Bafta 2023 as it happened: All Quiet on the Western Front wins Best Film

It went into the ceremony with the most Bafta nominations (14), and the German-language All Quiet on the Western Front duly delivered, winning not just Best Film but a further six awards, including Best Director – a shock result that saw several big names snubbed. Clearly its sentiment struck a chord with voters given the current conflict in Ukraine.

Martin McDonagh's Irish fable The Banshees of Inisherin still picked up four awards (including Best Supporting Actor and Actress), as did Baz Luhrmann's eye-popping biopic Elvis, with star Austin Butler winning Leading Actor. Cate Blanchett won the Leading Actress award for her formidable performance in Tár – holding off a strong challenge from Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Charlotte Wells won Outstanding Debut for her gorgeous film Aftersun, starring Paul Mescal, while Emma Mackey picked up the Rising Star Award, and Sandy Powell became the first costume designer to win the Bafta Fellowship.

The ceremony was hosted by Richard E Grant, with Alison Hammond providing peculiar interview interludes. There were performances from Ariana DeBose and Little Simz, and a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II from Helen Mirren. The Prince and Princess of Wales were in attendance for the first time in three years.

Here are the awards as they happened.

09:01 PM

And Best Film goes to...All Quiet on the Western Front!

It wasn't Banshees' night in the end.

The film, says All Quiet's producer Malte Grunert, "tells the story of young men, who, poisoned by right-wing nationalist propaganda, go to war thinking it's an adventure. And war is not an adventure. When we started embarking on making this film, that seemed a relevant message 100 years after the book was published."

Robbie says: "Wow! That record-equalling slate of nominations didn't lie: Bafta loves All Quiet on the Western Front, and even in the final round of voting, that admiration didn't tail off. Bafta has plumped for foreign-language winners in the past, but with its six other wins, this still feels like a landmark result – and, best of all, throws the Oscar race into disarray."

08:52 PM

Cate Blanchett wins Leading Actress

Blanchett notches up another award for her towering performance as a leading conductor whose past actions catch up with her in the movie Tár.

She heralds an extraordinary year for women - "and we know we're just the tip of the iceberg" - and notes this was "a very dangerous, potentially career-ending undertaking." Getting emotional, she thanks her family, saying that this film took her away "an enormous-alot", laughing at her rare verbal slip. Finally, she thanks director Todd Field: "You have changed my life."

Robbie says: "Much less tension in Best Actress, where Blanchett's victory always felt like a bit of a done deal – and rightly so, because her work in Tár is among the best in a career not exactly wanting on high points. Michelle Yeoh, her only real rival, has a better shot at the Oscars in three weeks."

08:46 PM

Austin Butler wins Leading Actor

Julianne Moore presents the Leading Actor Award to Elvis star Austin Butler - who went so deep that he STILL speaks with that distinctive drawl. "Man...this is amazing. I'm really trying to take everything in and be really present," says Butler. Among a long list of thanks, he pays tribute to movement coach Polly Bennett (who also helped Emma Corrin transform into Princess Diana - read all about that here) and to director Baz Luhrmann for his vision and dedication. Finally, he thanks the Presley family - "I hope I've made you proud."

Robbie says: "Well! As highly praised as Butler's performance in Elvis was, I really didn't see that coming. It was an incredibly strong category, but the tsunami of goodwill behind Colin Farrell in recent days felt like it might have the thing clinched. Is this the final sign of a crack in Banshees' Best Film hopes?"

08:44 PM

Emma Mackey wins the Rising Star Award

Quite right: according to Robbie's review of her Bronte movie Emily, she's "a star in the making."

Mackey, visibly stunned, gives a mercifully brief speech: this live experiment is going to be interesting given we're just 15 minutes from the end of the broadcast.

Robbie says: "Rising Star winners usually have a cohort of younger supporters to thank – they're the ones who vote for the night's only audience-decided award in greatest numbers – so perhaps Emma Mackey's Sex Education fanbase saw her through? Anyway, it's a terrific result for a young actress who really does feel like a big thing about to happen: if you're not sold, her extraordinary lead performance in Frances O'Connor's speculative Brontë-sister biopic Emily should dispel any doubts."

08:40 PM

We're now live

"Exciting news!" yelps Grant following an awkward pause as we cut back to the hall - and to live coverage. These next four awards are being presented in real time, so let's hope nobody swears...

08:36 PM

All Quiet is record-breaking

As Robbie points out: "Whether or not All Quiet goes on to win Best Film – and at this rate it really could happen – its six awards so far this evening have already made it the most successful foreign-language film in Bafta history."

