BAFTA Nominations

At this point last year, The Social Network was on its way to Oscar glory after sweeping the critics and winning big at the Golden Globes. Then... it only mustered 6 BAFTA nominations compared to the 14 nominations eventual Oscar Best Picture champ The King's Speech received. This year, however, it looks like nothing can stop the frontrunner. The Artist led the nomination tally with 12 followed closely by Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with 11 nods. The latter film got the boost everyone predicted today, but The Artist looks to continue its dominant run. And now the nominations...

Best Film

• The Artist
• The Descendants
• Drive
• The Help
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Best British Film

• My Week With Marilyn
• Senna
• Shame
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• We Need to Talk About Kevin

Tinker Tailor predictably doubles up and should be the favorite to win at least one of these awards, probably Best British Film with The Artist taking Best Film. This is a great result for The Descendants and The Help since they're so "American" that you'd think they would be left off (like Moneyball) was for something like Tree of Life or Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Instead those two were largely ignored.

Best Director

• Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
• Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive
• Martin Scorsese, Hugo
• Tomas Alfredson, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy
• Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Hugo got nine nominations including this one for its director, so it's a bit weird it missed out on a Best Film citation over the more lukewarm-received The Descendants. Drive surprises with Film and Direction nominations giving the film new life this awards season. I'm still quietly hoping that film makes some kind of splash at the Oscars.

Best Actor

• George Clooney, The Descendants
• Jean Dujardin, The Artist
• Michael Fassbender, Shame
• Gary Oldman. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Best Actress

• Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
• Viola Davis, The Help
• Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
• Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
• Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

The leading categories seem pretty expected except for Bérénice Bejo promotion to lead as she's being campaigned supporting for Oscars. So give or take Leonardo DiCaprio, Glenn Close, or Rooney Mara, these BAFTA nominations could very well be the Oscar ones.

Best Supporting Actor

• Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
• Jim Broadbent, The Iron Lady
• Jonah Hill, Moneyball
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Ides of March
• Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Best Supporting Actress

• Jessica Chastain, The Help
• Judi Dench, My Week With Marilyn
• Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
• Carey Mulligan, Drive
• Octavia Spencer, The Help

The supporting ones are a bit more all over the place. With all the love for Drive, it's very telling that Albert Brooks, also snubbed by SAG, was left off the list which saw room for really out-of-the-blue picks such as Jim Broadbent (then again he's British). Another automatic Anglophilic pick was Judi Dench, but that's not as weird as the BAFTAs honoring Carey Mulligan for her work in Drive over her work in Shame. Melissa McCarthy's nod here BTW means VERY good things for her.

Best Original Screenplay

• The Artist
• Bridesmaids
• The Guard
• The Iron Lady
• Midnight in Paris

Best Adapted Screenplay

• The Descendants
• The Help
• The Ides of March
• Moneyball
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

The Iron Lady making it in should be surprising, but I guess it's not especially as the three front-runners (The Artist, Midnight in Paris, and Bridesmaids) still made it in. For Adapted, it's worth noting that this group awarded the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (and also nomimated Noomi Rapace for Best Actress). This time they decided to honor another adaptation of the Larsson classic. No nod for Hugo is... curious.

Best Foreign Language Film

• Incendies
• Pina
• Potiche
• A Separation
• The Skin I Live In

Best Documentary

• George Harrison: Living in the Material World
• Project Nim
• Senna

Best Animated Feature

• The Adventures of Tintin
• Arthur Christmas
• Rango

A Separation continues its award season sweep while all of the documentaries are decidedly British. I thought that out of the James McAvoy-voiced animated films this year, Gnomeo & Juliet would eke it out over Arthur Christmas, but I was wrong.

Best Art Direction

• The Artist
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
• Hugo
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• War Horse

Best Cinematography

• The Artist
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
• Hugo
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• War Horse

Best Costume Design

• The Artist
• Hugo
• Jane Eyre
• My Week With Marilyn
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Best Film Editing

• The Artist
• Drive
• Hugo
• Senna
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Best Makeup & Hair

• The Artist
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
• Hugo
• The Iron Lady
• My Week With Marilyn

Best Music

• The Artist
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
• Hugo
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• War Horse

Best Sound

• The Artist
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
• Hugo
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• War Horse

Best Visual Effects

• The Adventures of Tintin
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
• Hugo
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes
• War Horse

Only four nominations for the final Harry Potter flick, all of them technical awards. The Artist nearly swept the techs, but for some reason they didn't didn't its Visual Effects were worthy. Tinker Tailor also missed the sweep by missing out of Best Makeup & Hair and Visual Effects. Hugo, in the meantime, did sweep. Again, how did it not get a Best Film nomination? Finally, no Tree of Life cinematography nomination is... weird.

Best Debut by a British Director, Writer or Producer

• Joe Cornish, Attack the Block
• Will Sharpe, Tom Kingsley and Sarah Brocklehurst, Black Pond
• Ralph Fiennes, Coriolanus
• Richard Ayoade, Submarine
• Paddy Considine, Tyrannosaur

Orange Wednesdays Rising Star Award

• Adam Deacon
• Chris Hemsworth
• Tom Hiddleston
• Chris O'Down
• Eddie Redmayne

The lack of Weekend for these two final awards is a bit sad, but I can't really fault those Best Debut nominations. The Rising Star award though is noticeably... manly. Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jessica Chastain were all in the running and the latter should have at least been an automatic entry after the year she has had. But you know... pretty boys for the public to vote on.