73rd British Academy Film Awards


The 73rd British Academy Film Awards were held on 2 February 2020 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, honouring the best national and foreign films of 2019. Presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, accolades were handed out for the best feature-length film and documentaries of any nationality that were screened at British cinemas in 2019.
The nominees were announced on 7 January 2020. The psychological thriller Joker received the most nominations in eleven categories; The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood followed with ten each. The ceremony also marked the introduction of the BAFTA Award for Best Casting; Shayna Markowitz won for Joker.
The ceremony was hosted by Graham Norton, replacing Joanna Lumley following her two years of service as host.

Winners and nominees

The nominees were announced on 7 January 2020. The winners were announced on 2 February 2020.

[BAFTA Fellowship]

Best FilmBest Director

  • Sam Mendes – 1917
  • * Bong Joon-ho – Parasite
  • * Todd Phillips – Joker
  • * Martin Scorsese – The Irishman
  • * Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
    • Best Actor in a Leading RoleBest Actress in a Leading Role
  • Joaquin Phoenix – Joker as Arthur Fleck / Joker
  • * Leonardo DiCaprio – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as Rick Dalton
  • * Adam Driver – Marriage Story as Charlie Barber
  • * Taron Egerton – Rocketman as Elton John
  • * Jonathan Pryce – The Two Popes as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio
  • Renée Zellweger – Judy as Judy Garland
  • * Jessie Buckley – Wild Rose as Rose-Lynn Harlan
  • * Scarlett Johansson – Marriage Story as Nicole Barber
  • * Saoirse Ronan – Little Women as Josephine "Jo" March
  • * Charlize Theron – Bombshell as Megyn Kelly
    • Best Actor in a Supporting RoleBest Actress in a Supporting Role
  • Brad Pitt – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as Cliff Booth
  • * Tom Hanks – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood as Fred Rogers
  • * Anthony Hopkins – The Two Popes as Pope Benedict XVI
  • * Al Pacino – The Irishman as Jimmy Hoffa
  • * Joe Pesci – The Irishman as Russell Bufalino
  • Laura Dern – Marriage Story as Nora Fanshaw
  • * Scarlett Johansson – Jojo Rabbit as Rosie Betzler
  • * Florence Pugh – Little Women as Amy March
  • * Margot Robbie – Bombshell as Kayla Pospisil
  • * Margot Robbie – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as Sharon Tate
    • Best Original ScreenplayBest Adapted Screenplay
  • Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won – Parasite
  • * Noah Baumbach – Marriage Story
  • * Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, and Katie Silberman – Booksmart
  • * Rian Johnson – Knives Out
  • * Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
  • Taika Waititi – Jojo Rabbit
  • * Greta Gerwig – Little Women
  • * Anthony McCarten – The Two Popes
  • * Todd Phillips and Scott Silver – Joker
  • * Steven Zaillian – The Irishman
    • Outstanding British FilmOutstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer
  • 1917 – Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Jayne-Ann Tenggren, Callum McDougall, and Krysty Wilson-Cairns
  • * Bait – Mark Jenkin, Kate Byers, and Linn Waite
  • * For Sama – Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts
  • * Rocketman – Dexter Fletcher, Adam Bohling, David Furnish, David Reid, Matthew Vaughn, and Lee Hall
  • * Sorry We Missed You – Ken Loach, Rebecca O'Brien, and Paul Laverty
  • * The Two Popes – Fernando Meirelles, Jonathan Eirich, Dan Lin, Tracey Seaward, and Anthony McCarten
  • Mark Jenkin, Kate Byers, and Linn Waite – Bait
  • * Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts – For Sama
  • * Alex Holmes – Maiden
  • * Harry Wootliff – Only You
  • * Álvaro Delgado-Aparicio – Retablo
    • Best CinematographyBest Editing
  • 1917 – Roger Deakins
  • * The Irishman – Rodrigo Prieto
  • * Joker – Lawrence Sher
  • * Le Mans '66 – Phedon Papamichael
  • * The Lighthouse – Jarin Blaschke
