What Do Opposing DGA And BAFTA Wins Mean For An Upredictable Oscar Race? – Hammond Analysis

Judging by the results this weekend of the first major industry test of where the Oscar winds could be blowing, it was basically a draw as we now have results from both the DGA and BAFTA. Both these groups, as well as the upcoming SAG, PGA, and to a slightly lesser extent due to their eligibility quirks, the WGA, are considered the most important bellwethers for Oscar as their memberships heavily cross over with actual Oscar voters as opposed to critics groups. Earlier televised awards shows like Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, but both composed also of journalists, split their Best Picture choices between The Banshees Of Inisherin (GG Comedy), The Fabelmans (GG Drama), and Everything Everywhere All At Once (CCA). But now for the first time we are hearing from the industry and that is key for prognosticators. Sometimes the race can turn on a dime, or they can really muddy the waters.

So how much can we read into the results of both last night’s DGA awards which anointed the Daniels, as they are affectionately dubbed, Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan with its top directorial award for Everything Everywhere All At Once? They defeated the likes of DGA God Steven Spielberg for his very personal and early awards season front runner The Fabelmans, critics group favorite Todd Field for Tar, Joseph Kosinski (not Oscar nominated as director) for Top Gun: Maverick , and Martin McDonagh for The Banshees Of Inisherin, the latter the only nominee absent at DGA due to today’s BAFTA ceremony in London. McDonagh told me on Wednesday at a taping for my Deadline video series Behind The Lens that while he would appear with the others at Saturday morning’s DGA panel of nominees, he would have to miss the actual awards as, unlike others who needed to be at BAFTA, he did not believe in taking studio private jets (meaning Disney’s which owns Banshees distributor Searchlight) to get him there in time if he also went to the DGA.

That turned out to be a very prescient decision for McDonagh as he was called to the BAFTA stage as winner of Best Original Screenplay and Best British Film, in a seesaw race with Netflix’s German film All Quiet On The Western Front which came into the contest as the nominations leader with a whopping 14 noms, ultimately taking the big prize of Best Film among its leading and impressive 7 wins. It was enormously important because of its drawbacks elsewhere this season.

As I pointed out in Friday’s Notes On The Season column that without SAG, PGA, DGA, or WGA (where it was ineligible) nominations, and lack of acting or directing Oscar nominations, and the fact no remake of a previous Best Picture winner has ever won the Best Picture Oscar (and with Parasite as the only other foreign language winner), it is a high mountain to climb statistically for All Quiet On The Western Front. This strong showing at BAFTA, where British film Banshees Of Inisherin was expected to have the hometown advantage, is going to give it a very big boost as momentum continues to build for various movies at next week’s PGA and SAG awards. In fact post-BAFTA it will be ‘all quiet’ for BAFTA winner All Quiet On The Western Front at the major guild contests leading into Oscar voting. What an interesting year.

For Everything Everywhere All At Once, its single editing win out of 10 nominations, has to be a disappointment coming so closely on the heels of its triumph at DGA last night. But A24, its distributor, can take heart that DGA is a much more reliable prognosticator of Oscar glory than BAFTA in recent years, and in fact in the previous 74 years of its awards, it has not matched Oscar’s eventual directorial winner only 8 times. BAFTA directing winner Edward Berger is not nominated in the Oscar’s Directing category as previously noted.

Warner Bros. also has to be happy with its impressive four BAFTA wins for Elvis including Austin Butler in the very tight Best Actor race over British favorites Bill Nighy and Ireland’s Colin Farrell, as well as Brendan Fraser in The Whale. Leading into SAG next Sunday that gives Butler so genuine momentum. In fact of the six BAFTA Best Actor nominees, Butler was the only one not from the United Kingdom. The Oscar momentum crown also goes to Cate Blanchett who was expected to win Lead Actress for Tar, and did marking that film’s only win of the weekend.

In terms of Best Picture, well in the last 8 years BAFTA, which only has five nominees, and Oscar, which has 10 now, only matched their eventual choice just once, and that was for 2020’s Nomadland in a year that was a bit of an abberation because the industry and awards season were pretty much decimated by the pandemic. From 2008 to 2013 both organizations were in lockstep on Best Picture, so perhaps the changing way BAFTA votes has had an impact on their reliability vs Oscars.

Where will it all go this year?

The BAFTA showing of All Quiet matches what I have heard over the past couple of months in talks with many Oscar voters, so I think you have to consider this is turning into a race with a few more twists before it is all over. Keep in mind Netflix is still looking for its first Best Picture Oscar win. With BAFTA it has previously won the top prize for 2018’s Roma and last year with The Power Of The Dog.

Of course this is to be continued.