For once, my predictions weren’t too shoddy … though the field-beating haul I anticipated for “An Education” didn’t quite pan out. Instead, Lone Scherfig’s film ties for the lead with Oscar frontrunners “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker,” all three films securing eight nominations.
“An Education” still looks like the one to beat here, though it’s not quite as strong as I might have thought. (I’m especially disappointed that Rosamund Pike fails to show up, despite being one of the BAFTA acting branch’s top five picks.)
However, the especially robust showing for “The Hurt Locker” (I didn’t see that FX nod coming) suggests it could give the British pic trouble. Both films, meanwhile, scored directing bids, marking the first time BAFTA has nominated two female helmers in the category.
Of course, “Avatar” also poses a threat, though when it comes to the win, it doesn’t strike me as BAFTA’s cup of tea. It’s worth bearing in mind that Cameron’s last awards behemoth, “Titanic” went 0-for-10 at the 1997 ceremony. (Before you ask, it lost Best Visual Effects to “The Fifth Element.”)
More discussion, and a full list of nominations, after the cut.
The surprise here is the omission of “Inglourious Basterds” from the top category, despite nods in six categories, including Best Director. The film that presumably nudged it out is “Precious,” which registered more strongly with the British voters than I thought it might. Both “Precious” and “Up in the Air” made it into the top race without accompanying nods for their helmers.
“District 9,” meanwhile, copped a directing nod for debut helmer Neill Blomkamp, amid seven nominations overall: it looks like competition for those final two Best Film slots was heated. In any event, this healthy haul provides the film with added ammunition to go one better on Oscar nomination morning.
Other surprises (to me at least) include a pair of Best Actress nominees. Audrey Tautou’s vehicle was clearly well-liked, to judge from its three other nods, but while Saoirse Ronan was one of the acting branch’s top selections, I figured the terrible buzz on “The Lovely Bones” would torpedo her chances. Evidently, however, voters really saw something in the Irish teenager’s performance that I don’t.
Meanwhile, two Brits who have scored in a number of the U.S. precursors, Helen Mirren and Emily Blunt, were frozen out here. (Justly so, in my opinion.) That fifth Best Actress slot at the Oscars is really looking like anyone’s for the taking. (Before the Sandra Bullock haters rejoice, she wasn’t eligible here.)
Some will be surprised by Andy Serkis’s appearance in the Best Actor category, but I anticipated that: “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” is on UK cinema screens right now, and critical acclaim for his portrayal of rock legend Ian Dury has been off the charts. The film is, however, one of the few British independents to muscle into the main categories, continuing a downward trend I discussed yesterday.
In fact, the situation was even bleaker than I had anticipated: “Moon” failed to convert any of its 10 longlist mentions into a nomination, while “Fish Tank” was similarly blanked. (It’s a bitter pill to swallow when “The Hangover” beat both films to an Original Screenplay nod.)
Both films, at least, show up (and are probably the ones to beat) in the Best British Film category, which is more than poor “Bright Star” managed: despite 10 longlist bids, five of them among the top five chapter picks in their category, Jane Campion’s beleaguered masterpiece received a solitary nomination for Best Costume Design.
And on it goes. The BAFTA Awards will take place in London’s Royal Opera House on February 21.
