2025 BAFTAS: Can Ralph Fiennes Win a Much Deserved Best Actor Award?

One of our finest actors, Ralph Fiennes, is up for Best Actor at the BAFTAs. Voting has closed so this will not impact those awards. Most people expect Adrien Brody to continue his winning streak. If they are predicting anyone to break that streak it would be Timothee Chalamet and not Fiennes. But the thing is, Ralph Fiennes deserves it. Conclave leads the nominations there so if he’s going to win anywhere, he’ll win there.

A good omen was the London Film Critics Awards, where he beat both Brody and Chalamet to win it. They don’t have a pristine record with the Oscars, but it’s happened a few times, including Joaquin Phoenix for Joker most recently. Just as he’s never won an Oscar, he’s also never won a BAFTA, despite a 30 years span in nominations:

The BAFTA has an extraordinary match-up with the Oscars in terms of winning. The year before last, however, had Austin Butler winning for the Elvis but Brendan Fraser winning for The Whale at SAG and the Oscars. The SAG this year won’t happen until after Oscar ballots are turned in so what wins at the BAFTAs might influence Oscar voters. That’s if he wins.

Over at The Contending, David Phillips has written up a nice piece about Fiennes:

He goes through his entire body of work, movie by movie. As with this piece, it would have been a good thing before the ballots for BAFTA were turned in, but maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the Brits will want to award the film that leads their nominations with the guy on whose face the entire movie is centered. Fiennes work in Conclave is the best of his career, which is saying a lot.

Whether Fiennes will win or not, I do not know. I suppose Adrien Brody probably will.

In the Best Actress race, we have Demi Moore riding on star power and a good comeback story. The only problem for her is that, as with Lily Gladstone last year, she is not the singular star of The Substance. Margaret Qualley has as big of a part as Demi Moore. So it’s tricky there. It’s another question mark. By contrast, Mikey Madison IS the movie Anora. The entire thing revolves around her, it goes without saying.

Best Actress at BAFTA is not as strong of a match as Best Actor is. But I imagine if Mikey Madison wins there that ups her chances significantly to win the Oscar.

Then there is the problem for The Substance and whether or not people — men especially — can vibe with the last 20 minute of extreme, grotesque horror where Demi Moore ends up as gelatinous goo inching its way across the sidewalk to land on her star of fame. It’s hilarious, no doubt. She shows herself game for anything. She surely could win and if she does, she’ll win for this scene:

Mikey Madison, in my view, gives the performance of the year as Ani. It took me a while to see the parallels between Anora and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, not the animated version, but the original Victor Hugo story. Esmerelda is a name not unlike Anora. Igor is the Hunchback but he’s also Yura Borisov. He rescues her after she is chewed up and spit out by the wealthy oligarchs. As with most of Sean Baker’s work it is a commentary on class inequality. Anora has no power. She is at the lowest rung, which makes her easy to abuse and take advantage of. But she fights back — and survives.

This video essay by Broey Deschanel  is probably the best I’ve seen explaining Anora — deep and thoughtful insight I have been missing from the Film Twitter hive mind and the pointless Oscar game:

That eternal ache of the Disney princess is also alive in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, it was for me anyway when I saw the black and white version as a kid. I feel like Anora stands out because it is not like the rest of the movies we see now, especially where women and love are concerned. What we get is nonstop barrage of female empowerment movies — the “you go girl” of it all and trust me, there is nothing more boring than a sentence that’s already been written.

The same reason Annie Hall stood out in 1977 from the pro-feminist movies in the lineup that year is why Anora stands out. That year was the last time all five Best Actress contenders were in Best Picture nominees. Baker’s film sees its female lead as a flawed person who might not always have the upper hand, just as Woody Allen did with Annie who comes of age as a self-possessed feminist, which turns him off because he liked her when she was unformed. But Annie Hall doesn’t condemn her. It shows she has evolved back to being a regular person again. Diane Keaton won for Annie Hall that year and Mikey Madison might win this year. She has manifested a film character we will never forget.

The rest of the BAFTA nominations might show how much they liked The Brutalist vs. how much they liked Conclave.

In the Best Picture race, I’m guessing Anora might not win. The reason is that the consensus became a public story just that weekend of the guilds. Prior to that, it looked like – to most people – that it would be The Brutalist or Emilia Perez. BAFTA voting ended February 11, two days ago, while the big guild weekend was February 8th. Did they wait until after that to vote or did they vote before? This is what we’ll find out.

In years past, they went with the movie that was riding the consensus before the big guilds switched the consensus — like Boyhood over Birdman, La La Land over Moonlight, etc. So that one is a toss-up. I’ll just keep predicting Anora because I haven’t been able to predict anything else, but Conclave, the Brutalist, and Emilia Perez could all win there.

Herewith, my predictions: