LIVE – Updated at 07:00
Tonight’s Baftas were dominated by One Battle After Another, Sinners and Hamnet, but it was a very unexpected Best Actor win that sent shockwaves through Royal Festival Hall.
Despite competition from Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée Chalamet and Michael B Jordan, it was British newcomer Robert Aramayo – for the British biopic I Swear – who took home the Best Actor prize, with the 33-year-old expressing enormous surprise during his speech. Aramayo also won the EE Rising Star award.
One Battle After Another was crowned Best Picture and also won Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Paul Thomas Anderson. Best Supporting Actor went to Sean Penn, who was unable to attend the ceremony to collect his prize.
Jessie Buckley was awarded Best Actress for Hamnet, while the film also pocketed the Best British Film award.
It was a big night for the vampire film Sinners, as Ryan Coogler collected the Best Original Screenplay award, and Wunmi Mosaku took home Best Supporting Actress prize.
Despite earning 11 nominations, the sports drama Marty Supreme went home entirely empty-handed.
There was also consternation during the ceremony due to outbursts made by the Tourette Syndrome campaigner John Davidson, whose life serves as the inspiration for I Swear. Bafta host Alan Cumming apologised for bad language expressed by Davidson during the show, while explaining that those with Tourette’s experience involuntary tics and outbursts.
The full list of winners can be found here.
Baftas 2026
- Robert Aramayo scores shock Best Actor win; Jessie Buckley Best Actress
- One Battle After Another wins Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay
- Alan Cumming’s rather subdued monologue avoided politics (and jokes)
- Best-dressed on the red carpet
- Bafta 2026 nominations
So if you wondered whether Alan Cumming had deliberately made his Bafta hosting gig as non-political as possible, blame the BBC censors, who apparently cut this little joke from his opening monologue…
“Do you know the plot of Zootropolis 2? Lies, corrupt leaders, poisoning and persecution of a race,” he said. “Too soon, Disney … It’s almost as though there are events going on in the real world that are influencing film-makers. Anyone know what I’m talking about? No? Ring any bells for you Americans in particular?”
Hmm!
In one of the funnier acceptance speeches of the night, Best Actress winner Jessie Buckley recalled her mortifying first encounter with her long-time agent Lindy King, after she arrived in London determined to make it as an actor.
“I had a nuclear bad fake tan on, white hoop earrings, a polka-dot red skirt and had the audacity to say one day I wanted to be like Judi Dench,” she joked.
Looking ahead to next month’s Oscars, there still seems to not be a consensus over who will win the Supporting categories.
When it comes to Supporting Actor, the Golden Globes went for Stellan Skarsgard, Bafta went for Sean Penn and the Critics Choice Awards went for Jacob Elordi.
Meanwhile, Bafta went for Wunmi Mosaku for Supporting Actress, Golden Globes went for Teyana Taylor, and Critics’ Choice went for Amy Madigan.
It leaves us none the wiser for what will happen next! Exciting!
Sinners writer/director Ryan Coogler also made history tonight, becoming the first Black writer to win the Bafta for Best Original Screenplay.
Marty Supreme didn’t win a single one of its 11 nominations tonight, and if that feels like a record, well, it sort of is!
The Timothee Chalamet movie now ties Ken Russell’s 1969 drama Women in Love and the JM Barrie biopic Finding Neverland (2004) as the most-nominated loser in Bafta history, which is slightly mad isn’t it?
One of the bigger awards of the night was Best Director, which was taken home by One Battle After Another’s Paul Thomas Anderson…
Fancy taking a peek at some of the night’s most attention-grabbing red carpet looks? Annabel Nugent has curated a selection of some of the boldest here…
The boldest looks from the Baftas red carpet
Sunday night’s show largely went off without a hitch, but host Alan Cumming did at one point have to apologise and explain why some viewers may have heard bad language emanating from the audience during the show. He explained that this was the result of involuntary outbursts made by the Tourette Syndrome campaigner John Davidson, the inspiration for the film I Swear.
