Michael Cieply: With A BAFTA Win, ‘American Fiction’ Gets Points For Facing What Frets Us

Alex Ritman Should any Americans be concerned following the Academy Awards ceremony, no, they haven’t missed Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day in the U.S. is still May 12, a good two months away.

In a very competitive race, Cord Jefferson won his first Academy Award in the Adapted Screenplay category for the dramedy “American Fiction.” Based on the 2001 novel “Erasure“ by Percival Everett, “Fiction” overcame a slew of worthy nominees such as Christopher Nolan‘s screenplay for “Oppenheimer,” Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach‘s bizarrely categorized script for “Barbie,” and Tony McNamara’s adaptation of “Poor Things” to take the prize.

Oscars 2024 is taking place tonight (March 10) in Los Angeles, with Oppenheimer, Poor Things, and Killers Of The Flower Moon set to battle it out for the top gongs.The ceremony will be held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood and will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel for a fourth time.Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer leads the nominations going into the event with 13 nods, including Best Director, Best Picture and Best Actor. Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things follows on 11, while Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon is in the running in 10 categories.

Three times a charm for Robert Downey Jr. who finally won an Oscar on this third nomination tonight for his turn as Lewis Strauss, the hostile United States Atomic Energy Commissioner in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.

Caroline Brew editor Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” won outstanding film adaptation at the 36th annual USC Libraries Script Awards on Saturday, while Apple TV+’s “Slow Horses” won in the episodic series category for the second year in a row. Jefferson and Percival Everett accepted the award for “American Fiction.” In his speech, Jefferson recalled his experience reading Everett’s novel “Erasure” in 2020, which he went on to adapt into “American Fiction.” “It felt like I was reading a book written specifically for me. It felt like I understood what was going on in these characters in the story on a molecular level,” he said.

As the Oscars draw closer, more and more category winners seem to be locking into place. One of those categories that took another step to being pretty much over is Adapted Screenplay.

The 36th annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards on Saturday named Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction its outstanding film adaptations, giving the Oscar-nominated script a boost leading into next weekend’s Academy Awards.

William Earl administrator The 2024 Independent Spirit Awards are taking place on Sunday at the traditional Santa Monica beach tent location, with Aidy Bryant set to host. “Past Lives,” “May December” and “American Fiction” are leading the pack of nominees with five nods each.

Can you even hear a guild awards ceremony if it occurs after the Academy Awards? Thanks to the WGA strike, we’re about to find out. The nominees were announced this morning for the 2024 WGA Awards which will take place on April 14.

BAFTA Film Awards on Sunday night during the final speech of the evening – and nobody noticed.After Oppenheimer was announced as the winner of the Best Film award, its director Christopher Nolan, producer Emma Thomas and lead actor Cillian Murphy all took to the stage to accept the prize. But as seen on the BBC broadcast of the show, there was another man there who had no connection to the film at all.It transpired that the man in question was the YouTuber Lizwani, who has previously gatecrashed other ceremonies, including the BRIT Awards, the FIFA Ballon D’Or and the British Fashion Awards.BAFTA responded to the incident in a statement: “A social media prankster was removed by security last night after joining the winners of the final award on stage – we are taking this very seriously, and don’t wish to grant him any publicity by commenting further.”The imposter stood silently behind Thomas as she gave her speech, and then left the stage with the group, at which point BAFTA say he was detained by security.

Michael J. Fox left no dry eyes in the room at the 2024 BAFTAs.

Bafta said they are looking into a big security problem after someone who wasn't supposed to be there got onto the stage during the best film speech. A man, who might make videos on YouTube, went up with director Christopher Nolan and the team from the movie Oppenheimer when they were getting their big award at the Bafta ceremony on Sunday night in London.

British Academy Film Awards security team revealed that they ousted a prankster shortly after he managed to join the cast and crew of “Oppenheimer” on stage after winning the coveted Best Film award on Sunday. “A social media prankster was removed by security last night after joining the winners of the final award on stage,” a BAFTA spokesperson told Deadline after the award show.

Christopher Nolan used his acceptance speech at tonight’s BAFTA Film Awards to acknowledge the people who have fought for nuclear disarmament.He won the Best Director award at the ceremony in London tonight (February 18) for his work on Oppenheimer, a biopic about Robert J. Oppenheimer, the real-life American physicist who played a pivotal role in the creation of the atomic bomb in World War II.Often dubbed ‘the father of the atomic bomb’, Oppenheimer was instrumental in the creation of the nuclear weapons that were used in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict in human history.Nolan took to the stage at the Royal Festival Hall to accept his award, and made reference to the end of his film, in which the title character articulates his fear that his work may not have saved the world, but hastened its end.“I do just want to say, our film ends on what I think is a dramatically necessary note of despair,” he said.

David Tennant hosted the 2024 BAFTA Film Awards and, during his opening monologue, took a jab at Donald Trump as he makes a presidential run in the U.S.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor With just four days remaining until final Oscar voting officially opens, the race has taken a few unexpected turns at the BAFTA Awards. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” a biographical drama about the father of the atomic bomb, has continued to surge ahead after seven wins, including best film and director. Its trajectory towards a triumphant night on the Dolby Theatre stage on March 10 seems assured.

The 2024 BAFTA Film Awards have come to a close, with all the gongs having been handed out during the star-studded ceremony. This year, Doctor Who star David Tennant was chosen to host the ceremony, taking over from last year's hosts Alison Hammond and Richard E.

Sophie Ellis-Bextor took to the stage at the BAFTA Film Awards tonight to perform her resurgent hit ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ – watch the footage below.The song features memorably over the now infamous final scene of Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, and since the film’s release at the end of 2023, it has became a viral hit on TikTok and even entered the Billboard Hot 100 – her first-ever song to chart in the US. It also climbed the UK single charts, peaking at Number Two last month.The BAFTAs ceremony was hosted tonight (February 18) by David Tennant at London’s Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre.

After a few years in limbo, the BAFTAs finally found a host to replace the much-missed Stephen Fry in David Tennant. The Doctor Who actor proved an amiable and funny emcee, although much of his humor would have gone way over the non-Brits in the audience, starting with a lengthy filmed skit riffing on his BBC TV series Staged, co-starring Michael Sheen. It was a night of surprises, not especially pleasant ones for the teams behind Barbie and Killers of the Flower Moon, and there were no egregious upsets. Neither were there any of the usual technical nightmares that have plagued the event in the past. 

Given the number of high-wattage films garnering multiple nominations at the BAFTAs this year, the rationing of awards was always likely unpredictable on the night. And so it proved, meaning that The Zone of Interest and Poor Things had already nibbled away at Oppenheimer’s chances of a decent sweep before the Best Director award came round. With Poor Things director Yorgo Lanthimos inexplicably left out of the race, a category snub this year for Christopher Nolan would absolutely have sent a signal to the British-American director.