La La Land leads BAFTA nominations

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have 2 of La La Land’s 11 BAFTA nominations

Fresh from its success at the Golden Globes, Damien Chazelle’s musical love-letter to Hollywood, La La Land, is leading the pack with eleven BAFTA nominations, including Best Film, Best Director and Screenplay for Chazelle, Best Actor for Ryan Gosling and Best Actress for Emma Stone.

The next most-nominated films both starred Amy Adams. Both the sci-fi drama Arrival, for which she received a Best Actress nod, and Tom Ford’s story-within-a-story thriller Nocturnal Animals, are up for nine awards. Kenneth Lonergan’s acting tour-de-force Manchester By The Sea is next with six nominations, including Best Director and Screenplay for him, Casey Affleck for Best Actor and Michelle Williams for Best Supporting Actress. This rises to seven nominations if you include supporting actor Lucas Hedges, who’s up for BAFTA’s Rising Star award.

After a good showing from British stars at the Golden Globes, the British Academy – which might be expected to nod towards homegrown talent, has also nominated a number of British actors, but mostly playing Americans, or at least in American productions. Andrew Garfield is up for Best Actor in Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge, Emily Blunt’s performance in The Girl on the Train has earned her a Best Actress nomination, Moonlight’s Naomie Harris and I, Daniel Blake’s Hayley Squires are among the five nominees for Best Supporting Actress, while three of the five actors in the running for Best Supporting Actor hail from the UK; Lion’s Dev Patel, Hugh Grant for Florence Foster Jenkins and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who beat the competition to take a Golden Globe for his role in Nocturnal Animals at the weekend.

Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake is leading the British charge as the only homegrown film to make it onto the Best Film short-list, alongside La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, Arrival and Moonlight. It’s also in the running for BAFTA’s Outstanding British Film category, against Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, the upcoming post-Holocaust drama Denial, the documentary Notes on Blindness, the Iran-language Under the Shadow and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter prequel, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Under the Shadow and Notes on Blindness are also recognised in the category that honours debut films, alongside writer Mike Carey’s The Girl With All The Gifts, George Amponsah’s documentary The Hard Stop and John Donnelly and Ben A Williams’ The Pass.

Every set of film awards has its own quirks, and for the BAFTAs, it has two.

Andrea Arnold’s American Honey was recognised at Cannes and fared well at the BIFAs but could scrape a mention only in BAFTA’s British category.

Firstly, there are certain categories that make the night feel oddly parochial – honouring the Outstanding British Film in addition to simply the Best Film seems to be an opportunity to recognise the plucky Brits who weren’t quite good enough to cut it against competition from across the pond – except, in the case of I, Daniel Blake, which made it onto both lists. This could give rise to the situation where Ken Loach’s anti-austerity drama could be named Best Film but miss out in the Outstanding British Film category, raising the question as to why the better British film wasn’t named in the Best Film shortlist; answer: because BAFTA wants the Best Film nominees to fit better with the Oscars and the Globes.

Then there are the anomalies that come out of the release schedule; to qualify for an Oscar, a film simply has to have been released for a week in the US during the calendar year, but to be eligible for the BAFTAs, films can be released any time from 1st January 2016 until awards night, on 12th February 2017. This goes some way to ensuring that more of the nominees can coincide with the Oscars and Golden Globes, rather than making UK viewers feel left behind and the BAFTAs seem irrelevant. But a result of this is that most of the big nominees have not even been released in the UK when the nominations are announced (La La Land and Manchester By The Sea come out later this week but the wait goes on for many of the others), which makes British audiences feel left behind anyway – but it also means that in some categories, such as Foreign Language Film, last year’s Oscar winner Son of Saul is up against another 2016 nominee Mustang, along with the 2015 Cannes winner Dheepan and two of last year’s Cannes selections, Julieta and Toni Erdmann – a film that won’t be seen by UK audiences until a week before the ceremony. So the result of the current system is that many of the nominees have not yet been released in the UK, while others were recognised during last year’s awards season – and the Best Film can’t be described as the “Best Film of 2016,” but the “Best Film of the past 58 weeks.”.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall on the 12th February, from the following full nominations list:

BEST FILM
ARRIVAL Dan Levine, Shawn Levy, David Linde, Aaron Ryder
I, DANIEL BLAKE Rebecca O’Brien
LA LA LAND Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz, Marc Platt
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Lauren Beck, Matt Damon, Chris Moore, Kimberly Steward,
Kevin J. Walsh

MOONLIGHT Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adele Romanski

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
AMERICAN HONEY Andrea Arnold, Lars Knudsen, Pouya Shahbazian, Jay Van Hoy
DENIAL Mick Jackson, Gary Foster, Russ Krasnoff, David Hare
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM David Yates, David Heyman, Steve Kloves, J.K. Rowling, Lionel Wigram
I, DANIEL BLAKE Ken Loach, Rebecca O’Brien, Paul Laverty
NOTES ON BLINDNESS Peter Middleton, James Spinney, Mike Brett, Jo-Jo Ellison, Steve Jamison
UNDER THE SHADOW Babak Anvari, Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill, Lucan Toh

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER 
The Girl With All the Gifts: MIKE CAREY (Writer), CAMILLE GATIN (Producer)
The Hard Stop: GEORGE AMPONSAH (Writer/Director/Producer), DIONNE WALKER (Writer/Producer)
Notes on Blindness: PETER MIDDLETON (Writer/Director/Producer), JAMES SPINNEY (Writer/Director), JO-JO ELLISON (Producer)
The Pass: JOHN DONNELLY (Writer), BEN A. WILLIAMS (Director)
Under the Shadow: BABAK ANVARI (Writer/Director), EMILY LEO, OLIVER ROSKILL, LUCAN TOH (Producers)

