Paul Thomas Anderson's counterculture comedy One Battle After Another dominated the Baftas on Sunday, winning six awards including best film, best director, best cinematography, best editing, best supporting actor and best adapted screenplay. The film, inspired by Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, had been nominated for 14 awards, the most of any contender.
Accepting the best director award, Anderson paid tribute to the film's late producer Adam Somner, who died in 2024. 'You may think your greatest export was Alfred Hitchcock or Charlie Chaplin, but to me it was Adam Somner,' he said. 'Three weeks into our film he found out he was sick, and he made it through production.'
Ryan Coogler's vampire thriller Sinners took home three awards, for best original screenplay, best original score and best supporting actress. Coogler became the first Black winner in the best original screenplay category. 'For all the writers staring at a blank page, think of who you love, think of someone you see in pain and help them feel better,' he said.
Hamnet, Chloé Zhao's adaptation of the Maggie O'Farrell novel, won two awards including outstanding British film and leading actress for Jessie Buckley. Buckley, the first Irish performer to win a leading actress Bafta, dedicated the award to her daughter, saying: 'I promise to continue to be disobedient, so you can belong to a world in all your mad, complex, wildness as a young woman.'
In one of the night's biggest upsets, Robert Aramayo beat Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke and Michael B Jordan to win best actor for his performance in I Swear, the British Tourette syndrome biopic. Through tears, a shocked Aramayo said: 'I absolutely can't believe it, I can't believe I'm in the same category as you never mind being stood here.'
