British Academy Film Awards celebrate a classic year for film

But as the British Academy Film Awards take place tonight, hosted by David Tennant, will Barbenheimer still be the main talking point?

The signs are good for Oppenheimer, which leads the field with 13 nominations, including Best Film, Director for Christopher Nolan and Actor for Cillian Murphy. However, it seems the Baftas weren’t quite as sold on Barbie, which had to settle for five, including nods for Ryan Gosling in Supporting Actor and Margot Robbie for Actress.

However, it is far from being a two-horse race. Other films with a strong showing include Poor Things, with 11 nominations. Killers Of The Flower Moon has nine (although there were some raised eyebrows when Martin Scorsese failed to make the Best Director cut), as has the Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest.

Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, and Maestro all have seven, All of Us Strangers has six, and another 2023 movie that made a splash on social media, Saltburn, gets five.

In fact, the critically divisive Saltburn has become such a sensation that Sophie Ellis-Bextor will be dropping by the ceremony to perform Murder on the Dancefloor, which enjoyed a chart resurgence after it soundtracked one of the film’s most memorable scenes. (Although as the ceremony is going out pre-watershed, we should probably expect everyone to stay fully clothed.)

The love for Saltburn may continue to the EE Rising Star Award category, which is voted for by viewers, and features one of the movie’s actors Jacob Elordi (he’s also up for Supporting Actor).

He’ll be going head-to-head with Bridgerton star Phoebe Dynevor, who gave an acclaimed performance in Fair Play, Mia McKenna-Bruce of How to Have Sex, Talk to Me’s Sophie Wilde and Ayo Edebiri, who appeared in the movie Bottoms and also recently won an Emmy for her role in the acclaimed show The Bear.

Given that the previous winners of this accolade include Tom Hardy, Tom Holland, Daniel Kaluuya, John Boyega and Letitia Wright, it may be the most coveted award of the night.

One person we do know won’t be leaving empty handed is Samantha Morton, who is set to be awarded the Bafta Fellowship.

There will also be an appearance from Hannah Waddingham, while Clara Amfo and Alex Zane report from the red carpet.

But sometimes the talking points come when you least expect it – see last year’s ceremony, when Ariana DeBose went viral after rapping about the nominees. Will we see any similar surprises tonight?