Baftas winners 2025 — Conclave and The Brutalist share the top honours

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In the latest instalment of a bad-tempered film awards season, the biggest spoils at the 2025 Baftas were shared between Conclave and The Brutalist. But there was also success in London for Emilia Pérez — the garish Netflix musical that has helped make this year among the most troubled Oscar races in recent memory.

The award for Best Film went to Conclave, the well-liked account of a papal election at the Vatican. (It also won Best British Film.) Best Director, however, was given to Brady Corbet for The Brutalist, the epic study of a Hungarian-Jewish architect who leaves postwar Europe for the US. With the Oscars scheduled for March 2, that split between the two grandest prizes leaves the likely direction of the Academy Awards no clearer.

In any case, a major subplot remained the enduring popularity of Emilia Pérez, the story of a Mexican cartel leader who transitions to become a woman. The movie won Best Film Not In The English Language before Zoe Saldaña was also named Best Supporting Actress. 

In a year in which several awards contenders have been dogged by controversy, director Jacques Audiard’s movie had seemed set to derail completely when star Karla Sofía Gascón was found to have made inflammatory social media posts concerning race, Islam and the Oscars. She also appeared to accuse rival actors of foul play. Amid the fallout, Audiard and Netflix both tried put some distance between the film and Gascón who, though shortlisted for a Best Actress Bafta, did not attend the ceremony.

That award was eventually won by Mikey Madison for Anora. The story of a New York sex worker and the son of a Russian oligarch, it too has faced criticism for not using an intimacy co-ordinator while shooting sex scenes, now widely seen as best practice in Hollywood. 

The prize for Best Actor went to Adrien Brody for The Brutalist — another film where acclaim has also given way to unease. Much of that has stemmed from the film’s use of AI in perfecting Brody’s Hungarian dialogue. Still, Bafta voters clearly responded to the movie, as well as to a forceful awards campaign that positioned it as the closest thing in 2025 to Oppenheimer, the Christopher Nolan film that last year swept all before it at multiple awards ceremonies. 

But the Baftas have maintained the sense of this year in film as, if nothing else, an open field. In addition to the acting awards shared by Emilia Pérez, The Brutalist and Anora, still another movie provided the Best Supporting Actor, with Kieran Culkin winning for bittersweet drama A Real Pain.

As with every Baftas, the night walked a line between the reflected glamour of Hollywood, and a narrower celebration of UK film. Yet some British talent might feel unfairly overlooked. Conclave’s Ralph Fiennes was passed over as Best Actor for Brody, and there was no further recognition for Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the lead in veteran director Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, who was nominated for Best Actress.

Meanwhile, the real world beyond the glitz and gushing appeared only fleetingly. Hosting the ceremony, British actor David Tennant made early reference to Donald Trump as a “villain”, but Bafta voters proved more risk-averse. Actor Sebastian Stan was also nominated as Best Actor for playing the future US president in the largely unflattering The Apprentice, but ultimately also lost out. 

And a telling moment may have come with the award for Best Documentary. Last year, the prize was won by 20 Days in Mariupol, the eyewitness report of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Then, Ukrainian director Mstyslav Chernov said in his acceptance speech: “Let’s keep fighting.” Twelve months on, that fight faces an uncertain future — while the same award was won this year by the moving but non-political Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.