Of course, it's hard to track this sweep since some of the film's awards weren't shown earlier, and are now being crammed into a confusing montage.

If you want some clarity on who's won what (but beware spoilers!), check out our winners page.

08:35 PM

And now...Little Simz performs

Honestly, this whole evening is giving me major whiplash. Barely have we had time to process that Best Director stunner, and suddenly it's over to rapper Little Simz for an entirely unrelated performance backed by Joan Armatrading.

Why? Have we been plunged into the Everything Everywhere All At Once multiverse? Will Alison Hammond grow sausage fingers?

And more seriously, does all of this come at the expense of multiple Bafta categories, cut from broadcast so Hammond can chirrup nonsense and Little Simz can...make us think we're back at last week's Brits?

Yes, looks like it: Hammond is now introducing a recap of one of those snipped awards. Oh god, and Spice Girl Geri is on the couch to what, offer her considered views on film?? Good God. There's dumbing down, and there's this utter inanity.

08:29 PM

Edward Berger wins Best Director for All Quiet on the Western Front

Well! That's the first major shock of the night.

Robbie sums up: "Presenter Angela Bassett's delivery said it all: Edward Berger winning Best Director is an extraordinary result in a category featuring such masters as Todd Field and Park Chan-wook – and Banshees’ McDonagh, of course – and in which Steven Spielberg didn’t even make the cut. Could that signal it's ultimately going to be All Quiet's night?"

08:23 PM

The Banshees of Inisherin wins Outstanding British Film

As Grant says, Patrick Stewart has the gift of making sci-fi sound like Shakespeare. He also makes this deeply dull intro sound almost insightful - true genius! He's not so good with the cues, though. "Is it me?" he asks after the lengthy intro montage, perhaps transfixed by the end clip of Emma Thompson roaring "It's in my knickers!" (courtesy of Matilda the Musical).

Anyhow, Stewart hands the trophy for Outstanding British Film to The Banshees of Inisherin. It might have been nice to spread the love a bit (Banshees is cleaning up elsewhere), but it's inarguably a triumph.

Martin McDonagh quips that his Irish cast and crew members said "Best WHAT Award?" on hearing it was up for a British gong. But his stand-in donkey Rosie came from Stoke-on-Trent. Phew!

08:10 PM

The fellowship is back

Baftas hastily scrapped their fellowship last year, after the 2021 recipient, Noel Clarke, was accused of sexual harassment. But it now returns: 2023 fellowship recipient is the wonderful British costume designer Sandy Powell, who already has three Oscars (from 15 nominations) for her work on Shakespeare in Love, The Aviator, and The Young Victoria, plus three Baftas (from 15 nominations again) for Velvet Goldmine, The Young Victoria, and The Favourite.

Cate Blanchett introduces a montage of her incredible work, with Martin Scorsese and Julianne Moore popping up to sing her praises. She's the first costume designer to receive this honour, as she notes in her graceful speech, accepting the fellowship on behalf "of my community."

08:09 PM

Avatar: The Way of Water wins Best Visual Effects

It's fair to say Robbie wasn't a fan of the film - "like being waterboarded with turquoise cement".

What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!

08:03 PM

Helen Mirren: 'It was tough not to cry'

"I'm an Elizabethan - she was there for my whole life," says Mirren, when questioned by Hammond about paying tribute to Queen Elizabeth II.

"There hadn't been that sort of film about her and her life," recalls Mirren of The Queen. "It was dangerous - we didn't know how the public would respond. I think the feeling of not wanting to let her down, as well."

08:01 PM

The Banshees of Inisherin wins Original Screenplay

Brian Cox and Hayley Atwell try a spot of good presenter/bad presenter - with the Succession star cheekily playing nice. They also get in a Method actor joke (presumably at the expense of his fellow Succession actor Jeremy Strong).

Anyhow, they hand out a screenplay gong to Banshees scribe Martin McDonagh - who says wryrly that Barry Keoghan told him that he was on his list of the top 50 directors he wanted to work with.

07:57 PM

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio wins Best Animated Film

The director thanks the Baftas for allowing the movie to participate in other categories too, stressing that animation isn't just for kids: it's art for all.

