Hugh Grant, Michael J Fox – and Matthew Perry: who were the real stars of this year’s Baftas?

Oppenheimer couldn’t be more of an Oscars lock

A three-hour epic about the development of the A-bomb might not have been an automatic awards-season pick (especially after spending the summer as the afterthought in the Barbenheimer hashtag) but … well, it’s become the bulldozer of 2024. Despite the billions of dollars his films have made, the stars have never quite lined up for Christopher Nolan at awards time, but now they are with a vengeance. Nolan strode to the stage with well-earned authority to pick up his best director and best picture Baftas; it’s the stoniest and coldest of stone cold certainties he’ll be doing it again on Oscar night.

Empty handed … Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Photograph: Antony Jones/Bafta/Getty Images for BaftaBarbie is on the shelf

Someone had to get hammered, and that someone was Barbie, which went home with nothing, despite sending out the big guns. Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach all turned up, but had to sit there clapping politely time after time as others went up to receive their golden masks. Bafta sentiment works a little differently to Hollywood’s, so it’s not a given that the same wipeout will happen at the Oscars, but the omens look pretty horrible. Still, they’ve all got those piles of cash to roll around on, so it’s not such a hard luck story.

Bafta’s producers have learned their lesson

No one would ever call the Bafta show must-see TV, and that two-hour time gap that everyone knows the results before the as-live broadcast is still baffling, but this year’s back to basics approach paid dividends on some level. As if he understood that live-joke telling was an art too tricky to master overnight, host David Tennant coasted through on effervescence and charm and didn’t try anything too elaborate, the music on show was tried and tested classics, and last years’ sit-down interviews with people who didn’t have anything to say were thankfully dispensed with.

The best actor award suddenly looks a lot slippier

The Baftas were always going to be extra-swayed by Cillian Murphy’s lilt and cheekbones and long-running association with British cinema. But that did not mean his best actor award was a cert: The Holdovers’ Paul Giamatti had momentum, as well as the Guilt Factor (just like the Oscars, the Baftas snubbed him for Sideways 20 years ago). Will Murphy’s win tip this Oscar a little closer to the Oppenheimer haul, or does it nicely mesh with Giamatti’s Holdovers character’s sadsack narrative to propel him towards the gong? We’ll know in three weeks. Gentle respect, too, to Bradley Cooper for turning up to all these things despite clearly not having a chance.

Polish on the podium … Da’Vine Joy Randolph with her best supporting actress Bafta. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty ImagesDa’Vine Joy Randolph is the definition of a pro

Her performance in The Holdovers is so immaculate that Randolph has won every single supporting actress award going – tonight even defeating homegrown stars Rosamund Pike and Emily Blunt. But her charm and polish on the podium is sufficiently dazzling that she still manages to make every speech feel fresh, every appearance endearing. When she cried tonight, it was genuine – amazingly.

Every awards ceremony needs James Wilson

When you see the producer of The Zone of Interest approaching the podium, you know a political statement is incoming. Which is good, because it might feel unpalatable if nobody flagged the parallels between current events and the mass killings that hover on the margins of many of this year’s big period movies. At the London critics circle awards earlier this month, Wilson’s equation of the Holocaust and the current conflict in the Middle East drew a few muted gasps after he mentioned the deaths in Israel before those in Gaza. At the Baftas, when he namechecked the killings in “Gaza or Yemen … Mariupol or Israel” there was unanimous applause.

Homecoming king … Michael J Fox. Photograph: Kate Green/Bafta/Getty Images for BaftaMichael J Fox means a lot

The biggest applause of the night went to the star of Back to the Future – and Bafta-nominated documentary Still – for his brief appearance presenting the best picture award. Fox’s appearance had not been billed beforehand, and there was an audible gasp of excitement in the room as he entered. Fox hasn’t been to the Baftas for more than 30 years: few could imagine a lovelier homecoming king.

Saltburn keeps on giving – but not taking awards

If there was an award for a movie that has most penetrated the public consciousness, Saltburn would surely be in a dead heat with Barbie. But as we’ve seen already, the Saltburn brainworm is just not converting into copious awards love. Not that it’s not trying: it’s given Sophie Ellis Bextor a major new platform (and a properly great live performance in the TV show), made a genuine movie star out of Barry Keoghan, and social media can’t shut up about bathwater, grave-humping and all that. But its popularity doesn’t seem to have cut through with industry voters. Oscar-winning writer director Emerald Fennell is right to ask: what more can she do?

Hugh Grant has something others do not

How else to explain how he can bring the house down with that brief Wonka-inspired ditty: “Oompa Loompa, doopety-dee, now the best director categor-ee / Oompa Loompa doompety-dong, most of these films were frankly too long / Oompa Loompa doompety-dah, but for some reason, the nominees are …” By the late stage in an awards ceremony, it seems everyone is eager for some salt in the mix, even if it’s half-arsed and not, on paper, especially funny.

Wave of applause … Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott present the animated film award. Photograph: Joe Maher/Bafta/Getty Images for BaftaIf the clapometer counted, All of Us Strangers would have won big

The Bafta show audience isn’t shy of a bit of self-love, but the cheering of the groundlings doesn’t always translate into awards. (American Fiction’s Cord Jefferson, for example, didn’t exactly ascend to the stage on a tide of audience applause.) If Bafta had a clapometer that translated into wins, then All of Us Strangers would surely have cleaned up. From the moment that Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott were announced as presenting the best animated film, the roars never let up. Bafta surely realises now it shot itself in the foot by excluding Scott from its best actor lineup. Let’s hope it doesn’t let that happen again.

No ‘in memoriam’ montage is complete without a controversy

This year, it’s the omission of Matthew Perry, which is obviously because he’s TV not film, and the telly Baftas are in May. This year’s recap was fine other than that, with Hannah Waddingham warbling out a tune everyone can hum and lots of black-and-white. But it did make you think: why on earth wasn’t Glenda Jackson nominated for The Great Escaper? And Michael Caine, come to that.

Ken Loach – the interloper at the feast

It’s always a treat to see Ken Loach, diehard socialist and unrepentant campaigner, togged up in dickie bow and dinner jacket, smiling grimly from the sidelines at Bafta’s fixed-grin riot of glitziness; he’s like the Banquo’s ghost of the British film industry. (Tennant even tried a Ken/Barbie joke, which went down predictably badly.) Loach was there in support of his latest, and most likely last, feature The Old Oak, which was up for outstanding British film; in all honesty it just didn’t have the momentum to win, unlike in 2017 when I, Daniel Blake charged in.

Intervention … Ken Loach and his team. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Rex/Shutterstock

Characteristically, perhaps, Loach and his team held up a “Gaza: stop the massacre” poster on the red carpet, one of the evening’s few political interventions. But Samantha Morton, receiving the Bafta fellowship, was there to remind everyone of Loach’s centrality to what British film has achieved over the last half century, directly namechecking Loach’s 1969 classic Kes as her inspiration. Not everyone is going to agree with Loach’s politics, but we can all agree that Kes was, and is, a masterpiece.

Killers of the Flower Moon got the memo

One team noticeably absent from the Baftas this year – Thelma Schoonmaker aside – were the Killers of the Flower Moon crew, despite a whopping nine nominations. Perhaps they opted to consolidate their campaign stateside, or perhaps the snub for Lily Gladstone at the shortlisting stage was just too much to stand. Regardless, it seems a move both canny and a bit sad.