Wunmi Mosaku, winner of the Best Supporting Actress prize for Sinners, spoke to the press backstage and expressed her joy over her director Ryan Coogler’s win in Best Original Screenplay…
If you missed here, here’s Robert Aramayo’s very shocked acceptance speech after he beat far bigger names in the Best Actor category.
And we’re done! But not before a vaguely political but not really political last monologue by Alan Cumming.
“We have welcomed people from all over the world, people who look and sound and love differently, for a celebration of stories and ideas and culture, in fact, a celebration of diversity and equality and inclusion,” Cumming said. “And guess what? Nobody died.”
This was a very Bafta-coded Bafta ceremony, which was neither scandalous nor particularly funny, but also missing that necessary bit of slight madness to it that (on paper) should make this annual ceremony really distinct.
Which is a long way of saying, where on earth was Ariana DeBose?
And Best Picture goes to… One Battle After Another!
Producer Sara Murphy gives the bulk of the speech, presumably as PTA has given two other speeches already tonight. The win leaves One Battle the big winner of the night, with six awards.
And the Jessie Buckley award for Best Jessie Buckley goes to… Hamnet’s Jessie Buckley!
She’s had Best Actress in the bag for a while, but a lovely speech all the same.
“As a little girl, I never in a million years thought I’d be allowed to make a film, but here I am,” she says.
Buckley tells a story about arriving in London and taking a meeting with the woman that would become her agent. “I had nuclear bad fake tan on,” she jokes, “and I had the audacity to say to her that one day I’d love to be Judi Dench.”
And Best Actor goes to… um… Robert Aramayo for I Swear!
This is… a shock result! And good for him! But also, let’s not go nuts, surely?
Aramayo is tonight’s big surprise, beating DiCaprio, Chalamet and Jordan to the prize.
“I honestly cannot believe I’ve won this award,” he says. “Everyone in this category blows me away.”
He shares that he once met Ethan Hawke when he was studying at Juilliard, where he trained, and Hawke gave an inspirational speech to the students there.
“To be in this category with you tonight is incredible,” he says.
And here’s Prince William!
He’s here to announce the Bafta Fellowship Award, which is given to Donna Langley, the British-born super-producer who chairs Universal Pictures.
To really drive home how big a deal she is, we get a montage of talking heads expressing their respect for her, among them the guys behind Working Title as well as Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan. And Christopher Nolan is always moaning about film execs so you know he means it when he’s giving praise to one!
Anyway, here’s Best Director! And it goes to… Paul Thomas Anderson, who’s back on stage for his second speech of the night so far.
This isn’t a huge shock, but great all the same.
“I feel like the prettiest girl in the room right now,” PTA jokes.
He also pays tribute to assistant director Adam Somner, who he worked with on several films including Licorice Pizza and Phantom Thread, who died with cancer in 2024.
(Also, Chloe Zhao in hindsight probably should have done the speech for Hamnet’s Best British Film win, right?)
Alan Cumming is back, and acknowledges the tics and language you may have heard at home (though I don’t think we did, just a few noises, right?). More on that here…
And some in-the-room intel from Jacob on I Swear and John Davidson, the inspiration for the film, who has Tourette’s.
I have to commend Bafta for their sensitive handling of John Davidson’s Tourette outbursts, which I’m imagining are confusing those watching at home. We here had the benefit of being informed that the subject of brilliant film I Swear was present – he got a HUGE cheer – so everyone knew to expect it and so thought nothing of it when the tics reared. But I’m worried viewers will think he’s simply another heckler without the context. Robert Aramayo’s (deserved) win for EE Rising Star thrust Davidson’s campaign work into the spotlight, following which Cumming apologised for any offence caused by Davidson’s tics. I’ve never seen this in an awards ceremony before and I gotta say it’s good Bafta embraced the situation.
And here’s the Rising Star category, which is won by I Swear’s Robert Aramayo! Let’s give another shout out to Jacob’s interview with him this week, by the way…
‘I’m up against DiCaprio at the Baftas – I found out while doing this washing up’
Next up is Jessie Ware, who has retired her disco boppery for the night to sing “The Way We Were” for the In Memoriam montage.
