Bafta 2021 Nominations Announced


Nomadland and Rocks lead the way as a highly diverse nominations list is announced.

Article Published on 09.03.2021

Last year, BAFTA faced a backlash to a lack of diversity among its nominees, particularly regarding all-white acting categories and a complete lack of female directors. Following a lengthy review, BAFTA made significant changes to its voting procedure, membership, and viewership, and the result is the exciting announcement of an incredibly strong and diverse list that sees sees sixteen of the twenty-four acting nominees come from ethnic minority groups and four women in contention for best director.

After winning at the Golden Globes, Nomadland director Chloé Zhao is the favourite to scoop the same award at the BAFTAs, but is facing strong competition from Thomas Vinterburg, Shannon Murphy, Lee Isaac Chung, Jasmila Žbanić, and Sarah Gavron. Zhao’s directorial nomination is the first of seven for Nomadland, which is also in the running for Best Film, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Sound Design, and Leading Actress for Frances McDormand. Sarah Gavron’s Rocks also received seven nominations, including Outstanding British Film, Original Screenplay, and Leading Actress for its sixteen-year-old star Bukky Bakray. Nomadland is one of six nominated for best film alongside The Father, The Mauritanian, Promising Young Woman, and The Trial Of The Chicago 7.

The Father is among four films to receive six nominations across the categories, an honour which also goes to its fellow Best Film nominee Promising Young Woman, Mank, and Minari – which is also nominated in the Film Not In The English Language category. Sir Anthony Hopkins’ heartbreaking performance in The Father receives a nomination for Leading Actor where he is joined by Sound Of Metal’s Riz Ahmed, The White Tiger’s Adarsh Gourav, Another Round's Mads Mikkelsen, The Mauritanian’s Tahar Rahim, and the late Chadwick Boseman, who recently won the Golden Globe for his final performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. The Leading Actress category sees the aforementioned Bukky Bakray and Frances McDormand joined by The Forty-Year-Old Version’s Radha Blank, Pieces Of A Woman’s Vanessa Kirby, His House’s Wunmi Mosaku, and Clemency’s Alfre Woodard.

This year’s BAFTAs will be held virtually at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Sunday 11 April.

FULL LIST OF NOMINATIONS