  • Le Mans '66 – Michael McCusker and Andrew Buckland
  • * The Irishman – Thelma Schoonmaker
  • * Jojo Rabbit – Tom Eagles
  • * Joker – Jeff Groth
  • * Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Fred Raskin
    • Best Costume DesignBest Production Design
  • Little Women – Jacqueline Durran
  • * The Irishman – Sandy Powell and Christopher Peterson
  • * Jojo Rabbit – Mayes C. Rubeo
  • * Judy – Jany Temime
  • * Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Arianne Phillips
  • 1917 – Dennis Gassner and Lee Sandales
  • * The Irishman – Bob Shaw and Regina Graves
  • * Jojo Rabbit – Ra Vincent and Nora Sopková
  • * Joker – Mark Friedberg and Kris Moran
  • * Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Barbara Ling and Nancy Haigh
    • Best Makeup and HairBest Original Score
  • Bombshell – Vivian Baker, Kazu Hiro, and Anne Morgan
  • * 1917 – Naomi Donne and Tristan Versluis
  • * Joker – Kay Georgiou and Nicki Ledermann
  • * Judy – Jeremy Woodhead
  • * Rocketman – Lizzie Yianni Georgiou, Barrie Gower, and Tapio Salmi
  • Joker – Hildur Guðnadóttir
  • * 1917 – Thomas Newman
  • * Jojo Rabbit – Michael Giacchino
  • * Little Women – Alexandre Desplat
  • * ' – John Williams
    • Best SoundBest Special Visual Effects
  • 1917 – Scott Millan, Oliver Tarney, Rachael Tate, Mark Taylor, and Stuart Wilson
  • * Joker – Tod A. Maitland, Alan Robert Murray, Tom Ozanich, and Dean A. Zupancic
  • * Le Mans '66 – David Giammarco, Paul Massey, Steve A. Morrow, and Donald Sylvester
  • * Rocketman – Matthew Collinge, John Hayes, Mike Prestwood Smith, and Danny Sheehan
  • * ' – David Acord, Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio, Stuart Wilson, and Matthew Wood
  • 1917 – Greg Butler, Guillaume Rocheron, and Dominic Tuohy
  • * ' – Matt Aitken, Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, and Dan Sudick
  • * The Irishman – Ivan Busquets, Leandro Estebecorena, Stephane Grabli, and Pablo Helman
  • * The Lion King – Andrew R. Jones, Robert Legato, Elliot Newman, and Adam Valdez
  • * ' – Roger Guyett, Paul Kavanagh, Neal Scanlan, and Dominic Tuohy
    • Best Film Not in the English LanguageBest Documentary
  • Parasite – Bong Joon-ho
  • * The Farewell – Lulu Wang and Daniele Melia
  • * For Sama – Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts
  • * Pain and Glory – Pedro Almodóvar and Agustín Almodóvar
  • * Portrait of a Lady on Fire – Céline Sciamma and Bénédicte Couvreur
  • For Sama – Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts
  • * American Factory – Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
  • * Apollo 11 – Todd Douglas Miller
  • * Diego Maradona – Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees, and Paul Martin
  • * The Great Hack – Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim
    • Best Animated FilmBest British Short Animation
  • Klaus – Sergio Pablos and Jinko Gotoh
  • * Frozen II – Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and Peter Del Vecho
  • * ' – Will Becher, Richard Phelan, and Paul Kewley
  • * Toy Story 4 – Josh Cooley and Mark Nielsen
  • Grandad Was a Romantic – Maryam Mohajer
  • * In Her Boots – Kathrin Steinbacher
  • * The Magic Boat – Naaman Azhari and Lilia Laurel
    • Best British Short FilmBest Casting
  • Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone – Carol Dysinger and Elena Andreicheva
  • * Azaar – Myriam Raja and Nathanael Baring
  • * Goldfish – Hector Dockrill, Harri Kamalanathan, Benedict Turnbull, and Laura Dockrill
  • * Kamali – Sasha Rainbow and Rosalind Croad
  • * The Trap – Lena Headey and Anthony Fitzgerald
  • Joker – Shayna Markowitz
  • * Marriage Story – Douglas Aibel and Francine Maisler
  • * Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Victoria Thomas
  • * The Personal History of David Copperfield – Sarah Crowe
  • * The Two Popes – Javier Braier, Barbara Giordani, Nina Gold, Francesco Vedovati, and Gabriel Villegas
    • EE Rising Star Award
  • Micheal Ward'''
  • * Awkwafina
  • * Kaitlyn Dever
  • * Kelvin Harrison Jr.
  • * Jack Lowden