And god what a heavy year of famous deaths.
Diane Keaton, Terence Stamp, Catherine O’Hara, Gene Hackman, Val Kilmer and Rober Redford get film clips (a lovely touch!).
Rob Reiner, Robert Duvall, Pauline Collins, Sir Tom Stoppard, Brigitte Bardot (boo!), Udo Keir, Diane Ladd and Michael Madsen are among those who get photos.
Fell into a slight coma, sorry. So we just had Film Not in the English Language, which went to Norway’s Sentimental Value (making it the first Norwegian film to win the prize, nicely).
And now we have Outstanding British Film, which goes to… Hamnet! Which felt a bit inevitable despite strong competition from the likes of the, err, far superior Ballad of Wallis Island, Pillion, Die My Love and I Swear. Oops!
Giving the speech, meanwhile, is director Sam Mendes, which is a tad jarring as he’s very famous but only a producer on Hamnet. If Chloe Zhao doesn’t take Best Director, was this her only chance of the night to speak?
Next up is Hannah Waddingham, the human equivalent of Paddington Bear in that of course she’s bloody here.
Anyway, she’s here to announce Best Costume Design, which goes to Frankenstein.
“Thank you for the art!” goes Kate Hawley, to her director Guillermo Del Toro. The first tears of the night! Apart from mine when I realised there is an hour left of this.
Anyway, Best Adapted Screenplay goes to One Battle After Another, with writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson nearly dropping the trophy as he picked it up.
Lovely Warwick Davis here, saying he was asked to announce Best Adapted Screenplay solely because Bafta had a spare “mini lantern” going.
“I’m guessing Tom Cruise wasn’t available,” he jokes. Huzzah!
“He’s not here is he? Usually in the front row, so he can see.”
Emma Stone pulling a great Kirsten Dunst here.
Next up is the award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer, which goes to My Father’s Shadow!
Also, Jacob (our man on the inside, etc) has declared through the magic of time travel (he sent me this an hour ago) that Sinners has proved to be the biggest crowd-pleaser in the room so far.
Most rapturous crowd response so far? Ryan Coogler’s screenplay victory for Sinners. In fact, Sinners’ wins so far definitely seem more impactful in the room than the awards won by its biggest rival One Battle After Another. Everyone loves One Battle, sure, but think the room will explode if Sinners takes the top prize…
Young Hamnet star Jacobi Jupe is getting his life to this, um, tinny rendition of “Golden” from K-Pop Demon Hunters.
I am a thousand years old (partly because of that Cranston/Hahn skit), so this movie has slightly eluded me. But I hear it’s great. My housemate works in a school and all his kids are obsessed with it. (Cracking Bafta coverage courtesy of The Independent.)
Ooh a skit! Alan Cumming is handing out snacks! He gives Emma Stone a bag of Hula Hoops, Stormzy some Skips, Timothee Chalamet some Scampi fries, and Leonardo DiCaprio an oaty flapjack.
Anyway, Cranston and Hahn announced (eventually) Best Original Screenplay, which went to Ryan Coogler for Sinners!
Great movie, but don’t really know how that trounced Marty Supreme, but sadly I missed my invitation to vote in the Baftas so I am unable to effect tonight’s results. Boo.
Also I like Ryan Coogler’s lisp.
Kirsten Dunst’s slightly pained expression speaking for all of us during this terribly long and unfunny riff on studio executives and actors by Bryan Cranston and Kathryn Hahn.
And look it’s Paddington! (Honestly, he’ll show up at the opening of an eye nowadays, won’t he?)
His delivery is also awfully stiff, isn’t it? You’re tired Paddington, bore off!
Anyway, sorry.
He’s here to announce the, um, “Children’s & Family Film” category, which surely doesn’t exist?? What?
It goes to a film called Boong. This is an “Indian Manipuri-language coming-of-age drama film”, Google tells me.
And we bounce to Best Supporting Actor, which goes to One Battle After Another’s Sean Penn, which is vaguely a surprise, if only because it seemed Stellan Skarsgård had this in the bag at one point.
