BAFTA Nominations: 'Dune' has a huge lead while 'West Side Story' struggles
Thursday, February 3, 2022 at 9:25AM 
by Nathaniel R
Dune has a gargantuan lead at the annual BAFTA awards with 11 nominations. People often look to BAFTA for clues as to last minute shifts in the Oscar voting vibes... but we strongly caution against that now. BAFTA has changed so many of their rules in the past few years and added so many intricacies to their voting (including partially juried fields and 100% juried nominations in some categories) that it's difficult to say what any particular nomination actually means or who it came from.
Musicals had a rough morning. tick tick BOOM! went without any nominations at all (despite multiple longlistings) while West Side Story struggled. Despite five nominations (including Mike Faist, yay!) it missed in all sorts of crucial places. Nominations and comments are after the jump...
BEST FILM
BELFAST (6 nominations overall)
DON’T LOOK UP (4 nominations overall)
DUNE (11 nominations overall)
LICORICE PIZZA (5 nominations overall)
THE POWER OF THE DOG (8 nominations overall)
It's a miss for West Side Story here but otherwise that's the DGA five with Don't Look Up popping up instead. This is the only BAFTA category where every round of voting comes from the full membership.
DIRECTOR
AFTER LOVE Aleem Khan
DRIVE MY CAR Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
HAPPENING Audrey Diwan
LICORICE PIZZA Paul Thomas Anderson
THE POWER OF THE DOG Jane Campion
TITANE Julia Ducournau
The Directing list barely lines up at all with Best Film. This category is entirely juried for the nominations which explains that divide.
LEADING ACTRESS
LADY GAGA House of Gucci
ALANA HAIM Licorice Pizza
EMILIA JONES CODA
RENATE REINSVE The Worst Person in the World
JOANNA SCANLAN After Love
TESSA THOMPSON Passing
Another juried category (once the long list is determined by a mix of a jury and the acting branch). Joanna Scanlan squeezed in as the British critical darling this year. The rest of them are a surprising combo with all but one of the SAG nominees (Lady Gaga) missing. Still we always love a spread of wealth so it's nice to see a different lineup, especially one that includes both Reinate Reinsve and Tessa Thompson. As a reminder Penélope Cruz did not even make their longlist for Parallel Mothers so the jury could not vote on her. That said the longlisting jury could have forced her in, since they get to choose three nominees apart from the 12 the acting branch chooses.
* one confusing note on the BAFTA acting categories is that two of these nominees in each category were decided in early January when we got the longlists (just not announced). So technically the juries determining the nominees in each acting field are only voting for 4 nominations from 13 finalists, NOT 6 from 15.
LEADING ACTOR
ADEEL AKHTAR Ali & Ava
MAHERSHALA ALI Swan Song
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH The Power of the Dog
LEONARDO DICAPRIO Don’t Look Up
STEPHEN GRAHAM Boiling Point
WILL SMITH King Richard
Same deal as Best Actress. Another surprising lineup with only Cumberbatch and Smith representing widely-expected-to-be Oscar nominated performnaces.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
CAITRÍONA BALFE Belfast
JESSIE BUCKLEY The Lost Daughter
ARIANA DEBOSE West Side Story
ANN DOWD Mass
AUNJANUE ELLIS King Richard
RUTH NEGGA Passing
A much more expected lineup here. A lot of teammates at TFE here have been expecting a last minute Jessie Buckley Oscar surge and if she's nominated, BAFTA will have proved the bellweather for that. Though it's a bit of a shock that she's here since Olivia Colman is not.
The big glaring snub here is Kirsten Dunst in Power of the Dog
SUPPORTING ACTOR
MIKE FAIST West Side Story
CIARÁN HINDS Belfast
TROY KOTSUR CODA
WOODY NORMAN C’mon C’mon
JESSE PLEMONS The Power of the Dog
KODI SMIT-MCPHEE The Power of the Dog
Thrilled to see Mike Faist and Woody Norman FINALLY get some love. Woody Norman is ridiculous category fraud, of course ,but what can you do.
