One Battle After Another wins best film at BAFTAs
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor, it takes home six awards at Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars
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[LONDON] High-energy action flick One Battle After Another won the best film honours at the 2026 EE British Academy Film Awards on Sunday (Feb 22) at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
The movie, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor, took home six awards at Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, commonly known as the BAFTAs.
Its awards included the best director, adapted screenplay and supporting actor.
In securing the main award, One Battle After Another beat vampire movie Sinners, historical tragedy Hamnet, biographical sports flick Marty Supreme and family drama Sentimental Value.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson, accepting the best film prize, had a few choice words for anybody who claims movies are not good anymore. He then called for the audience to join him “at the bar”.
Many movie fans viewed the 2026 awards season as a face-off between One Battle After Another and Sinners.
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Anderson’s caper secured 14 nominations for the 2026 BAFTAs, one more than Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler.
For the Oscars, however, Sinners has a record-breaking 16 nominations, three more than One Battle After Another.
As well as winning the best film award on Sunday, One Battle After Another won the best picture, musical or comedy award at January’s Golden Globes and the main prizes at the Critic’s Choice and Directors Guild of America Awards.
Its BAFTA victories will increase its momentum running into the 2026 Academy Awards, scheduled for Mar 15.
Sinners won three awards – including the best supporting actress for Wunmi Mosaku and the best original screenplay.
Accepting that award, Coogler, the film’s writer and director, had a message for struggling screenwriters.
“When you look at that blank page, think of who you love, think of anybody you see in pain, that you identify with and wish they felt better – and let that love motivate you,” he said.
In the best director category, Anderson beat Coogler (Sinners), Chloe Zhao (Hamnet), Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value), Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme) and Yorgos Lanthimos (Bugonia).
In the night’s only shock, the leading actor prize went to Robert Aramayo, the British star of I Swear, a movie about an activist with Tourette syndrome.
I Swear is scheduled for a spring release in the US. Aramayo is perhaps best known to American audiences for his roles in Game of Thrones and Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Aramayo looked stunned as he ran onstage, realising he had beaten DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme), Michael B Jordan (Sinners), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon) and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia).
“Absolute madness,” he said, addressing his fellow nominees in the audience. “I can’t believe that I’m looking at people like you, and I’m in the same category as you, never mind that I’m stood here.”
The leading actress category had a more predictable winner: Jessie Buckley for her part as Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet.
Having also won the best actress in a drama award at the 2026 Golden Globes, she bested Emma Stone (Bugonia), Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value), Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) and Chase Infiniti (One Battle After Another).
She dedicated her prize to “the women past, present and future that have taught me and continue to teach me how to do it differently”, then named several other female actors at the ceremony, before shouting to the audience to help her name anyone she had forgotten.
The BAFTAs contained some unusual moments, including when Paddington Bear – well, the performers who portray him in a West End musical – presented the award for the best children’s and family film to Boong, an Indian coming-of-age movie.
The child-sized bear struggled to open the envelope containing the announcement.
“It’s not easy with paws,” he said, then stood to the side as Lakshmipriya Devi, the director of Boong, gave a serious speech about ethnic conflict in India.
The event also played out to shouts and involuntary vocalisations from John Davidson, the British Tourette’s campaigner whose life story is the basis for I Swear.
At several points, host Alan Cumming apologised to TV viewers for the curse words from Davidson, but also thanked everyone watching for understanding the condition.
Prince William, the heir to the British throne, was also in the audience despite the arrest last week of his uncle, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, over allegations that he shared government information with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender.
The prince is the president of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the non-profit behind the Baftas, and so regularly attends the ceremony.
Before the ceremony, he spoke to British royal reporters about some of the nominated movies, admitting that he had not yet watched Hamnet, a movie about Shakespeare’s family and grief, because he needed to be in a calm state to do so.
He added that his wife, Princess Catherine, had seen it on Saturday and was left “in floods of tears”, Daily Mail reported. NYTIMES
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