Baftas: Conclave wins Best Film in latest awards season shake-up

LONDON – Conclave won the best movie title at the EE British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Festival Hall in London on Feb 16, adding the latest twist to a chaotic awards season in which no one movie has dominated the major ceremonies.

The film, which stars English actor Ralph Fiennes and was directed by Germany-born film-maker Edward Berger, is a thriller about the selection of a new pope.

It took home four awards at Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, commonly known as the Baftas. The other three prizes were in minor categories – Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay and Outstanding British Film.

In securing the Best Film award, Conclave beat American film-maker Sean Baker’s Anora, a dramedy in which an exotic dancer (Mikey Madison) marries the son of a Russian oligarch, and American film-maker Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, about a Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) rebuilding his life in the United States after the Holocaust.

It also triumphed over the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and Emilia Perez.

Conclave had not previously featured among the major winners this awards season. It secured only one Golden Globe – for Best Screenplay – at a ceremony in which Emilia Perez and The Brutalist were the big winners.

More recently, the momentum for the Best Picture Oscar had swung to Anora, after it picked up major honours at 2025’s Critics’ Choice ceremony and the Directors Guild of America and Producers Guild of America awards.

Yet, the prominence of Conclave at the Baftas will give the movie momentum going into the Academy Awards, scheduled for March 2. There is significant overlap between the voting bodies for both awards, and the Baftas and Oscars regularly have the same winners.

The cast and crew of Conclave looked stunned when the Best Film prize was announced. Italian actress Isabella Rossellini, who plays a nun in the movie, stood onstage smiling gleefully throughout Berger’s acceptance speech, in which he said he was deeply humbled to see his film receive the honour.

In the Best Director category, Corbet was the victor for The Brutalist, beating Berger, Baker (Anora), Jacques Audiard (Emilia Perez), Denis Villeneuve (Dune: Part Two) and Coralie Fargeat (The Substance, a body-horror gross-out about a washed-up TV star, played by American actress Demi Moore).

The Brutalist had a strong night, taking home four awards – the same as Conclave – with Brody winning the prize for Best Leading Actor. In that category, he beat Fiennes (Conclave), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing), Hugh Grant (Heretic), Timothee Chalamet (A Complete Unknown) and Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice).

In the Leading Actress category, Madison won for her role in Anora, besting Moore, as well as Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths) and Saoirse Ronan (The Outrun).

In her acceptance speech, Madison asked for a moment “to recognise the sex worker community”, adding: “I see you. You deserve respect and human decency.”

Spanish actress Karla Sofia Gascon was also a nominee for Best Actress for Emilia Perez, although she did not attend the ceremony, held just weeks after a journalist resurfaced some old social media posts in which Gascon made derogatory comments about Muslims and Mr George Floyd, an African American killed by a white police officer, among others.

When Audiard accepted the award for Best Film Not In The English language, he thanked “my dear Karla Sofia” alongside the rest of the Emilia Perez stars.

Zoe Saldana also name-checked Gascon, among others, when she accepted the Best Supporting Actress award. The Best Supporting Actor prize went to Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain. NYTIMES