And he’s not even here to collect it! (Jacob Elordi, nominated for Frankenstein, is also absent).
I was looking forward to seeing which shade of leather sofa he best resembled tonight, but alas.
And next up is Best Supporting Actress, which goes to British Sinners actor Wunmi Mosaku!
What’s interesting is that Weapons star Amy Madigan took home the Critics’ Choice Award and Teyana Taylor, of One Battle After Another, took home the Golden Globe. Does this mean we’re entering next month’s Oscars with absolutely no lock here?
Mosaku’s speech is nice, if read from a bit of paper, which always sucks a bit of the dazzle from these things…
The first award of the night is Best Special Effects, which goes to Avatar: Fire and Ash.
If you’re curious about the occasional loud noises from the audience, by the way, that is Tourette Syndrome campaigner John Davidson, whose early life inspired the Bafta-nominated drama I Swear.
Alan Cumming did refer to Davidson’s Tourette’s in his opening monologue, but that has been edited out of the BBC broadcast.
This is, by BBC necessity, presumably, a very non-political affair. And Alan Cumming has kept things very light and dull. A quick Ozempic joke, a gag about Paul Mescal’s looks, and so forth.
Jacob, our man on the inside, had similar thoughts in the room a few hours ago…
Alan Cumming’s affability saved his opening monologue – he’s so damn likeable, you want to chuckle at his jokes even when they’re not so good. And I’d say chuckles are all the majority his jokes got from the A-listers assembled in the Royal Festival Hall. He evaded anything too biting, clearly wanting to embrace the joy of the night, and spent the monologue gushing over the most famous faces in the room.
At one point, Cumming referenced the problems plaguing the world we live in, leading everyone in a collective primal scream to let off some steam. Most people obliged half-heartedly. Not to be too cynical, but it felt like a safe way to address the subject without saying anything serious about it. Feels like we were robbed of something a bit more daring.
This is, by BBC necessity, presumably, a very non-political affair. And Alan Cumming has kept things very light and dull. A quick Ozempic joke, a gag about Paul Mescal’s looks, and so forth.
Jacob, our man on the inside, had similar thoughts in the room a few hours ago…
Alan Cumming’s affability saved his opening monologue – he’s so damn likeable, you want to chuckle at his jokes even when they’re not so good. And I’d say chuckles are all the majority his jokes got from the A-listers assembled in the Royal Festival Hall. He evaded anything too biting, clearly wanting to embrace the joy of the night, and spent the monologue gushing over the most famous faces in the room.
At one point, Cumming referenced the problems plaguing the world we live in, leading everyone in a collective primal scream to let off some steam. Most people obliged half-heartedly. Not to be too cynical, but it felt like a safe way to address the subject without saying anything serious about it. Feels like we were robbed of something a bit more daring.
Lots of non-starters in this Alan Cumming monologue, sadly. “Get me a glass of sparkling water right now!” he bellows to Pillion star Harry Melling, referencing the movie’s sub-dom comedy… to which Melling doesn’t really respond to.
And we’re off! With a big ol’ montage of stars on the red carpet this evening, and then an opening skit in which host Alan Cumming seeks advice about how best to look after the night from a litany of very funny people over Zoom, among them The Hangover’s Ken Jeong and Hannah Waddingham.
Brian Cox has a filter on his face.
And then there’s an eerily animated Paddington Bear.
This was… long and not very funny, right?
Sorry to be neggy immediately, but yeesh.
It’s time for one last bathroom break as the Baftas are scheduled to kick off on BBC One in five minutes. So go, go now!
So what’s the biggest shoo-in tonight? Is a One Battle After Another Best Picture win basically nailed on? Will Timmy Chalamet finally get his Best Actor trophy?
Oddly, those two aren’t sure-things, even at this late stage in the game. What seems inevitable, though, is a Jessie Buckley win in Best Actress for Hamnet, which feels in the bag for the Oscars, let alone Britain’s big annual ceremony for rewarding big local cinema.
(Watch Rose Byrne sneak in at the last minute now.)
One movie to keep an eye on tonight is I Swear, which has five nominations – including for star Robert Aramayo, who my colleague Jacob chatted to this week.
