The PGA and ACTOR split on “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” being their Best Picture/Best Ensemble winners, but that wasn’t nearly as wild as the acting race splits between BAFTA and ACTOR this year. While both BAFTA and ACTOR agreed on Jessie Buckley and Sean Penn in Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, they went in entirely different directions when Best Actor went to the not Oscar-nominated Robert Aramayo at BAFTA for “I Swear” and Michael B. Jordan for “Sinners” at ACTOR instead of presumed favorite Timothée Chalamet for “Marty Supreme,” as well as when Best Supporting Actress went to Wunmi Mosaku for “Sinners” at BAFTA and Amy Madigan at ACTOR for “Weapons” instead of presumed favorite, Golden Globe winner for “One Battle After Another,” Teyana Taylor.
As is the case in most years, the biggest mysteries of Oscar night involve figuring out whether BAFTA or ACTOR were right in their split acting votes – and if the answers could make a difference in deciding Best Picture. Yet while Best Picture splits between PGA and ACTOR usually go to the PGA winner, BAFTA and ACTOR go wildly back and forth almost every year in being the most accurate acting precursor, especially in the last few years.
In the expanded ballot era, this is how accurate BAFTA and ACTOR have been with the Oscars, and how their results compare to one another.
2024: BAFTA 4/4, ACTOR 2/4 – Disagreed on Best Actor and Best Actress
2023: BAFTA 4/4, ACTOR 3/4 – Disagreed on Best Actress
2022: BAFTA 0/4, ACTOR 4/4
2021: BAFTA 3/4, ACTOR 4/4 – Disagreed on Best Actress
2020: BAFTA 4/4, ACTOR 2/4 – Disagreed on Best Actor and Best Actress
2019: BAFTA 4/4, ACTOR 4/4
2018: BAFTA 3/4, ACTOR 2/4 – Disagreed on Best Actress, and neither got Best Supporting Actress right
2017: BAFTA 4/4, ACTOR 4/4
2016: BAFTA 3/4, ACTOR 3/4 – Disagreed on Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor
2015: BAFTA 3/4, ACTOR 3/4 – Disagreed on Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress
2014: BAFTA 4/4, ACTOR 4/4
2013: BAFTA 1/4, ACTOR 4/4 – Disagreed on Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress
2012: BAFTA 3/4, ACTOR 3/4 – Disagreed on Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor
2011: BAFTA 4/4, ACTOR 3/4 – Disagreed on Best Actress
2010: BAFTA 2/4, ACTOR 4/4 – Disagreed on Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress
2009: BAFTA 2/4, ACTOR 4/4 – Disagreed on Best Actor and Best Actress
In the sixteen years since Best Picture expanded, both BAFTA and ACTOR have had five years each as the most accurate Oscar acting precursor, with the other six years tied, making them as dead even as they can get. Though in the 25 overall acting races where BAFTA and ACTOR have split, the ACTOR winner is 15-10 at the Oscars, and it is only that close because BAFTA winners Emma Stone, Mikey Madison, and Adam Driver beat ACTOR winners Lily Gladstone, Demi Moore, and Chalamet over the last two years.
In the last two years, it has been safe to say that winning a BAFTA is far more important for an actor than winning the ACTOR award. However, that swing came after a historic 2022 season in which BAFTA didn’t get a single acting winner right, due in large part to not picking any future Oscar winner from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” But that came two years after BAFTA was dead on in the two wildest acting showdowns of 2020, as it picked eventual Oscar winners Anthony Hopkins (“The Father“) and Frances McDormand (“Nomadland“) over ACTOR winners Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”
Maybe this lack of consistency and BAFTA’s luck in the last two years means it is the ACTOR awards’ turn to be the tiebreaker this year. There’s certainly no chance BAFTA will be proven right in Best Actor, given Aramayo isn’t nominated or eligible this year, which suggests Jordan now has Best Actor in his grasp after the ACTOR awards. Otherwise, it would have to be Chalamet, or even Wagner Moura or Leonardo DiCaprio, despite none of them having won BAFTA or ACTOR, which would normally mean they’d be out of the running for the Oscar.