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
AFTER LOVE Aleem Khan, Matthieu de Braconier
ALI & AVA Clio Bernard, Tracy O’Riordan
BELFAST Kenneth Branagh, Laura Berwick, Becca Kovacik, Tamar Thomas
BOILING POINT Philip Barantini, Bart Ruspoli, Hester Ruoff, James Cummings
CYRANO Joe Wright, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Guy Heely, Erica Schmidt
EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE Jonathan Butterell, Peter Carlton, Mark Herbert, Tom MacRae
HOUSE OF GUCCI Ridley Scott, Mark Huffam, Giannina Scott, Kevin J Walsh, Roberto Bentivegna, Becky Johnston
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO Edgar Wright, Tim Bevan & Eric Fellner, Nira Park, Krysty Wilson-Cairns
NO TIME TO DIE Cary Joji Fukunaga, Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson, Neal Pervis, Robert Wade, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
PASSING Rebecca Hall, Margot Hand, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Forest Whitaker
Half of these nominees came from a general vote and the other half from a jury.
We've always thought it was odd that the BAFTAs have two film categories and give their own industry the second tier "best picture" prize. No other major country's top film industry award does this. Everyone else (the Goyas, The Golden Horse, Ariels, César, you name it) preference their own country's cinema rather than trying to correlate with American favourites for the top prize.
OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
AFTER LOVE Aleem Khan (Writer/Director)
BOILING POINT James Cummings (Writer), Hester Ruoff (Producer) [also written by Philip Barantini and produced by Bart Ruspoli]
THE HARDER THEY FALL Jeymes Samuel (Writer/Director) [also written by Boaz Yakin]
KEYBOARD FANTASIES Posy Dixon (Writer/Director), Liv Proctor (Producer)
PASSING Rebecca Hall (Writer/Director)
But at least they give their own countrymen multiple specific awards like this one.
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
DRIVE MY CAR Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Teruhisa Yamamoto
THE HAND OF GOD Paolo Sorrentino, Lorenzo Mieli
PARALLEL MOTHERS Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Almodóvar
PETITE MAMAN Céline Sciamma, Bénédicte Couvreur
THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD Joachim Trier, Thomas Robsahm
Three Oscar finalists and two (Parallel Mothers and Petite Maman) that weren't submitted to the Oscars International category... which is getting very hard to predict! The big misses, given the BAFTA long list, were Flee, A Hero, and Compartment No 6 (all Oscar finalists). This category has no juries, but like the Oscars, it's not voted on by everyone but only those who volunteer to do it.
DOCUMENTARY
BECOMING COUSTEAU Liz Garbus, Dan Cogan
COW Andrea Arnold, Kat Mansoor
FLEE Jonas Poher Rasmussen. Monica Hellström
THE RESCUE Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, John Battsek, P. J. van Sandwijk
SUMMER OF SOUL (OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED) Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, David Dinerstein, Robert Fyvolent, Joseph Patel
Documentary is similar to Films not in the English Language (opt-in voting) except that there is also a jury component who picked three of these nominations.
ANIMATED FILM
ENCANTO Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Yvett Merino, Clarke Spencer
FLEE Jonas Poher Rasmussen. Monica Hellström
LUCA Enrico Casarosa, Andrea Warren
THE MITCHELLS VS THE MACHINES Mike Rianda, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
BEING THE RICARDOS Aaron Sorkin
BELFAST Kenneth Branagh
DON’T LOOK UP Adam McKay
KING RICHARD Zach Baylin
LICORICE PIZZA Paul Thomas Anderson
This category has no jury, it's just writers doing the nominating. Very disappointing to see Worst Person in the World left out considering that it scored in Actress.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
CODA Siân Heder
DRIVE MY CAR Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
DUNE Denis Villeneuve
THE LOST DAUGHTER Maggie Gyllenhaal
THE POWER OF THE DOG Jane Campion
ORIGINAL SCORE
BEING THE RICARDOS Daniel Pemberton
DON’T LOOK UP Nicholas Britell
DUNE Hans Zimmer
THE FRENCH DISPATCH Alexandre Desplat
THE POWER OF THE DOG Jonny Greenwood
CASTING
BOILING POINT Carolyn McLeod
DUNE Francine Maisler
THE HAND OF GOD Massimo Appolloni, Annamaria Sambucco
KING RICHARD Rich Delia, Avy Kaufman
WEST SIDE STORY Cindy Tolan
CINEMATOGRAPHY
DUNE Greig Fraser
NIGHTMARE ALLEY Dan Laustsen
NO TIME TO DIE Linus Sandgren
THE POWER OF THE DOG Ari Wegner
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH Bruno Delbonnel
EDITING
BELFAST Úna Ní Dhonghaíle
DUNE Joe Walker
LICORICE PIZZA Andy Jurgensen
NO TIME TO DIE Tom Cross, Elliot Graham