Robbie says: "Overjoyed for Guillermo Del Toro and his collaborators, since their stop-motion Pinocchio is obviously a film which takes the deep artistic potential of animation very seriously: not something that can be said for all of its fellow contenders (COUGHPussinBootsCOUGH). Bafta often has more nerve than Oscar when it comes to voting against Disney/Pixar hegemony, but with the behemoth's two big 2022 theatrical releases, Lightyear and Strange World, both (rightly) absent from the nominations list, its path to victory felt pretty smooth."

07:53 PM

Back to This Morning With Alison Hammond

I cannot stress how surreal this is. We lose all the atmosphere and tension of a live ceremony every time we meander over to Hammond's airless sofa pod.

Robbie moans: "Hammond again! Getting Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan to reminisce about that time they both won Baftas, approximately four minutes ago."

07:49 PM

Aftersun wins Outstanding British Debut

"All showbusiness people use the same Netflix account," quips Jamie Lee Curtis, before pretending to hand out the password. So far, the best gags have come from the awards presenters rather than Grant, alas.

She gives the much-deserved award for Outstanding British Debut to Charlotte Wells for her gorgeous film Aftersun. It's a eulogy to her dad, she says, and adds that the award is for mother - "literally because I overpacked."

Robbie says: "And with that, one of the evening's few dead certs lands. Everyone loves Aftersun and rightly so: endlessly charming, critically acclaimed and a serious commercial hit into the bargain (£1m for an independent debut is enormous). After all this praise you have to feel for Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells: how on earth is she going to follow it up?"

07:45 PM

All Quiet on the Western Front wins Best Cinematography

Following some rather amusing schtick from Cynthia Erivo and Eugene Levy.

Robbie wonders: "Are we going to see a joint sweep? Barry Keoghan winning Best Supporting Actor and All Quiet on the Western Front Best Film Best Cinematography keeps the tally at two all."

07:39 PM

And now, over to Alison

The BBC cuts away from the live ceremony to give us a weird chat show-style double interview: Emma Thompson and Elvis-channelling Austin Butler. It's...fine, but pure breakfast TV fluff. Is this really meant to add value for viewers? Utterly bizarre.

07:36 PM

Barry Keoghan wins Best Supporting Actor

Another win for The Banshees of Inisherin! Rather endearingly, he rattles through his list of thanks – which includes his young son – and dedicates the award to the kids with dreams from the area he came from.

07:33 PM

Helen Mirren pays tribute to Queen Elizabeth II

Lovely words from Helen Mirren in a tribute to the late Queen. "Cinema at its best does what Her Majesty did effortlessly: brings us together." She adds: "On behalf of Bafta, thank you for all you have done for our film and television industry."

Rather moving also to see a clip of the Queen receiving her honorary Bafta from Elton John. But did we really need the gloopy piano music drowning everything out?

07:29 PM

Kerry Condon wins Best Supporting Actress

Deaf actor Troy Kotsur, 2022 Bafta winner for CODA, pulls off a rather brilliant sausage finger joke that references both Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Banshees of Inisherin – while making Bafta producers momentarily panic as it seems to drift into risqué territory.

He hands out the Best Supporting Actress Award to Kerry Condon for the latter. She thanks Martin McDonagh and says the film makes her proud to be an Irishwoman.

Robbie says: "Kerry Condon winning Best Supporting Actress bodes well for the previously mentioned Banshees sweep: it's one for one so far, with nine results still to be declared."

07:21 PM

All Quiet on the Western Front wins Adapted Screenplay

EGOT winner Viola Davis is our first presenter, handing out the screenplay award to the acclaimed anti-war film.

Robbie says: "The night's first award took me surprise, but confirms over again the sheer depth of support Edward Berger's film has from Bafta's membership. Other than Banshees, it's the only other contender capable of pulling off a sweep tonight, so this is exactly the start to the evening Netflix will have been hoping for."

07:16 PM

Alison Hammond has landed

"I feel like a competition winner!" crows the This Morning presenter. Er, quite.

Robbie says: "And there's the one time we were guaranteed to hear from Empire of Light tonight: a clip from Toby Jones's magic-of-cinema monologue at the start of the opening montage."

07:14 PM

Ariana DeBose raps the nominees

Who look...distinctly underwhelmed. The West Side Story star is a phenomenal musical performer; unfortunately, this performance (which includes random blasts of We Are Family) is a bizarre waste of her. It's more like hen party karaoke than primetime awards. Bring back Bassey, I say...