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
DHEEPAN Jacques Audiard, Pascal Caucheteux
JULIETA Pedro Almodóvar
MUSTANG Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Charles Gillibert
SON OF SAUL László Nemes, Gábor Sipos
TONI ERDMANN Maren Ade, Janine Jackowski 

DOCUMENTARY
13th Ava DuVernay
THE BEATLES: EIGHT DAYS A WEEK- THE TOURING YEARS Ron Howard
THE EAGLE HUNTRESS Otto Bell, Stacey Reiss
NOTES ON BLINDNESS Peter Middleton, James Spinney
WEINER Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg

ANIMATED FILM
FINDING DORY Andrew Stanton
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS Travis Knight
MOANA Ron Clements, John Musker
ZOOTROPOLIS Byron Howard, Rich Moore

DIRECTOR
ARRIVAL Denis Villeneuve
I, DANIEL BLAKE Ken Loach
LA LA LAND Damien Chazelle
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Kenneth Lonergan
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Tom Ford

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
HELL OR HIGH WATER Taylor Sheridan
I, DANIEL BLAKE Paul Laverty
LA LA LAND Damien Chazelle
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Kenneth Lonergan
MOONLIGHT Barry Jenkins

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
ARRIVAL Eric Heisserer
HACKSAW RIDGE Andrew Knight, Robert Schenkkan
HIDDEN FIGURES Theodore Melfi, Allison Schroeder 
LION Luke Davies
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Tom Ford

LEADING ACTOR
ANDREW GARFIELD Hacksaw Ridge
CASEY AFFLECK Manchester by the Sea
JAKE GYLLENHAAL Nocturnal Animals
RYAN GOSLING La La Land
VIGGO MORTENSEN Captain Fantastic

LEADING ACTRESS
AMY ADAMS Arrival
EMILY BLUNT The Girl on the Train
EMMA STONE La La Land
MERYL STREEP Florence Foster Jenkins
NATALIE PORTMAN Jackie

SUPPORTING ACTOR
AARON TAYLOR-JOHNSON Nocturnal Animals
DEV PATEL Lion
HUGH GRANT Florence Foster Jenkins
JEFF BRIDGES Hell or High Water
MAHERSHALA ALI Moonlight

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
HAYLEY SQUIRES I, Daniel Blake
MICHELLE WILLIAMS Manchester by the Sea
NAOMIE HARRIS Moonlight
NICOLE KIDMAN Lion
VIOLA DAVIS Fences

ORIGINAL MUSIC 
ARRIVAL Jóhann Jóhannsson
JACKIE Mica Levi
LA LA LAND Justin Hurwitz
LION Dustin O’Halloran, Hauschka
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Abel Korzeniowski

CINEMATOGRAPHY
ARRIVAL Bradford Young
HELL OR HIGH WATER Giles Nuttgens
LA LA LAND Linus Sandgren
LION Greig Fraser
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Seamus McGarvey

EDITING
ARRIVAL Joe Walker
HACKSAW RIDGE John Gilbert
LA LA LAND Tom Cross
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Jennifer Lame
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Joan Sobel

PRODUCTION DESIGN
DOCTOR STRANGE Charles Wood, John Bush
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Stuart Craig, Anna Pinnock
HAIL, CAESAR! Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh
LA LA LAND David Wasco, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Shane Valentino, Meg Everist

COSTUME DESIGN
ALLIED Joanna Johnston
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Colleen Atwood
FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS Consolata Boyle
JACKIE Madeline Fontaine
LA LA LAND Mary Zophres

MAKE UP & HAIR
DOCTOR STRANGE Jeremy Woodhead
FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS J. Roy Helland, Daniel Phillips
HACKSAW RIDGE Shane Thomas
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Donald Mowat, Yolanda Toussieng
ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY Nominees tbc

SOUND
ARRIVAL Sylvain Bellemare, Claude La Haye, Bernard Gariépy Strobl
DEEPWATER HORIZON Dror Mohar​Mike Prestwood Smith, Wylie Stateman, David Wyman
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Niv Adiri, Glenn Freemantle, Simon Hayes, Andy Nelson, Ian Tapp
HACKSAW RIDGE Peter Grace, Robert Mackenzie, Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright
LA LA LAND Mildred Iatrou Morgan, Ai-Ling Lee, Steve A. Morrow, Andy Nelson

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
ARRIVAL Louis Morin 
DOCTOR STRANGE Richard Bluff, Stephane Ceretti, Paul Corbould, Jonathan Fawkner
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Tim Burke, Pablo Grillo, Christian Manz, David Watkins
THE JUNGLE BOOK Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon, Andrew R. Jones, Adam Valdez
ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY Neil Corbould, Hal Hickel, Mohen Leo, John Knoll, Nigel Sumner

BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION 
THE ALAN DIMENSION Jac Clinch, Jonathan Harbottle, Millie Marsh
A LOVE STORY Khaled Gad, Anushka Kishani Naanayakkara, Elena Ruscombe-King 
TOUGH Jennifer Zheng

BRITISH SHORT FILM 
CONSUMED Richard John Seymour
HOME Shpat Deda, Afolabi Kuti, Daniel Mulloy, Scott O’Donnell
MOUTH OF HELL Bart Gavigan, Samir Mehanovic, Ailie Smith, Michael Wilson
THE PARTY Farah Abushwesha, Emmet Fleming, Andrea Harkin, Conor MacNeill
STANDBY Jack Hannon, Charlotte Regan

EE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public) 
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY
LAIA COSTA
LUCAS HEDGES
RUTH NEGGA
TOM HOLLAND