Best Film
“Avatar”
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Precious”
“Up in the Air”
Best British Film
“An Education”
“Fish Tank”
“In the Loop”
“Moon”
“Nowhere Boy”
Best Director
James Cameron, “Avatar”
Neill Blomkamp, “District 9”
Lone Scherfig, “An Education”
Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
George Clooney, “Up in the Air”
Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”
Andy Serkis, “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll”
Best Actress
Carey Mulligan, “An Education”
Saoirse Ronan, “The Lovely Bones”
Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”
Meryl Streep, “Julie & Julia”
Audrey Tautou, “Coco Before Chanel”
Best Supporting Actor
Alec Baldwin, “It’s Complicated”
Christian McKay, “Me and Orson Welles”
Alfred Molina, “An Education”
Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”
Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress
Anne-Marie Duff, “Nowhere Boy”
Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”
Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”
Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Kristin Scott Thomas, “Nowhere Boy”
Best Original Screenplay
“The Hangover”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”
Best Adapted Screenplay
“District 9”
“An Education”
“In the Loop”
“Precious”
“Up in the Air”
Best Foreign Language Film (previously announced)
“Broken Embraces”
“Coco Before Chanel”
“Let the Right One In”
“A Prophet”
“The White Ribbon”
Best Animated Film
“Coraline”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“Up”
Best Cinematography
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“The Road”
Best Production Design
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”
“Inglourious Basterds”
Best Costume Design
“Bright Star”
“Coco Before Chanel”
“An Education”
“A Single Man”
“The Young Victoria”
Best Film Editing
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Up in the Air”
Best Makeup & Hair
“Coco Before Chanel”
“An Education”
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”
“Nine”
“The Young Victoria”
Best Music
“Avatar”
“Crazy Heart”
“Fantastic Mr. Fox”
“Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll”
“Up”
Best Sound
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Star Trek”
“Up”
Best Special Visual Effects
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Star Trek”
Best Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer
Stuart Hazeldine (writer/director), “Exam”
Duncan Jones (director), “Moon”
Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock and David Pearson (directors and producers), “Mugabe and the White African”
Sam Taylor-Wood (director), “Nowhere Boy”
Eran Creevy (writer/director), “Shifty”
Rising Star Award (previously announced)
Jesse Eisenberg
Nicholas Hoult
Carey Mulligan
Tahar Rahim
Kristen Stewart
Best Short Film
“14”
“I Do Air”
“Jade”
“Mixtape”
“Off Season”
Best Animated Short
“The Gruffalo”
“The Happy Duckling”
“Mother of Many”
Comments
75 responses to “‘Education,’ ‘Hurt,’ ‘Avatar’ lead BAFTA nominations”
LOL @ Audrey and Andy Serkis
I wasn’t expecting Precious to get a Best Picture nomination… wow.
Exactly what is “LOL “about Andy Serkis? Have you seen the movie?
Yay for Avatar! Really happy to see Saoirse Ronan nominated as well! She’s beautiful as well as very talented!
I have not seen the movie, but it’s unexpected. Good for him, though. He’s a great actor.
Did the Hangover really get in over A Prophet and Moon in Original Screenplay? wow…..just wow.
Why are people surprised?
Far more people will have seen The Hangover over A Prophet.
I weep for Cornish.
I suppose it’s a question of visibility. It’s still quite sad.
Up received a lot of love.
4 nominations and the first Pixar movie to get a best screenplay mention.
WTF nomination of the day:The Hurt Locker over Transformers and 2012 for visual effects.
Once again the Baftas screw their own – no best director nominations for Andrea Arnold or Jane Campion? But Lone Scherfig. Talking about An Education where is the nomination for Pike?
Also no best Actress nomination for Katie Jarvis – I guess she was just a little ‘common’ for the Baftas. I do love Audery Tatou but come on that movie was boring. No real love for Bright Star either.Never mind director or actress but cinematography – what do you think got me through the winter weather?
Not counting the commiseration categories of best UK picture and Best UK debut as come on -what message do you send with that? Sorry you were just not good enough for inclusion in the main categories.
Meh I know what I will not be watching. Don’t even know why I am disappointed.
I think it’s safe to say that Abbie Cornish is this officially this years most snub performer. She gave what was, in my opinion, one of the best performances of the year. The inclusion of Tatou makes Cornish’s snub even more egregious! Shameful BAFTA, shameful!
I also feel bad for Melanie Laurant and Diane Kruger who gave gripping turns in I.B. Great to see Waltz nominated though.
Overall this is a decent list of nominations at best (seriously: Baldwin? The Hangover? And the Scherfig inclusion is surely taking the ‘An Education’ love – despite being a great film – a bit too far!).
Hopefully Oscar will do better.
What’s wrong with Scherfig’s inclusion? That ensemble didn’t direct itself, you know.
I agree with Guy. It’d be more than a little illogical not to honor the director when she’s the one who keeps the boat afloat, so to speak.
I’m crossing my fingers that Streep wins, because it’ll help with her Oscar chances, but if not, I’m rooting for Carey Mulligan. I’m cheering all the way for ‘An Education’ in the BAFTAs. :)
@ guy – can you honestly say than An Education was a better directed movie then the sublime Bright Star or the afirming but gritty Fish tank. Personally I found the direction of An Education to be disjointed and cliched
Nel: Keep your hair on. Anyone who reads my work regularly knows that I prefer “Bright Star” and “Fish Tank” in every respect. I just think people write off Scherfig’s achievement too quickly.
