2026 BAFTAs Winners: ‘One Battle After Another’ Wins Best Film, Besting ‘Sinners’

Paul Thomas Anderson’s comedy drama won six awards at the British equivalent of the Oscars. The best actor choice, however, was a surprise.

“One Battle After Another” won the best film honors at this year’s EE British Academy Film Awards on Sunday at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

The movie, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor, took home six awards at Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, commonly known as the BAFTAs. Its awards included best director, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actor for Sean Penn.

In securing the main award, “One Battle After Another” beat “Sinners,” “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme “ and “Sentimental Value.”

The director Paul Thomas Anderson, accepting the best film prize, had a few choice words for anybody who claims movies aren’t good anymore. He then called for the audience to join him “at the bar.”

Many movie fans viewed this year’s awards season as a face-off between “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners.” Paul Thomas Anderson’s caper secured 14 nominations for this year’s BAFTAs, one more than Ryan Coogler’s vampire movie.

But for the Oscars, “Sinners” has a record breaking 16 nominations, three more than “One Battle After Another.”

As well as winning best film on Sunday, “One Battle After Another” won best picture, musical or comedy, at last month’s Golden Globes and the main prizes at this year’s Critic’s Choice and Directors Guild of America awards, too.

The movie’s BAFTA victories will increase it momentum running into this year’s Academy Awards, scheduled for March 15.

On Sunday, “Sinners” won three awards including best supporting actress for Wunmi Mosaku and best original screenplay. Accepting that award, Ryan Coogler, the film’s writer and director, had a message for struggling screenwriters. “When you look at that blank page,” he said, “think of who you love, think of anybody you see in pain, that you identify with and wish they felt better, and let that love motivate you.”

In the best director category, Anderson beat Ryan Coogler (“Sinners”), Chloé Zhao (“Hamnet”), Joachim Trier (“Sentimental Value”), Josh Safdie (“Marty Supreme”) and Yorgos Lanthimos (“Bugonia”).

In the night’s only shock, the leading actor prize went to Robert Aramayo, the British star of “I Swear,” a movie about an activist with Tourette’s syndrome. “I Swear” is scheduled for a spring release in the United States and Aramayo is perhaps best known to American audiences for roles in “Game of Thrones” and Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”

Aramayo looked stunned as he ran onstage, realizing he had beaten Leonardo DiCaprio (“One Battle After Another”), Timothée Chalamet (“Marty Supreme”), Michael B. Jordan (“Sinners”), Ethan Hawke (“Blue Moon”) and Jesse Plemons (“Bugonia”). “Absolute madness,” Aramayo said, then addressed his fellow nominees in the audience. “I can’t believe that I’m looking at people like you, and I’m in the same category as you, never mind that I’m stood here.”

The leading actress category had a more predictable winner: Jessie Buckley for her part as Shakespeare’s wife in “Hamnet.” Buckley, who also won best actress in a drama at this year’s Golden Globes, bested Emma Stone (“Bugonia”), Renate Reinsve (“Sentimental Value”), Kate Hudson (“Song Sung Blue”), Rose Byrne (“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”) and Chase Infiniti (“One Battle After Another”).

Buckley dedicated her prize to “the women past, present and future that have taught me and continue to teach me how to do it differently,” then named several other female actors at the ceremony, before shouting to the audience to help her name anyone she had forgotten.

This year’s BAFTAs contained some unusual moments, including when Paddington Bear — well, the performers who portray him in a West End musical — presented the award for best children’s and family film to “Boong,” an Indian coming-of-age movie. The child-size bear struggled to open the envelope containing the announcement. “It’s not easy with paws,” he said, then stood to the side as Lakshmipriya Devi, the director of “Boong,” gave a serious speech about ethnic conflict in India.

The event also played out to shouts and involuntary vocalizations from John Davidson, the British Tourette’s campaigner whose life story is the basis for “I Swear.” At several points Alan Cumming, the host, apologized to TV viewers for curse words from Davidson, but also thanked everyone watching for understanding the condition.

Prince William, the heir to the British throne, was also in the audience despite the arrest this week of his uncle, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, over allegations that he shared government information with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender. William is the president of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the nonprofit behind the BAFTAs, and so regularly attends the ceremony.

Before the ceremony, William spoke to British royal reporters about some of the nominated movies, admitting that he had not yet watched “Hamnet,” a movie about Shakespeare’s family and grief, because he needed to be in a calm state to do so. He added that his wife, Princess Catherine, had seen it this week and was left “in floods of tears,” according to The Daily Mail.

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