In the expanded era, Regina King for “If Beale Street Could Talk” is the only Oscar acting winner who won despite not first winning ACTOR or BAFTA, which was even more remarkable given she didn’t even get nominated for either. Nonetheless, since King otherwise swept the season and since BAFTA and ACTOR still split between Rachel Weisz (“The Favourite“) and the not-Oscar-nominated Emily Blunt (“A Quiet Place“), the door was left open for King to restore order at the Oscars. Still, since those circumstances were so rare and haven’t really been repeated ever since, that precedent might not apply this year.
But in a way, the circumstances were halfway repeated in Best Supporting Actress, as ACTOR put Madigan back in the running to join King, Jessica Chastain, Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Sandra Bullock, and Melissa Leo as the rare actors to win the Oscar without getting a BAFTA nomination. Like King in 2018, Madigan largely swept critics season and early precursors before getting tripped up during industry voting, and is also the headline nominee for a movie that missed a Best Picture nomination. Madigan is also the sole Oscar nominee for “Weapons,” whereas King’s “If Beale Street Could Talk“ at least had two other nominations in Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Score to support her.
Madigan winning the Oscar without a BAFTA nomination would be exceedingly rare, yet her ACTOR win and nomination at least give her a safety net. When it comes to contenders who haven’t won either BAFTA or ACTOR, like Taylor, Chalamet, Moura, and all of Penn’s Best Supporting Actor rivals, having one of them take the Oscar anyway would contrast with every single acting winner in this era but King.
If that’s not going to happen again, then by process of elimination, no one can win Best Actor, but Jordan and Taylor can’t possibly defeat Madigan or Mosaku either. Then, if history finally goes against Madigan and breaks the Best Supporting Actress tie for BAFTA winner Mosaku, “Sinners“ will not only have two acting wins, and perhaps the exact package it needs to upset in Best Picture, but both BAFTA and ACTOR will fall short of being perfect this year.
If neither one of them gets four out of four right, that would be breaking a trend too, since either BAFTA or ACTOR, if not both, have gotten all four Oscar acting fields right every year since 2018 – the year of King’s history-breaking win and when BAFTA Best Actress winner Olivia Colman surprised ACTOR winner Glenn Close. Otherwise, 2012, 2015, and 2016 are the only other years in this era in which neither BAFTA nor ACTOR acting winners matched the Oscars exactly.
History favors Jordan and Madigan winning at the Oscars, even if Madigan defies other historical trends by winning. If both BAFTA and ACTOR get only three winners correct each, it almost certainly would be Mosaku and Jordan winning alongside BAFTA and ACTOR sweepers Buckley and Penn – and then the final Best Picture showdown between “Sinners“ and “One Battle After Another“ might really be dead even at the finish line after all.
In that regard, it is more important than ever to find out if BAFTA or ACTOR was the most accurate with actors this year. In the end, it could well turn out that things went almost the same as they usually do with maybe one or two new wrinkles, or it could be that multiple trends are shattered on Oscar night – whether it’s from one or even multiple actors winning after losing both BAFTA and ACTOR, from actors winning after not even being nominated in one or both ceremonies, or from the results possibly giving “Sinners“ a Best Picture win unlike all but a few in recent memory.
It is hard to get real clarity from history, since bragging rights between BAFTA and ACTOR in the acting races are virtually dead even in this era, and swing back and forth in some very extreme ways. Does that mean ACTOR and its winners are due for the next big swing, or will BAFTA traditions hold – and if both are right in a way, what does that mean for what happens in Best Picture mere minutes later?
Who do you think is winning in the acting categories at the Oscars this year? Will you go with the BAFTA or ACTOR winners? Will the winners help you determine what is winning Best Picture at the Oscars? Do you think it will be “Sinners” or “One Battle After Another?” Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account, click here here for the most recent tally of awards season winners, here for Next Best Picture’s precursor tracker, and here for their current Oscar predictions.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