I think there were better choices than Scherfig -I get the love for An Education, BAFTA- but really, I thought An Education was ruined by that chick flick ending -voiceover included- and I blame Scherfig for that. Sorry if you disagree. I just didn’t buy the whole “The new Audrey Hepburn!” idea attached to it.
No Inglorious Basterds for BF? Weird. And the only thing I liked about An Education was Rosamund Pike and she was snubbed. And it looks like the Nowhere Boy girls took her place.
@ guy – I will have you know that I buy only the best wig glue. On Scherfig – I am not to sure whether her lack of precursor appearance had more to do with her quiet direction or that like me, people just felt others were better
Original Andrew: Actually, it’s more likely that the “Up in the Air” ladies edged Pike out. They are the only nominees here who weren’t in the acting branch’s top 5, but the general votership clearly came through for them.
@Guy
Oh I see. But I still prefer Rosamund Pike over Farmiga or Kendrick. I think she was funny and sassy and stole the whole film with her performance. Especially when she said: “You want to read English books?” and “No worries, in 20 years time, no one will speak Latin, not even Latin people!”
Priceless. She should have been nominated.
I couldn’t agree more.
What a travesty for Bright Star. The final nominations usually follow the top 5 chapter choices, yet it gets 1 out of 5 and thats for costume. Shame on you BAFTA and shame on Apparition for no campaigning
Just when you want the BAFTAs to be patriotic they decide to hell with it. Ugh.
Inglourious Basterds get all those other nominations, but somehow, it’s not worthy of a friggin’ Best Picture nomination? Leave it up to BAFTA to screw that up.
I swear, they lose touch with reality each year.
And one nom for Fish Tank?
The hell?
“Inglourious Basterds get all those other nominations, but somehow, it’s not worthy of a friggin’ Best Picture nomination?”
That’s what I was wondering.
“Well, the cinematography, directing, acting, writing, and art direction were great…but…..feh.”
I blame Avatar. [shakes fist]
I’m surprised Precious got a BP nomination over Inglourious Basterds. Precious always struck me as one of those “overly” American films that usually don’t register as highly over here, though of course it’s not on the level of The Blind Side (a film so American it will probably be released directly on DVD in most countries). Still, odd that Inglourious Basterds didn’t make it, I figured the BAFTA would be bigger champions of it than the Academy.
It’s also interesting to see that The Hangover edged out Avatar for Original Screenplay.. Talk about a weak year for that category when the British nominate a fairly low-brow buddy comedy for its screenplay, though I suppose the more interesting thing is that it beat out the Avatar juggernaut. That’s practically a public slap in the face for Mr. Cameron, I’d say.
Pretty good choices overall, though.
I love Hurt Locker but visual effects? Guess I must have missed them.
I too am surprised that Precious made it. Its very much an American story. I thought Basterds might be much more appealing to the Brits than Precious. The success of Avatar is still understandable but the widespread appeal of such an average movie(Precious) is head-scratching.
Abbie Cornish has been gloriously fucked the entire season now. This was one place where she could have hoped for a nomination but alas. And Katie Jarvis? One of the front-runners for the Best Actress prize at Cannes & nominated for Best European Actress but her home country couldn’t be bothered.
British films that don’t have Oscar traction are treated like second class citizens. Atleast maybe In The Loop will take adapted screenplay but even that would deviate too far from the Oscars for Bafta’s comfort. An Education is the one to beat here with a slight chance to The hurt Locker but nah An Education will more or less take it.
To be fair, the category is titled Best Special Visual Effects, so it covers achievements in both special and visual effects. Richard Stutsman discussed his FX work in our Tech Support piece on the film.
“Inglourious Basterds get all those other nominations, but somehow, it’s not worthy of a friggin’ Best Picture nomination? ”
Yep, Bastereds and District 9. Director, Script but movies are not good enough for Best Picture. Can we say BAFTA`s gone full-retard?
Just terrible. I don`t care who wins what, these shouldn`t be taken seriously.
It’s sad that Bruno Delbonnel was snubbed for “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”… I really thought they would give him atleats a nomination.. But I’m happy for HBP’s 2 nominations.
Interesting set of nominees this year…
sad that there’s no “Inglourious Basterds”… Nice to see Quentin Tarantino nominated…
“An Education might win the BP… If they gave it the Best British Film, it might be a toss between IB and “Up in the Air”
James Cameron doesn’t deserve an Original Screenplay nomination.. Though it all deserves the Technical Awards like SFX, Editing, Sound, and Music…
Hope Meryl won… But carey has a lot of chances to make an upset.. But I’ll be happy for her if she does go home an Orange Face…
“If they gave it the Best British Film, it might be a toss between IB and “Up in the Air”…”
Hard for it to be a toss-up between those two films when one of them isn’t nominated.
