film and Lead Actress for Jessie Buckley.

Buckley is the first Irish performer to win a BAFTA Award for Best Actress. Critics widely praised her raw and intimate performance of a mother grieving the loss of her 11-year-old son. She is also nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards next March.

“This is an incredible honor,” she said. “I love what I do. I love cinema. I believe in storytelling that brings us together as a community, and I believe in women’s voices to tell those stories. Chloe Zhao, you are making history tonight as a storyteller. Thank you for your relentless artistry. And Maggie O’Farrell, thank you for this gift of a role.”

Buckley said she shares the award with her daughter, who “has been with me since she was six weeks old on the road with this. It’s the best role of my life, to be your mother, and I promise to keep disobeying, so you can belong in a world in all the crazy, complicated, wild you have as a young woman.”

In one of the biggest upsets of the night, Robert Aramayo beat out favorite Timothée Chalamet, as well as Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke and Michael B. Jordan, in the Best Actor category for his performance in I Swear, the British Tourette Syndrome biopic about writer and activist John Davidson.

Through tears, a visibly shocked Aramayo, who previously won the EE Bafta Rising Star award, said: “I can’t believe it at all, I can’t believe I’m in the same category that doesn’t mind standing here.”

“I Swear,” which was nominated in five categories, also won an acting award. Cumming thanked the audience for their understanding after a number of Davidson’s outbursts during the show, including yelling the n-word when Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo presented the award for Best Visual Effects to Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Coogler was the first black winner in the Best Original Screenplay category. “I didn’t expect that,” he said. “Joachim [Trier] “He was my mentor. He taught me how to be a better writer and filmmaker.”

Kugler expressed his gratitude for being part of the communities that loved him. He added: “For all the writers out there staring at a blank page, think of someone you love, think of someone you see hurting and help them feel better.”

British-Nigerian actress Yonemi Mosaku won best supporting actress for her role as a witch practitioner and healer in Sinners, beating the likes of Taylor – the front-runner for her role in One Battle After Another – and Carey Mulligan. “I found a part of myself in Annie,” she said. “A part of my hopes, the strength of my ancestors and connections, a part of myself that I thought I lost or tried to fade away as an immigrant trying to fit in.”

Mosaku said her character gave her the ability to hope in the face of grief and this “cruel” world. “Rayyan [Coogler]Like the preacher boy, your gift comes from home, and it’s big. Bringing gifts from the past and the future, I felt the pride and joy of the ancestors daily in your collection. Your commitment to art, truth, and humanity is to be cherished and protected at all costs.

Penn won the Best Supporting Actor award for his performance as military villain Colonel Stephen J. Lockjaw in the movie One Battle After Another. His win was one of the biggest upsets of the night, in a category that also included Paul Mescal and Stellan Skarsgård. He did not show up to receive his award.

The BAFTA award for best documentary went to Mr Nobody vs. Putin, about Russian teacher Pavel Talankin, who secretly documented his school becoming a military recruitment center during the invasion of Ukraine. Co-director David Borenstein paid tribute to Talankin: “Two years ago he was a teacher, and now he’s a BAFTA award-winner. Thank you for showing that no matter how dark things have gotten, whether in Russia or the streets of Minneapolis, we are always faced with a moral choice. No matter who we are, there is strength in our actions. In the words of J. R. R. Tolkien, courage is found in the unlikeliest of places.”

The award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer went to Akinola Davies Jr for My Father’s Shadow. “I acknowledge the path that my past, present and future ancestors have set before me, and I am eternally grateful,” the director said. He told viewers at home: “Archive your loved ones, archive your stories, yesterday, today and forever. For Nigeria, for London, for Congo, for Sudan, free Palestine.”

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, which received eight nominations, won three on the night: costume design, production design and makeup and hair.

Emotional Value, Joachim Trier’s Norwegian drama about two sisters’ relationship with their estranged, narcissistic father, played by Stellan Skarsgård, has been nominated for eight BAFTA Awards. Only one of those awards has been converted into an award for best non-English language film. “It’s the first time a Norwegian film has won a BAFTA,” Trier said. “We’re much better at skiing but here we are.”

He added: “It is clear that we live in a time where images are thrown at us very quickly. Many of these images are trying to sell us ideas and ideology.” Trier said the films this year “made for deep, human viewing” and encouraged empathy and curiosity.

The ceremony was opened by Cumming, who took over from David Tennant this year. Watching this year’s films was “like participating in a collective nervous breakdown,” he said, before recapping some of awards season’s biggest contenders.

“Then I thought, I know, I’ll watch a nice animated movie to comfort and cheer me up. Do you know the plot of Zootropolis 2?” He said. “Lies, corrupt leaders, poisoning and race oppression. Too early, Disney. Calm down here. What happened to Escape? I’m exhausted. It’s as if there are events going on in the real world that are affecting the filmmakers. Ring any bells for you Americans in particular?”

Zootropolis 2 later won Best Animated Feature. Director Jared Bush said stories “have incredible power and can bring joy, delight and amazement,” something the world needs now. “We wanted to tell a story about differences, and the fact that sometimes in this world right now we can be made to believe that our differences are a bad thing, or insurmountable, or a problem,” he said.

Claire Baines, Creative Director of Picturehouse Cinemas, has received a BAFTA Award for Outstanding Contribution to Cinema. “I’ve been asked to keep this sentence short, which is advice I would give to filmmakers,” she said to cheers and applause from the audience, repeating comments she first made to The Guardian.

Donna Langley, the British film executive behind hit films such as Oppenheimer and Wicked, has been awarded a Bafta Fellowship, the organisation’s highest honour, from Prince William. She is the first female studio head in Hollywood to receive the award.