The 2020 BAFTA nominees have been announced, with Joker landing eleven nominations (including, Best Film and Actor). Todd Phillips’ DC movie has been a bonafide Oscar contender since it hit the festival circuit, winning the Golden Lion at Venice last September. It’s largely maintained its momentum since then, in spite of its polarizing (but overall positive) critical and audience reception. Joker was passed over for the National Board of Review’s top ten of 2019 (with The Irishman being named Best Film), but made the cut on the American Film Institute’s list shortly after and went on to pick up multiple Golden Globe nominations.
With Joker winning Globes for Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score and Joaquin Phoenix’s performance at Sunday night’s ceremony, its Academy Award prospects are now firmly cemented. Even so, it’s not the current front-runner to take home Best Picture, with Sam Mendes’ 1917 and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood leading the pack after their own big victories at the Golden Globes. Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman isn’t down for the count either, having just secured several BAFTA award nods.
Variety reports Joker landed eleven BAFTA nominations altogether, with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Irishman snagging ten and 1917 bringing in nine nods. The four films are joined by Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite on the roster of Best Film nominees, and all five are in the running for Best Director, just like they were at the Golden Globes. Elsewhere, Taron Egerton is going up against Phoenix for Best Actor, following his Golden Globes win for Rocketman in the Musical/Comedy category. Their fellow Globe winners Laura Dern (Marriage Story), Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), and Renée Zellweger (Judy) are likewise up for their acting at the BAFTAs.
That means Awkwafina is the only actor who won at the Golden Globes (for her work on The Farewell), but didn’t make the cut at the BAFTAs. Sadly, her being snubbed is an extension of the overriding issue with this year’s BAFTA nominees, which are predominantly white and male. The Golden Globes were rightly criticized for failing to nominate a single woman for Best Director and their overall lack of diversity, and the BAFTAs are now being taken to task for the same thing. BAFTA chief Amanda Berry tried to shift the blame in her statement on the matter to the BBC, arguing “Film is an incredible medium to tell the stories of our society and our world, but we need people of all backgrounds to be working in the industry to enable us to do that”. At the same time, she admitted the BAFTA selections are “still not good enough” when it comes to inclusivity with respect to both race and gender, adding “We just have to keep pushing forward on this.”
This puts all the more pressure on the 2020 Oscars to make things right when they announce their own nominations this month. Joker, 1917, and the other front-runners are expected to secure multiple nods from the Academy, but there’s plenty of room for films like The Farewell and Little Women to score major nominations alongside them. As for Phoenix, he and Egerton have taken the lead in the Best Actor race following their wins at the Globes and BAFTA nods. Between the pair of them, though, Phoenix has the edge, if only because of the sheer number of times he’s been nominated for an Oscar in the past without winning. Joker itself is more of an outside shot to win Best Picture at either the BAFTAs and/or Academy Awards, but there’s still a chance it could pull an upset over one of the more likely candidates.
Source: Variety
