‘One Battle After Another’, our favourite movie from 2025, has taken six top prizes at the British Academy Sinema Awards.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s dynamic politically-charged thriller about a group of revolutionaries in conflict with the state and themselves, won awards for best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, cinematography, editing and a supporting actor reward for Sean Penn.
“This is very overwhelming and wonderful,” Anderson said as he accepted the directing prize. He paid tribute to his longstanding assistant director, Adam Somner, who died of cancer in November 2024 a few weeks into production.
“We have a line from Nina Simone that we used in our sinema, ‘I know what freedom is: It’s no fear,’” the director said. “Let’s keep making things without fear. It’s a good idea.”
Having already won the top prizes at this year’s Golden Globes, Anderson’s epic further cements its standing as the favourite to win big at Hollywood’s Academy Awards on 15 March. The sinema goes into the contest with 13 nominations although Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has a record 16 nods_._
Coogler did take home prizes for original screenplay, best musical score and Wunmi Mosaku’s won best supporting actress for her performance as herbalist and healer Annie.
The British-Nigerian actor said that in the role she found “a part of my hopes, my ancestral power and my connection, parts I thought I had lost or tried to dim as an immigrant trying to fit in.”
In a major upset, Robert Aramayo won the best actor category for his performance in “I Swear,” a fact-based British indie drama about a campaigner for people with Tourette syndrome.
The 33-year-old British actor looked stunned and called the victory over Ethan Hawke, Michael B. Jordan, Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet “absolutely mad.” Table-tennis drama Marty Supreme failed to take any prizes.
“I absolutely can’t believe this,” he said. “Everyone in this category blows me away.”
Much less surprising was the award for best actress going to Jessie Buckley for her role in Hamnet as the grieving mother Agnes Hathaway and wife of William Shakespeare.
She also made history as the first Irish performer to win a best actress prize at the BAFTAs
Immigration was a topic that was also raised by Akinola Davies Jr. who dedicated his BAFTA award for Outstanding Debut to his immigrant parents who “sacrificed everything” for their children’s futures.
The director won for My Father’s Shadow, a coming-of-age drama set during Nigeria’s 1993 election crisis that follows two brothers navigating Lagos with their troubled father.
He also made history at Cannes last year as the first Nigerian sinema to be selected for the prestigious sinema şenlik.
“Representing Nigeria to me is a real badge of honour,” Davies Jr. told Euronews Culture. “I am extremely proud to be Nigerian, proud to be African in general, and I think our stories are incredibly universal.”
And there was further success for Joachim Trier’s dysfunctional family drama Sentimental Value which collected the prize for the best sinema not in English.
Last month it swept the board at the European Sinema Academy winning a total of six honours including best European sinema, best director and best actor and actress.
In our review of Sentimental Value, we wrote: “Despite a predictable denouement you’ll have guessed by the end of the first act, Sentimental Value does come together as mature ode to trying one’s best and how, in some cases, life and arka can converge to create something bigger.” Read the full review here.
BAFTA awards 2026: Full list of winners
Best director
Bugonia – Yorgos Lanthimos
Hamnet – Chloé Zhao
Marty Supreme – Josh Safdie
One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson – WINNER
Sentimental Value – Joachim Trier
Sinners – Ryan Coogler
Best leading actor
Robert Aramayo – I Swear – WINNER
Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon
Michael B Jordan – Sinners
Jesse Plemons – Bugonia
Best leading actress
Jessie Buckley – Hamnet – WINNER
Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue
Chase Infiniti – One Battle After Another
Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value
Emma Stone – Bugonia
Best film
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another – WINNER
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Outstanding British film
28 Years Later
The Ballad of Wallis Island
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Uzunluk
Die My Love
H Is for Hawk
Hamnet – WINNER
I Swear
Mr Burton
Pillion
Steve
Best original screenplay
I Swear – Kirk Jones
Marty Supreme – Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie
The Secret Agent – Kleber Mendonça Filho
Sentimental Value – Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier
Sinners – Ryan Coogler – WINNER
Best adapted screenplay
The Ballad of Wallis Island – Tom Basden, Tim Key
Bugonia – Will Tracy
Hamnet – Chloé Zhao, Maggie O’Farrell
One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson – WINNER
Pillion – Harry Lighton
Best special visual effects
Avatar: Fire and Ash – WINNER
F1 Frankenstein
How to Train Your Dragon
The Lost Bus
Best supporting actress
Odessa A’zion – Marty Supreme
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value
Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners – WINNER
Carey Mulligan – The Ballad of Wallis Island
Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another
Emily Watson – Hamnet
Best supporting actor
Benicio del Toro – One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein
Paul Mescal – Hamnet
Peter Mullan – I Swear
Sean Penn – One Battle After Another – WINNER
Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value
Best sinema not in the English language
It Was Just an Accident
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value – WINNER
Sirāt
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Best children’s and family film
Arco
Boong – WINNER!
Lilo & Stitch
Zootropolis 2
Best production design
Frankenstein – WINNER
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Best make up & hair
Frankenstein – WINNER
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Sinners
Wicked: For Good
EE Rising Star award (voted for by the public)
Robert Aramayo – WINNER Miles Caton
Chase Infiniti
Archie Madekwe
Posy Sterling
Quoted from Euronews.