This is “An Education” vs. “The Hurt Locker,” I’m pretty certain.
Does anyone in the UK know who Julia Child is?
I’m in the UK but only in my early 20s so have no idea who she is. Any older people know if she is famous in the UK?
I wouldn’t be surprised if that works against Meryl and leads to Carey picking up a BAFTA.
To me, lots of these nominationS flat out SU*K.
I LIVED for the last 2-3 yrs. of BAFTA cause they were a mix of the sublime with only a few ridiculous (Freida Pinto, Tilda for the wrong movie) and a great indicator of Oscar noms a few weeks later.
This year?
No IB for PIC (but director/screenplay) … what!?
No Reitman/Daniels Director.
No Michael Sheen, ridiculous for BAFTA.
No Cornish, No Mirren, but TATOU!?
No Capaldi anywhere, no Plummer, but Baldwin?
No Moore, Cruz.
No Sherlock Holmes anywhere? Really?
District 9 for cinematography, but no Nine, White Ribbon, or Harry 6??!!??
Bright Star only for Costume? WORST.
Hurt Locker for effects? Heh? They were … ok?
Barely anything for Fish Tank? Heh?
I don’t know, so many of these disappoint for me.
where is penelope? i don´t understand. Audrey tautou has a performance better than penelope in broken embraces?
Bafta horrible.
Adam: No, Julia Child isn’t as renowned a figure in the UK as she is across the pond. You raise a point that I actually discussed in a post a few months ago.
That said, even without taking that into account, I think Carey Mulligan is winning the BAFTA quite easily.
Oh yeah, and no Moon, after an onslaught of great notices in the longlist.
Hangover over Moon, A Prophet, & others. Shameful, as well. Oooh, these noms get me angry.
@ Guy Lodge:
What I’m trying to say is that if “An Education” wins the Best British Film, they might award the Best Film to either “Inglourious Basterds” or “Up in the Air” just to share the love… It might look like “An Education” is too selfish for both top Film categories…
Anyway, I think its a frontrunner for both categories and I will be happy for it if it wins both..
Oh sorry.. You’re right.. IB was not nominated.. Anyway, I hope they give it to “Up in the Air”
Thanks for the correction Guy…
“An Education” won’t win both categories — no film ever has since the Best British Film category was reinstated in 1992. That award is voted on by a smaller committee to avoid such overlaps.
Did Saoirse Ronan set a record with this nomination? Not that it reall matters…
And, I’m a bit confused about the Hangover script nomination. I wouldn’t expect the Brits to like this kind of sh.. movie.
Bummer about “Moon,” and Pike not getting in. And I still am in shock that Tom Hardy did not even make the long list.
Too bad they didn’t have the guts to place Waltz in lead, so Fassbender could have been at least longlisted in supporting. And “Precious” over “Inglourious Basterds” is not only shocking, it is absurd.
The category should me named “best British film that is not the best film of the year”
That would imply that the best film of the year is always British ;)
As for your question about Ronan, I think Hayley Mills remains BAFTA’s youngest Best Actress nominee.
She may be the youngest to have been nominated twice. She got one for Atonement right?
What I meant to do was to make a title that would define a movie that is British AND not the best film of the year. This is true whether the best film of the year is British or not. Perhaps the title I came up with doesn’t meant exactly what I wanted it to.
And I was actually refering to what MouseRat said. Youngest person with two acting nominations.
I think Mills holds that record too.
This list is a disappointment that crushes hopes of less crazy-making Oscar noms.
Thanks. I just did a little research at imdb and it’s kind of complicated. I don’t know what counts (most promising for example) and what doesn’t. Nevermind.
By the way I didn’t know that actress (I know…) but she was in the film adaptation of Polyanna! My mother loved reading that when she was young!
They must be mixing pot with amphetamines and crack for thinking that the horrendous photography of District 9 was better than that of Bright Star. Hell, how the fuck was Abbie Cornish not nominated? I am sorry but these awards pissed me off good time… I want a written, well-detailed explanation from all members.
Thus, I am happy with Audrey Tautou being nominated. She was great in the film. She is currently in my lineup.