SUMMER OF SOUL (OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED) Joshua L. Pearson
PRODUCTION DESIGN
CYRANO Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer
DUNE Patrice Vermette, Zsuzsanna Sipos
THE FRENCH DISPATCH Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo
NIGHTMARE ALLEY Tamara Deverell, Shane Vieau
WEST SIDE STORY Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo
COSTUME DESIGN
CRUELLA Jenny Beavan
CYRANO Massimo Cantini Parrini
DUNE Robert Morgan, Jacqueline West
THE FRENCH DISPATCH Milena Canonero
NIGHTMARE ALLEY Luis Sequeira
MAKE UP & HAIR
CRUELLA Nadia Stacey, Naomi Donne
CYRANO Alessandro Bertolazzi, Siân Miller
DUNE Love Larson, Donald Mowat
THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram, Justin Raleigh
HOUSE OF GUCCI Frederic Aspiras, Jane Carboni, Giuliano Mariana, Sarah Nicole Tanno
SOUND
DUNE Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Doug Hemphill, Theo Green, Ron Bartlett
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO Colin Nicolson, Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin, Dan Morgan
NO TIME TO DIE James Harrison, Simon Hayes, Paul Massey, Oliver Tarney, Mark Taylor
A QUIET PLACE PART II Erik Aadahl, Michael Barosky, Brandon Proctor, Ethan Van Der Ryn
WEST SIDE STORY Brian Chumney, Tod Maitland, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom
SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
DUNE Brian Connor, Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Gerd Nefzer
FREE GUY Swen Gillberg, Brian Grill, Nikos Kalaitzidis, Daniel Sudick
GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE Aharon Bourland, Sheena Duggal, Pier Lefebvre, Alessandro Ongaro
THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS Tom Debenham, Hew J Evans, Dan Glass, J. D. Schwaim
NO TIME TO DIE Mark Bokowski, Chris Corbould, Joel Green, Charlie Noble
BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION
AFFAIRS OF THE ART Joanna Quinn, Les Mills
DO NOT FEED THE PIGEONS Jordi Morera
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DREAD Ida Melum, Danielle Goff, Laura Jayne Tunbridge, Hannah Kelso
BRITISH SHORT FILM
THE BLACK COP Cherish Oteka
FEMME Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping, Sam Ritzenberg, Hayley Williams
THE PALACE Jo Prichard
STUFFED Theo Rhys, Joss Holden-Rea
THREE MEETINGS OF THE EXTRAORDINARY COMMITTEE Michael Woodward, Max Barron, Daniel Wheldon
EE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public)
ARIANA DEBOSE
HARRIS DICKINSON
LASHANA LYNCH
MILLICENT SIMMONDS
KODI SMIT-MCPHEE
We've been schooled online when we bitched about it that most of these are hardly breakthroughs or unknowns but they're not meant to be. The rising star is a loose definition but we still think it's ridiculous to see Kodi Smit-McPhee here given that he has made over 20 films and has been the leading man in several of those.
BAFTA, Dune, West Side Story, Worst, precursor awards
Reader Comments (28)
Directing and acting nominations should transfer to Oscars (plus Garfield). I also like the best picture lineup considering that I'm not a Don't Look Up detractors.
This is the first time all season I’ve felt somewhat justified in continuing to predict a Villeneuve snub. I know the Best Director category here is juried, but if Villeneuve didn’t make it in despite Dune leading the nominations, I still think that says something. Campion is seriously the only lock. And therefore I will officially finalize my prediction that Villeneuve won’t make the Best Director lineup. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get a totally unexpected lineup now that it appears Spielberg and Branagh are both vulnerable too (Branagh’s absence at BAFTA of all places is especially interesting). I do think this is a good sign for Hamaguchi, who many people have been predicting for a while now, but this is the first actual indication that he’s definitely in the mix.
Go Tessa! Go Faist!
(And otherwise I’m going to promptly forget about these nominations.)
How did Olivia Colman miss here? That's one of the most surprising snubs I can recall. Though I agree it's nice to see the wealth spread.
Dunst missing while Plemons got in is curious as well.
Is Alana Haim a sneaky contender to get into the Oscar lineup? Globe nom, Critics choice, BAFTA nom, a bunch of critics awards, Best Picture contender so it's widely seen...
Edwin - I think Campion is a true 100% lock but Villeneuve has to be 99% unless we see 2012 style chaos. I've been doubtful of Branagh's position for a while, but it's also clear that WSS has some softness and Spielberg is yesterday's news so that could also be an opening for a surprise. Dune basically hasn't missed anywhere the whole season outside of acting categories (except here which as you say is a bit of a quirky jury list).