    • Films with multiple nominations and awards

    NominationsFilm
    11Joker
    10The Irishman
    10Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
    91917
    6Jojo Rabbit
    5Little Women
    5Marriage Story
    5The Two Popes
    4For Sama
    4Parasite
    4Rocketman
    3Bombshell
    3Judy
    3Le Mans '66
    3
    2Bait

    WinsFilm
    71917
    3Joker
    2Parasite

    Ceremony information

    The ceremony took place in the Royal Albert Hall and was hosted by Irish television comedian Graham Norton, who had previously hosted the 2019 British Academy Television Awards. Viewing ratings for the ceremony fell to a twelve-year low, peaking at 3.5 million, though being the most-viewed show in the UK after 22:00. The ratings drop may be a result of the broadcast delay, with many live news outlets publishing the results before they were televised and revealed on television.
    Discussions about the lack of diversity within the award nominations surrounded the ceremony, with the host referring to it as "the year when white men finally broke through". He also described eleven-time nominee Joker as "essentially the story of a white man who makes himself even whiter". Best Director presenter Rebel Wilson joked about the absence of females in the category, quipping "Honestly, I just don't have the balls". Best Actor in a Leading Role winner Joaquin Phoenix used his speech to comment on the "systemic racism" of the BAFTAs and acting industry in general. Speaking ahead of the ceremony, BAFTA chairwoman Pippa Harris addressed her frustration in the lack of recognition for female directors, as well as the issues around diversity as a whole. In his closing speech to the ceremony, BAFTA president Prince William had prepared a speech discussing the issue, saying that "a wide-ranging review of the whole awards process" was underway and that lack of diversity "simply cannot be right in this day and age".
    1917 was the night's biggest winner, winning seven prizes in total of its nine nominations, including Best Film and Best Director, despite not having any acting nominees and thus becoming a favourite for the then upcoming 92nd Academy Awards; it lost to Parasite. Mendes became the first British winner to win Best Director in eleven years. Since votes for the Academy Awards must be registered two days after the BAFTA Awards, Screen Daily noted that 1917 would be a safe choice for Academy members, who are averse to streaming films based on 1917s marketing as a "must-see on the big screen". This compares to the Netflix film The Irishman being the night's biggest loser, taking no awards despite ten nominations; Netflix productions in total received twenty-three nominations, winning only two: Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Laura Dern and Best Animated Film. Screen Daily also suggested that there is anecdotal evidence of Netflix not supporting its nominees as much as it did last year for Roma. The writers of Screen Daily additionally suggested that there was some controversy surrounding the British identity of some films nominated for Outstanding British Film; 1917 is financed by the US, and Retablo is a Peruvian film co-produced with Norway and Germany, whose Peruvian director—Álvaro Delgado-Aparicio—only lives in London. The ceremony also marked the first year since the 30th British Academy Film Awards in which there were no British acting winners.
    Wins marking diversity were Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for Bait, a film described by its writer-director as "a black and white, 16-millimetre, hand-processed, post-synced film in Academy ratio about Cornish fishing people"; Best Documentary for For Sama, a personal story of bombings at a Syrian hospital made by the family involved, with them using their speech to "implore the UK not to ignore the ongoing plight of the people of the Syrian city of Idlib"; and the Rising Star Award for Micheal Ward, star of Rapman's Blue Story, who used his speech to say that he "feels like we're going in the right direction" in terms of diversity.
    Best Actress in a Leading Role winner Renée Zellweger noted in the press room that she felt like part of "the British gang"; after accepting her award, Hugh Grant had taken to the stage to present, quipping "well done Jones" as Zellweger left, a reference to their roles in the British film Bridget Jones's Diary. Later in the press room, the young Sama Al-Kateab, who had been held by her parents on stage while accepting Best Documentary, was allowed to roam and took to running the length of the stage and playing with microphones. With his fifth win for Best Cinematography for 1917, Roger Deakins becomes the most-decorated BAFTA winner in the category. Collecting his BAFTA, he said: "I think it was George Orwell that said all films are special but some films are more special than others, and for me this was a really special film". The recent Brexit was also mentioned, appearing in Brad Pitt's acceptance speech for Best Actor in a Supporting Role delivered by co-star Margot Robbie; Pitt's speech also noted that he would name his award "Harry" because he's going to take it to the United States.

    In Memoriam