Baftas 2025: When are they, who is hosting and how to watch

Yahoo

28-01-2025

Warring Cardinals, transgender cartel bosses, troubled architects – and Bob Dylan. This year's Bafta film nominations span various genres and styles, from your typical awards season-fodder's sprawling epic (The Brutalist) to an edgy screwball caper (Anora), an over-the-top musical (Emilia Pérez, though no nod for Wicked in the top category) and, inevitably, a big-budget musical biopic (A Complete Unknown).
Unlike the Golden Globes, which threw its weight behind Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist, or the Oscars, which is poised to richly reward those same two films, British cinema's most important evening has opted to choose a different favourite: Edward Berger's camp papal thriller, Conclave, which leads the pack with 12 nominations.
The nominees for its bread-and-butter category of Outstanding British Film, meanwhile, include Irish-language rap comedy Kneecap, Steve McQueen's war film Blitz and Mike Leigh's darkly funny drama Hard Truths.
The Baftas is traditionally a more sensible, grown-up affair than its Los Angeles-based counterparts (Ariana DeBose's catastrophic 2023 rap aside), so don't expect to see the Globes' random fact boxes about each nominee, or a random line-up of 'A-list' guest presenters.
But with such a varied list of nominations, and no clear frontrunner – unlike last year, when Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer dominated every conservation – the Baftas does promise to be an evening full of surprises. Here's everything you need to know about the ceremony, and for the full list of Bafta's 2025 nominations, click here.
The 2025 Baftas will be held on Sunday February 16, at London's Southbank Centre.
The 2025 Baftas will be held at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall. It has been the home of the awards ceremony since 2023, when Bafta ended its six-year stint at the Royal Albert Hall.
Yes, the Baftas are on TV, both in the UK and US. The ceremony will be broadcast live on BBC One in the UK from 7pm, and will be available on iPlayer. In the US, it will be broadcast on BritBox.
David Tennant, who also hosted the 2024 ceremony, will don his finest tux to do the honours. Only time will tell if he brings his adorable dog, Bark Ruffalo, along with him for the second year running – or if his jokes manage to land as easily as they did in 2024, when he atoned for the sins of dreadful hosts of years past (cough, Richard E Grant and Joanna Lumley) with an intelligent, down-to-earth speech and delivery.
This year's ceremony will feature at least one brand new category: the Best Children's and Family Film, intended to 'celebrate the very best films appealing to inter-generational audiences'. Some surprising omissions include the box office-topping Paddington in Peru, Inside Out 2 and Moana 2 (though the latter pair are nominated in the Animated category). Some of the nominations include Richard Curtis's That Christmas, DreamWorks' wonderful The Wild Robot and Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.
One highlight of each year's ceremony is the EE Rising Star Award – a shot-in-the-arm for some of British film, and Hollywood's, most exciting new acting talent. This year's nominees are as follows: Marisa Abela, Jharrel Jerome, David Jonsson, Mikey Madison and Nabhaan Rizwan. Last year's winner Mia McKenna Bruce (How to Have Sex) will next star in Claire Denis' next feature The Cry of the Guard, alongside Matt Dillon, while previous winners range from Bond star Lashana Lynch to Sex Education's Emma Mackey and Spider-Man (and future lead in Nolan's take on The Odyssey) Tom Holland.
Details of this year's special guests or entertainers are yet to be announced, although the prestigious Bafta Fellowship will be awarded to actor, comedian, presenter and producer Warwick Davis, best known for his roles in the Star Wars and Harry Potter film franchises and Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's sitcom, Life is Short. He joins the esteemed likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Powell and Pressburger, Judi Dench and Samantha Morton in receiving the award.