Will ‘Living’ take down BAFTA juggernaut ‘All Quiet’ in Best Adapted Screenplay?

For the past five years in a row, the BAFTA Awards have correctly predicted the Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay, recognizing “Call Me by Your Name,” “BlacKkKlansman,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “The Father” and “CODA.” But that winning streak may have already hit a snag in 2023, as the frontrunner for the Oscar — Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” — didn’t even earn a nomination on the other side of the Atlantic. In fact, only two of the five Oscar nominees overlap with the BAFTA lineup: “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Living.” Even though the former is tied as the most nominated film in the British academy’s history with 14 citations, could “Living” and its Nobel laureate screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro ultimately prevail?

Our collective users certainly think so, although it looks to be a tight race between the two contenders. According to our combined odds, “Living” holds the lead over “All Quiet” by fewer than 200 predictors. It is far and away the frontrunner amongst our Experts, with a whopping 12 out of 13 predicting it to win, but the balance is far more even with our editors, where there’s a stalemate of five backing each one.

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SEE Kazuo Ishiguro joins rare Oscar club with nomination for ‘Living’

The overwhelming advantage “All Quiet” has over “Living” in terms of total nominations should not be held against it in the screenplay race. Although “Living” only reaped three bids for Best British Film, Best Actor (Bill Nighy) and Best Adapted Screenplay, it wouldn’t be the first time in recent memory that a small contender won this prize. Just last year, “CODA” prevailed with the same number of nominations, and it similarly did not received a Best Film bid. “Jojo Rabbit” did the same with six nominations, as did “Lion” (2016) with five and “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012) with three. “Living” does have an edge with that Best British Film nomination, too, even though “All Quiet” was obviously not eligible there as a German film.

The local dimension of “Living” especially redounds in favor of its screenwriter as Ishiguro is one of Britain’s most acclaimed contemporary authors. He has been nominated for the prestigious U.K.-based Booker Prize five times, including for three shortlisted works and one longlisted work, and the winning novel in 1989 for “The Remains of the Day.” He has also won the Royal Society of Literature’s Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for “A Pale View of Hills,” and the U.K. and Ireland’s Costa (formerly Whitbread) Book Award for “An Artist of the Floating World.” The screenwriter has now also become just one of six individuals to earn both the Nobel Prize for Literature and an Oscar nomination, joining the likes of George Bernard Shaw, John Steinbeck, Jean-Paul Sartre, Harold Pinter and Bob Dylan. Esteemed company, indeed.

WATCH our exclusive video interview with Oscar-nominee Bill Nighy (‘Living’)

Recent history also offers a helpful reminder that while the most nominated film of the year often does take home the most prizes of the evening, it rarely sweeps. Last year, “Dune” earned 11 bids but only won five, “Nomadland” (2020) led with seven nominations but left three prizes on the table; “The Favorite” (2018) won seven out of its possible 12; “La La Land” (2016) only took home five awards from 12 nominations; and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014) and “Gravity” (2013) won five and six prizes out of their 11 citations each in their respective years.

There are other recent cases in which the nomination leader falls relatively flat at the ceremony itself too. “Joker” (2019) had an impressive 11 bids but only claimed three prizes, while “The Shape of Water” (2017) had 12 but only took home three. “Bridge of Spies” and “Carol” were tied with nine nominations apiece seven years ago, but the former only took home one and the latter left empty-handed. “Lincoln” (2012) similarly scored double-digit bids with 10 but only won one for the undeniable Daniel Day-Lewis. As for the film that “All Quiet” has tied with for most nominations ever — Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” — that took home four of its 14 nominations, notably missing out on the prize for, you guessed it, adapted screenplay.

PREDICTthe 2023 BAFTA winners by Feb. 19

Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?

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