07:12 PM

Grant makes a Will Smith joke

The host begins by thanking Daniel Day-Lewis, who turned down his role in Withnail and I. "A real Sliding Doors moment," quips Grant, who then whips out his resumé. His favourite film tonight? "Whichever one you made, which touched me more than all the rest." Ha, that's more like it: we could use a touch of luvvie-skewering; the tone otherwise is rather sweetly earnest, which might begin to grate.

Grant then makes the requisite Will Smith joke. "Nobody on my watch gets slapped tonight!" he proclaims, before playfully slapping his own cheeks.

07:08 PM

And we're off!

Richard E Grant's hosting stint begins with a pre-recorded skit in which he seeks advice from veteran Steve Martin – which rather falls flat. Much more successful is his fabulous entrance in a flowy cape: somewhere between a Jedi and the Phantom of the Opera.

07:01 PM

Stars of tomorrow

There’s some seriously exciting talent in the Rising Star category, including Emma Mackey of raunchy Netflix series Sex Education, now taking to the big screen as the luminous star of Brontë biopic Emily. Read our interview with Mackey here.

There’s also Sheila Atim, renowned for her stage roles (she’s already racked up two Olivier Awards), and impressive in The Woman King; Naomi Ackie, star of the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody; Daryl McCormack, charming scene partner to Emma Thompson in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande; and Aimee Lou Wood, also of Sex Education, and now co-starring with Bill Nighy in Living (plus she’s the new Sally Bowles in the West End’s Cabaret).

06:54 PM

The puppet versus the shell

It’s a rather peculiar field for Best Animated Film this year. Pixar is in the mix, for Turning Red, but not expected to win; nor is Dreamworks for sequel Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Instead, there’s a groundswell of support for whimsical stop-motion animation Marcel the Shell with Shoes On – originally a web series, and now, improbably, featuring the voice of Isabella Rossellini (read our interview with her here).

But the probable winner is another stop-motion movie, Pinocchio, from Bafta and Oscar-garlanded filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. As he explained to Robbie, there’s nothing cuddly about his version – it’s actually about difficult father-son relationships and the rise of fascism. Read more of their fascinating chat here.

06:49 PM

The sound of music

As well as presenting an award, Ariana DeBose will be performing at the ceremony – as will rapper Little Simz. Her 2021 album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert won numerous awards, including the Mercury Prize. It’s a very different choice to 2022’s musical guest Shirley Bassey, and suggests the Baftas are once again (fruitlessly, one imagines) chasing younger viewers.

Mind, Bassey belting out Diamonds Are Forever was easily one of the highlights of last year’s ceremony. That’s a big act to follow…

06:45 PM

Want to follow the awards live?

Just a reminder that we’re sticking with the BBC broadcast timings on the blog – which means a slight delay. But they’ve started handing out gongs in the Festival Hall: if you want to see who’s already won a trophy, head over to our winners page, which has all the live updates.

06:44 PM

Celebrity spotting

As well as all nominees, who else is strutting their stuff on the red carpet? Well, category presenters include Anya Taylor-Joy, Taron Egerton, Rami Malek, Regé-Jean Page, Brian Cox, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jamie Dornan, Cynthia Erivo, Julianne Moore, Lily James, Sophie Turner, Eugene Levy, Lashana Lynch, and Sir Patrick Stewart.

We’ll also see last year’s Best Supporting Actor and Actress winners – Troy Kotsur and Ariana DeBose, for, respectively, CODA and West Side Story – return to present awards to the 2023 recipients.

Here’s Taylor-Joy rocking a cape. I don’t know why, but I'm suddenly craving Ferrero Rocher...

06:36 PM

Best of British

And what about the contenders for Outstanding British Film? Leading the pack is surely Charlotte Wells for her gorgeously crafted Aftersun (read all about how she made the film here). Banshees is also nominated, as are Sam Mendes’s semi-autobiographical Empire of Light, Bill Nighy vehicle Living, stage-to-screen adaptation Matilda the Musical, gentle sex comedy Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, quirky robot yarn Brian and Charles, murder mystery romp See How They Run, astonishing real-life tale The Swimmers, and rich period drama The Wonder. Talk about variety.

A couple of those (Aftersun and Good Luck…) also crop up in the outstanding British debut category, along with LGBTQ+ drama Blue Jean, Extinction Rebellion documentary Rebellion, and Electric Malady, about a man with electrosensitivity.  If Aftersun misses out in the former category, it should by rights triumph here.

06:30 PM

Strong support

Banshees might well score in the supporting categories too, with Brendan Gleeson, Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon all in the running, while Everything… has Ke Huy Quan (another great comeback story) and Jamie Lee Curtis in contention.