I Swear is one of those incredibly well made British movies that, regardless of the fact that it didn’t have a massive awards campaign budget behind it, managed to sneak in to a number of major categories this year. That in itself suggests it has big advocates in the Bafta voting body – could some wins materialise too?
I should say… if you’re into this kind of thing, my wonderful colleague Annabel is currently updating the actual winners list using the sheer power of her mind (we have a man inside the ceremony feeding her the winners’ names as they’re announced).
You can view that here.
Now, clicking there may make you not want to tune in to the delayed BBC show at 7pm, or follow along with my hilarious Bafta frivolity, so I can’t exactly recommend you do. But I’m also not your parent or guardian, so do you as wish, frankly.
What I will say, though, is that I’m guessing this will be a big night for One Battle After Another, Frankenstein and Hamnet, all of which look poised to clean up in the acting, writing/directing and technical categories, surely?
Good evening readers! This is Adam White clocking on for a night of Bafta live (but not really) updates. While Alan Cumming is making jokes and award winners are being called to the stage at this very moment, you and me and everyone else not at the Royal Albert Hall tonight have all been temporarily frozen in stasis in advance of the delayed 7pm BBC One launch of the show.
In the meantime, I’ll be keeping you up to date on non-spoilery things.
Here’s a picture of Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst to keep you occupied, anyway.
The ceremony is just about to kick off at Royal Albert Hall with all the celebrities taking their seats.
It was a slightly underwhelming red carpet with most of the stars playing it safe in classic black looks – but hats off to those A-listers who did push the sartorial envelope…
The boldest looks from the Baftas red carpet
Who is presenting the accolades?
16:56 , Annabel Nugent
Let’s start with the biggest name: Paddington Bear.
The much-loved Peruvian import will be enjoying a day off from the West End production Paddington The Musical and hopping across the Thames to present the Best Children’s and Family Film prize.
Here’s the full alphabetical list of the other famous faces who will be handing out accolades:
Aaron Pierre, Aimee Lou Wood, Alicia Vikander, Alia Bhatt, Bryan Cranston, Cillian Murphy, David Jonsson, Delroy Lindo, Emily Watson, Erin Doherty, Ethan Hawke, Gillian Anderson, Glenn Close, Hannah Waddingham, Karen Gillan, Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn and Kerry Washington.
Little Simz, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mia McKenna-Bruce, Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, Milly Alcock, Minnie Driver, Monica Bellucci, Noah Jupe, Olivia Cooke, Patrick Dempsey, Regé-Jean Page, Riz Ahmed, Sadie Sink, Stellan Skarsgård, Stormzy and Warwick Davis.
Jenna Colman is doing things a little differently, opting for a more intricate gown than the classic dresses we’ve seen walk the runway. Her is embellished with crimson red rosettes made from beads.
Also enjoying date night are Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale. Byrne is nominated for her role in the comedy-drama If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, which only just reached UK cinemas this weekend after a US theatrical release back in October last year.
A friendly reminder that while the stars are starting to make their way into the venue for the 5pm ceremony start time, the event will not be broadcast on television until 7pm.
We will be updating our winners list in real-time, however, so follow along if you want to know who has triumphed (and who has lost) before the news hits your screen.
Baftas 2026 live: Full list of winners
Hannah Waddingham perfectly pairs her platinum blonde up-do with a sparkly burgundy dress.
What better date night than attending the Baftas together? Couples Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst, Paul Mescal and Gracie Abrams, Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo take the red carpet.
The Hamnet trio – Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, and Chloe Zhao – have officially arrived, alongside Mescal’s girlfriend, the American singer Gracie Abrams
Representing My Father’s Shadow at the Baftas tonight are actor Wale Davies, filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr, and producer Rachel Dargavel.
Black seems to be the go-to colour for most of the stars tonight, with Emma Stone, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Timothée Chalamet following suit.
I have it on good authority from our video journalist on the ground at Royal Festival Hall that Timothée Chalamet’s arrival has been met with the loudest screams of the night so far from the fans behind the barricade.
