The BAFTA 2026 winners were led by One Battle After Another, which took six awards including Best Film, while India celebrated a landmark win for the Manipuri film Boong. Here is the full list, and what it meant for the road to the Oscars.
The BAFTA 2026 winners were headed by One Battle After Another, which won Best Film and Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson. Jessie Buckley won Leading Actress for Hamnet, which also took Outstanding British Film, and Robert Aramayo won Leading Actor and the EE Rising Star award for I Swear.
The 79th British Academy Film Awards were held on Sunday 22 February 2026 at London’s Royal Festival Hall, hosted for the first time by Alan Cumming. For Indian audiences, the headline was Boong, which won Best Children’s and Family Film.
BAFTA 2026 winners at a glance
- Ceremony: 79th British Academy Film Awards
- Date: Sunday 22 February 2026
- Venue: Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London
- Host: Alan Cumming, in his first year as host
- Broadcast: BBC One and iPlayer in the UK
- Most wins: One Battle After Another (6), then Sinners and Frankenstein (3 each)
- Most nominations: One Battle After Another (14), Sinners (13), Hamnet and Marty Supreme (11 each)
- Indian winner: Boong, Children’s and Family Film
BAFTA 2026 winners: the main categories
- Best Film: One Battle After Another
- Outstanding British Film: Hamnet
- Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
- Leading Actress: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
- Leading Actor: Robert Aramayo, I Swear
- Supporting Actor: Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
- Supporting Actress: Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
- Original Screenplay: Ryan Coogler, Sinners
- Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
- Film Not in the English Language: Sentimental Value
- Documentary: Mr Nobody Against Putin
- Animated Film: Zootropolis 2, known as Zootopia 2 in the US
- Children’s and Family Film: Boong
- Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer: My Father’s Shadow, Akinola Davies Jr and Wale Davies
BAFTA 2026 winners: craft, shorts and special awards
- Cinematography: Michael Bauman, One Battle After Another
- Editing: Andy Jurgensen, One Battle After Another
- Original Score: Ludwig Göransson, Sinners
- Casting: Lauren Evans, I Swear
- Costume Design: Kate Hawley, Frankenstein
- Make Up and Hair: Frankenstein
- Production Design: Frankenstein
- Sound: F1
- Special Visual Effects: Avatar: Fire and Ash
- British Short Film: This Is Endometriosis
- British Short Animation: Two Black Boys in Paradise
- EE Rising Star (public vote): Robert Aramayo
- BAFTA Fellowship: Dame Donna Langley
- Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema: Clare Binns
The complete list, with every nominee, is on the official BAFTA winners announcement.
India among the BAFTA 2026 winners: Boong
The most important result for Indian audiences came in a category that often gets less attention. Boong, directed by Lakshmipriya Devi and produced by Excel Entertainment’s Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar among others, beat Arco, Lilo & Stitch and Zootropolis 2. News reports described it as the first Indian film to win a BAFTA.
The film follows a schoolboy in Imphal searching for his absent father. Accepting the award, Devi drew attention to the long-running ethnic conflict in Manipur, which made her speech one of the most shared moments of the night in India.
Bollywood had a presence on stage too. Alia Bhatt, presenting at the BAFTAs for the first time, opened in Hindi before handing the Film Not in the English Language award to Sentimental Value, as Khaleej Times reported. Our report on Indian stars at the 79th BAFTAs has more from the red carpet.
What the BAFTA 2026 winners tell us
One Battle After Another was the season’s front-runner. Best Film, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing and Sean Penn’s supporting win followed its Golden Globes success. Anderson also took Best Director at the BAFTAs for the first time.
Sinners had a strong night too. Ryan Coogler’s film won three awards from 13 nominations: Original Screenplay, Wunmi Mosaku for Supporting Actress and Ludwig Göransson’s score. It was also Coogler’s first BAFTA nomination and first win.
Frankenstein swept the craft awards. Guillermo del Toro’s film matched Sinners with three wins, for costume design, make-up and hair, and production design.
Robert Aramayo was the surprise. Winning Leading Actor and the public-voted Rising Star award in one night is rare, and I Swear was the British success story of the evening.
Marty Supreme went home empty-handed. Its 11 nominations without a single win tied the record for the most losses at one ceremony.
First-time winners among the BAFTA 2026 winners
All four acting winners collected their first BAFTA Film Award: Jessie Buckley, Robert Aramayo, Wunmi Mosaku and Sean Penn. Buckley arrived as the Golden Globe winner for Hamnet and left as the clear Oscar favourite.
The evening also had music. Huntrix from KPop Demon Hunters performed “Golden”, and Jessie Ware sang “The Way We Were” during the In Memoriam segment.
The incident that overshadowed the night
During the opening category, Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson, whose life inspired I Swear, shouted a racial slur while Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting. The BBC broadcast it despite a two-hour delay and later apologised, according to the ceremony’s Wikipedia entry.
BAFTA apologised to Jordan and Lindo and announced a full review, and Cumming apologised too. The broadcast was also criticised for cutting pro-Palestinian remarks from Akinola Davies Jr’s acceptance speech.
BAFTA 2026 winners and the Oscars
BAFTA voters overlap with the Academy more than ever, so the BAFTA 2026 winners were a strong guide to Oscar night three weeks later. One Battle After Another went on to win Best Picture, and Buckley and Penn repeated their wins in Los Angeles.
BAFTA 2026 winners FAQs
Which film won Best Film at the BAFTAs 2026?
One Battle After Another, which won six awards in total, more than any other film on the night.
Did an Indian film win at the BAFTAs 2026?
Yes. Boong, a Manipuri-language film directed by Lakshmipriya Devi, won Best Children’s and Family Film.
Where were the BAFTAs 2026 held?
At the Royal Festival Hall in London on 22 February 2026, with Alan Cumming as host and coverage on BBC One and iPlayer.
For more on the BAFTA 2026 winners and the rest of awards season, see the latest coverage in our Hollywood section.