Baftas 2026: A record-breaking Hamnet, a slate of Irish talent, and a strange awards-race decision

Jessie Buckley’s Bafta nomination confirms her as strong favourite for the best-actress award

Baftas 2026: Hamnet nominees Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley. Photograph: Vivien Killilea/Getty

Tue Jan 27 2026 - 14:56 • 5 MIN READ

Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet continues its triumphant run through awards season, with 11 nominations, including best film, for the 2026 Bafta Awards. That breaks the record for a title directed by a woman.

Jessie Buckley, from Co Kerry, lands in best actress for her role as a grieving Agnes Shakespeare and will proceed to the ceremony next month as strong favourite.

Her costar Paul Mescal, unexpectedly left out of last week’s Oscar nominations, safely secures a berth in best supporting actor. The Co Kildare actor’s omission from the American awards was probably the biggest surprise in the big categories.

There is Irish success elsewhere in the list read out by David Jonsson and Aimee Lou Wood at the headquarters of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, in the West End of London.

Oscars 2026: Where to watch Hamnet, Sinners, One Battle After Another and all the other best picture nominees

‘Most people are thinking about themselves’: Inspiring women share their life lessons

Ray D’Arcy: ‘I’ve lost my job and my mother. What’s going to happen next?’

Cillian Murphy: ‘It was one of the greatest weeks of my life. I haven’t talked about it much’

Myrid Carten’s searing documentary A Want in Her, about the author’s return to Ireland to reconnect with her troubled mother, is mentioned in outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer. Originally from Donegal, Carten is an artist and film-maker of some versatility.

Element Pictures, the all-conquering Ireland-based production company, competes in the same race with Akinola Davies jnr’s African drama My Father’s Shadow and Harry Lighton’s much-admired biker romp Pillion. My Father’s Shadow, hugely acclaimed at Cannes, is a coproduction with the UK and Nigeria. Lighton’s debut feature also landed in the best-British-film and best-adapted-screenplay races.

Element has also had notable success with Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia. The off-centre satirical thriller has taken five nominations: adapted screenplay, score, director, actress for Emma Stone and, for Jesse Plemons, best supporting actor.

The team will be disappointed not to repeat their best-picture nod at the Oscars, but, with just five nominations to the Academy Awards’ 10, Bafta was always a bigger ask.

Ethan Hawke has landed in best actor for Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, shot largely in Ireland with the participation of Wild Atlantic Pictures, but Andrew Scott has missed out on a plausible supporting-actor nomination for the same film.

In the 20th century the Bafta ceremony took place in April or May, after the Oscars, but in 2001 it moved to February – and, with the American and British academies sharing a wedge of voters, came to be seen as a reliable pointer to the prizes that matter most.

Awards watchers have been puzzled by the decision to move this year’s nominations back after the Oscar nods. (The ceremony in London will still precede the Los Angeles bash.) This week’s announcement ends up, for prognosticators, being more of a footnote than a predictor.

As at Oscar, the highest-scoring films are Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, though the top two have switched places for the Bafta chart.

One Battle After Another is on top, with 14 nominations. Sinners follows close behind, with 13, then Hamnet, with 11.

Zhao’s film, as a British coproduction, could reasonably be seen as mild favourite for best film with this electorate.

Leonardo DiCaprio, up in best actor for One Battle After Another, now equals, with seven nominations in the category, the all-time record – shared with the distinguished likes of Daniel Day-Lewis and Laurence Olivier.

The British breakout that did not trouble Oscar is Kirk Jones’s irresistible I Swear. That funny, moving film, starring Robert Aramayo as a Tourette syndrome advocate, competes in five races, including best British film – which, on previous form, it could win, even if Hamnet, also nominated, gets best overall film.

Alan Cumming, this year’s host, will reveal all at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, on Sunday, February 22nd.

Baftas 2026: The nominees

Best film

Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sentimental Value
Sinners

Outstanding British film

28 Years Later
The Ballad of Wallis Island
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
Die My Love
H Is for Hawk
Hamnet
I Swear
Mr Burton
Pillion
Steve

Best director

Bugonia – Yorgos Lanthimos
Hamnet – Chloé Zhao
Marty Supreme – Josh Safdie
One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson
Sentimental Value – Joachim Trier
Sinners – Ryan Coogler

Best leading actress

Jessie Buckley – Hamnet
Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue
Chase Infiniti – One Battle After Another
Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value
Emma Stone – Bugonia

Best leading actor

Robert Aramayo – I Swear
Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon
Michael B Jordan – Sinners
Jesse Plemons – Bugonia

Best supporting actress

Odessa A’zion – Marty Supreme
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value
Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners
Carey Mulligan – The Ballad of Wallis Island
Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another
Emily Watson – Hamnet

Best supporting actor

Benicio del Toro – One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein
Paul Mescal – Hamnet
Peter Mullan – I Swear
Sean Penn – One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value

Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer

The Ceremony – Jack King (director, writer), Hollie Bryan (producer), Lucy Meer (producer)
My Father’s Shadow – Akinola Davies jnr (director), Wale Davies (writer)
Pillion – Harry Lighton (director, writer)
A Want in Her – Myrid Carten (director)
Wasteman – Cal McMau (director), Hunter Andrews (writer), Eoin Doran (writer)