I am thrilled for the PASSING, ALI & AVA. AFTER LOVE nominations and Ann Dowd for MASS (though I would love to see Martha Plimpton get an Oscar nom). And really want Joanna Scanlan to take the BA category.
Also, CYRANO for technical BAFTAs is great.
Shame about TICK TICK BOOM, though I'll bet it feels super NYC/American. Some of the British critics I follow didn't get it. A much lesser musical, EVERYBODY'S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE, got in for the Best British Film category, but I suspect the love for the stage show, "based on a real person", set in the north, love for veteran supporting actors, etc. helped out with the nom.
From what I understand, the partial juried voting continues after the longlist phase in the acting categories. First, the entire branch votes, and their top 2 choices get nominated. After that, the remaining four spots are filled by a jury committee.
Because of this little quirk, I've been wondering who was the other popular vote in Best Actress besides Gaga.
I appreciate them sticking to what they started last year.
Is GaGa winning the Oscar now or maybe Haim,Colman's snub is a shock,not surprised Kidman and Chastain missed as the people they played we're only mega famous in America,Stewart snubbed again.
I love supporting actorr and supporting actress,Dowd and Buckley seem to be surging at the last minute.
It's Smith or Cumberbatch as we all knew for the Oscar.
No Denzel once again.
Boy, who is winning best actress?
Poor Olivia. Imagine the Academy being this harsh with Meryl. Anyway, I love the fact that Best Actress is up for grabs.
We need more exciting races if we want to keep this thing alive.
I had a feeling Gaga was the frontrunner before and her mostly likely being top 2 in the voting here seems to confirm that. She's in the most "popular" movie of all the contenders (...at least in Box Office terms), Kidman and Colman don't seem to have strong enough narratives for a second Oscar, and the performance is both a star turn and a "transformative" part. Would never be my personal choice but it is what is
Hope these French Dispatch noms translate to the Oscars (a Cinematography nom wouldn't hurt too!)
Well Lady Gaga certainly had a good morning...
guardian-
Lady Gaga would ALSO be 2nd Oscar winner. People forget she already has an Oscar for songwriting.
So Denzel continues to go without a BAFTA nomination. It almost defies logic. Maybe they really hated his accent work in For Queen & Country.
All kidding aside, the snub for Andrew Garfield is a bit shocking, but maybe his film skewed far too American.
At the same time, I'm very happy Mahershala made it in. While I don't think his film/studio has enough juice to get him an Oscar-nomination, it would be a welcome one.
It's also great to see the Passing embrace with Tessa and Ruth making it in, as well as some of the first time awards for Rebecca Hall. Still, I'm surprised it got skipped over in the screenplay categories, but I guess that's not juried.
I wonder if Jessie Buckley made it in as one of the top 2 or via the jury? She's been a BAFTA nominee before the jury was instituted, so she might have been the popular pick. I do wonder if she can surprise on Oscar morning and score a nomination for her film, which might be surging late (ala Judas and the Black Messiah). Hard to tell
I am thrilled for Tessa Thompson, that's mostly all I can say. And good for Mike Faist, Jesse Plemmons, Alana Haim, and Ann Dowd.
I'm annoyed for Kirsten Dunst. They couldn't even nominate her for Melancholia back in the day.
@Peter - I've been saying that Alana Haim is a dark horse. She may have not won the Golden Globe like she probably should have, but she's won a hefty amount of critics awards and Licorice Pizza is doing well. I'm not sure she has enough steam, but it certainly isn't out of the question by any means.
As for Olivia Colman, this feels similar to her snub last year for The Father. Like they're purposely saying "we're not playing favoritism!" Weird.
I hope Ruth Negga wins.
I'm liking the unexpectedness of the BAFTA nominations. I, too am surprised not to see familiar names in the lineup but happy for other films, performances and craft that made it. I'd like to imagine a world where the voters scour the whole gamut of films released every year from around the world and champion those that resonated with them. Nominations should not just be from 10-12 films.
I think Petite Maman should be seen more widely and I am glad of its nomination, but those petit actrices from that film deserve more mileage. That, and Passing, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, Bergman Island and this not-in-contention film called Italian Studies are easily the top 5 films I have seen.
But good to see Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson and Rebecca Hall getting some love. Same for Ali & Ava, Boiling Point, Cow and Emilia Jones, and for not forgetting Troy Kotsur, Mike Faist and making a sweet reunion of sorts happen for Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley who I think were great in I Am Thinking of Ending Things. Justice for Jake and Lucy (or Lucia or Louisa)!