Eddie Redmayne is also in the mix for The Good Nurse, as is Carey Mulligan for Harvey Weinstein takedown She Said, and Dolly de Leon for the scorching satire Triangle of Sadness. Or might Angela Bassett make history for Marvel by becoming the first to win a major acting award, for her role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever?

Who’s your favourite? Let us know in the comments below!

06:26 PM

Who’s bagging those acting trophies?

Best Actor could really go anywhere. Colin Farrell probably has the edge for his endearing turn in Banshees, but don’t discount Brendan Fraser’s transformational comeback in The Whale (which he discusses with Robbie here) or Austin Butler’s uncanny Elvis. We could even see star-on-the-rise Paul Mescal sneak in with Aftersun, or a veteran win for Bill Nighy in Living. Interestingly, all of them are first-time nominees.

Best Actress is likely more of a two-horse race, between Cate Blanchett (Tár) and Michelle Yeoh (Everything…) – or conducting versus kung fu. But there was fine work too from Emma Thompson in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Danielle Deadwyler in Till, Viola Davis in The Woman King, and Ana de Arnas in the otherwise derided Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde.

06:19 PM

All bets are off this year

Our esteemed film critic Robbie Collin muses: "This is an especially exciting year for the Baftas because they've been unusually tricky to predict. At the last few ceremonies, solid frontrunners had emerged in most categories by now, but while I've suspected for a few weeks that a Banshees of Inisherin sweep is in store (it's widely loved, commercially successful, and feels more local and Britishly level-headed than the current, more manic Oscar favourite, Everything Everywhere All at Once), almost none of the prizes feel like foregone conclusions."

06:16 PM

So, who’s up for Best Film?

The Baftas have nominated 45 films in total this year – and it’s an eclectic quintet in the running for that climactic trophy. We’ve got the German-language All Quiet on the Western Front, which leads the pack with a surprising 14 nominations (tying the record, set by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for the most-nominated non-English-language film in Bafta history). Parallels with the war in Ukraine may have boosted its chances, as Colin Freeman explains here.

There’s also Baz Luhrmann’s liberty-taking biopic Elvis (9 nominations), and Todd Field’s cerebral psychodrama Tár (5 nominations) – but their chances lie more in the lead performances by Austin Butler and Cate Blanchett respectively. We could see the brilliant multiverse immigrant family drama Everything Everywhere All At Once (10 nominations) sneak through, but most likely, says the Telegraph’s film critic Robbie Collin, is that this will be a big night for Martin McDonagh’s tragicomic gem The Banshees of Inisherin (also 10 nominations).

You can read all of Robbie’s predictions here. And let us know in the comments who has your vote!

06:10 PM

By royal appointment

Let’s hope everyone is on their best behaviour. The Prince and Princess of Wales are in attendance tonight, after missing the past couple of years. Prince William is of course president of Bafta. We understand the royal couple will be in the audience for the ceremony, and will then then congratulate the winners afterwards.

Plus Helen Mirren will be leading the Baftas’ tribute to Queen Elizabeth II. Mirren famously played the monarch in movie The Queen, for which she won a Bafta and an Oscar for Best Actress, and also on stage in The Audience, netting her Tony and Olivier Awards. The late Queen was a tireless supporter of the Baftas, and received an honorary Bafta herself in 2013.

06:04 PM

Unleash Alison Hammond

Well this could be a recipe for chaos. For the 2023 broadcast, the Baftas are also introducing a so-called “Strictly-style” interview area, hosted live by This Morning’s Alison Hammond. Does that mean Colin Farrell will be questioned about his fake tan regimen or asked to perform a Couple’s Choice routine with Jenny the donkey? Will Steven Spielberg be made to do his serious tango face? We can but hope.

06:02 PM

We’ve gone on holiday by mistake

Yes, Withnail and I’s Richard E Grant is this year’s master of ceremonies – and has promised to set a “celebratory” tone. Grant was up for a Bafta himself in 2019 for Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and has most recently played a drag queen in musical adaptation Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, and preening snob Sir Walter Elliott in the irritating fourth-wall-breaking Netflix version of Persuasion. No Fleabagging tonight, please.

Read more about how Grant went from Hollywood traitor to national treasure here.

05:57 PM

We’ve moved to the South Bank

This year, the celebrity-packed ceremony is coming to us not from the Royal Albert Hall, but from the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre – so expect some lovely river views and copious shots of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Basically, the version of London you get in every Hollywood movie.