I understand the lack of traction for Clifton Collins and Simon Rex, but wish Hidetoshi Nishijima sneaked in the lead actor race.
I am THRILLED by the Mike Faist nomination. He's my personal supporting actor winner and that is the nomination I'm hoping for most of all Tuesday morning. Doubt it will happen, especially with how weak WSS performed today.
I don't know how I feel about this awards season as a whole. It's been completely unpredictable and that has been fun, but also every time it zig zags, it turns toward the messy basic contenders. Every time I feel House of Gucci or Don't Look Up is dead, they come back for one last scare.
I don't think I'm ready to see "Don't Look Up" score a ton of Oscar nominations next week. I'm bummed to see Andrew Garfield snubbed. He is my best actor choice this year, and I was hoping he would win the Oscar, but now it looks like a battle between Smith and Cumberbatch. I am ridiculously thrilled that Mike Faist was finally recognized. I hope the Oscars follow suit.
As much as I'm excited at how unpredictable this year's race is, my worry is that the unpredictability will result in lousy nominations (and wins) for Don't Look Up and Jared Leto.
You'd almost think this was a stacked Best Actress year with too many great performances to honor.
Instead it feels like the precursor groups are saying "Ugh, not Kristen Stewart," "Ugh, not Olivia Colman again," "Ugh, not Nicole Kidman for that movie," "Ugh, I guess we *have* to put Gaga in there, no choice..."
It's a 10-person field with no discernible passion behind any particular performance. Instead, there are weird pockets of dislike for most of them. It feels like whoever wins will be the consensus "least bad" option, very strange energy.
I'm so happy for Mike Faist, my favorite performance of the year. I am hoping against logic he gets an Oscar nod.
DK -- the simple fix to that is for people to see more films so they can actually find where their passion is! Plenty of great stuff out there.
Happy about all Belfast, Licorice Pizza, CODA, Power of the dog, Boiling Point and French Dispatch nominations + The Rescue for the best doc. Brits missed Compartment nr6 and Prayers for the stolen in their not-in-English-films-category, but Oscars are going to fix that, and show a better taste :)
In an awards world where EVERY body tries so hard to predict the Oscar nominations, I have a lot of respect for how the BAFTAs have swerved into doing totally their own thing with no regard for the big O
...but it's still hard not to try to read these as Oscar tea leaves somehow.
I keep hoping Ruth Negga would bring along Tessa and finally she did with a mainstream voting body could the same happen at Oscar time seeing as the race is so up in the air.
The nominations are mostly great but it's still not an indication that things are changing for the better. In the juried category, unless the winner turns out to be none of the Oscar contender, I see this as just an attempt to make BAFTA look less than Oscar precursor than they actually are.
Hopefully, with these nominations, the whole body is forced to watch the movies nominated so their winners can be different than the Oscar but otherwise, this safe by jury selection is pointless. Still cool though to see unexpected names appear in different categories.
No Jared Leto!!!!! YAY!!!!!!
Go Jonny Greenwood!!!!! Bring a BAFTA for Radiohead and give us music fans that NIN/Radiohead tour!!!!!
It's incredibly bizarre that both the Independent Spirit Awards and BAFTA nominated Buckley, Gyllenhaal's writing & direction, but not Olivia Colman. If anything from that poorly written/directed mess of a film deserves to be nominated, it's Colman's miraculously fine performance.
Sad for Stewart & Dunst, but very happy for Ruth Negga (here's hoping she can pull off a win), Tessa Thompson, Troy Kotsur (here's hoping he can pull off a win), and Renate Reinsve!
These nominations are a welcome surprise to see love for Worst Person, Passing, Cmon Cmon, Mike Faist and the three French films by female directors.
We are always going to see Oscar nominees snubbed if it’s top 2 plus juried handpicked selections for inclusivity, gender, race and age. And that’s awesome. More varied nominations.
But Oscar tea leaves…
Last year Another Round popped up in directing and Hopkins/McDormand won here first.
So maybe…
Jesse Plemons.
Drive My Car directing.
(Leo maybe if DLU is that strong)
And Is Lady Gaga winning the Oscar ?
This is weird: why did BAFTA only list the directors of Don't Look Up, Dune and Drive My Car in their respective Screenplay categories, when all three of them had co-writers... Adam McKay has David Sirota (even if it was a "story by" credit, it still counts), Denis Villeneuve has Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi has Takamasa Oe... I think it's incredibly disrespectful of whoever is in charge of making these lists to exclude all writers who are not the film's director (especially since the Outstanding British Film category lists the film's every producer and writer as well as director).