The longlists of the Bafta Film Awards 2026 provide the first concrete look at how the race is shaping up in the UK. With much to reflect on, the Screen team takes a look at the biggest talking points.
Chapter votes generate a wide mix of titles
The longlists show the disparity between the aggregated taste and preference of all voters, clearly visible in the best film category, and the enthusiasms of individual chapters.
For example, in best film, there is only one title out of 10 substantially not in English (Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value), while in original screenplay, writer chapter members have longlisted Sentimental Value (written by Trier with Eskil Vogt) alongside Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent.
A year ago, the best film longlist included two titles substantially not in English: Emilia Perez and Kneecap.
The two screenplay categories longlist 20 titles combined, so have a greater capacity to offer more wide-ranging lists of films, which this year include the likes of US independent features Blue Moon and Train Dreams; Searchlight Pictures’ Is This Thing On?; UK indie Pillion; and genre titles 28 Years Later and Weapons. None of these films made the best film longlist.
The director longlist shows a major discrepancy with the equivalent list for best film, with only six of the 10 titles overlapping across the lists. While it would be encouraging to imagine the director longlist reflects the imaginative taste of that particular voting chapter, it’s worth noting that Bafta rules dictate a director longlist of gender parity: the five highest-ranked men and five highest-ranked women are all longlisted.
Films longlisted for both best film and director: Bugonia, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sentimental Value and Sinners. These six films consequently emerge as the top titles across arguably the two most significant Bafta categories.
Also longlisted for best film (but not in director): The Ballad Of Wallis Island, Frankenstein, I Swear, Nuremberg. Also longlisted for director (but not best film): Die My Love, A House Of Dynamite, Rental Family, The Voice Of Hind Rajab.
As expected, chapter voters in craft categories such as sound and visual effects have pulled in their own directions, spotlighting particular achievements in those craft disciplines. Only one film longlisted in visual effects (Frankenstein) appears on the best film list.
Craft categories that traditionally show significant alignment with best film include cinematography and editing. This year, there are four films apiece on these longlists not making best film: Ballad Of A Small Player, Die My Love, F1 and Train Dreams for cinematography; and 28 Years Later, F1, A House Of Dynamite and Weapons for editing.
Outstanding British skews white, male and mainstream
Starry commercial titles by white male directors dominate the 15-strong longlist in the outstanding British film category, the second year the entire Bafta membership can vote at this stage for their outstanding British film choices. Previously, the category was an opt-in choice for voters.
Crowd-pleasing titles Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, Michael Morris’s Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, Kate Winslet’s Goodbye June, Marc Evans’ Mr Burton, Edward Berger’s Ballad Of A Small Player, Nicholas Hytner’s The Choral and Jay Roach’s The Roses will be thrilled with their places on the longlist. (The Roses inched in as British due to the residency in the UK for at least six years of Australian-born writer Tony McNamara.)
This meant some highly-celebrated and BIFA-winning indie titles, including Akinola Davies Jr’s My Father’s Shadow, Daisy-May Hudson’s Lollipop, Cal McMau’s Wasteman and Paul Andrew Williams’s Dragonfly, are squeezed out of the category. (Wasteman and My Father’s Shadow are both longlisted in the juried British debut category.)
In a not particularly strong year for films by female directors across the board, just three have a longlist place in this category: Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet, Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love and Winslet’s Goodbye June. This is a 50% drop on last year when six films secured longlist places and four went on to be nominated.
As last year, just one film by a director of colour is longlisted: Zhao’s Hamnet. Last year, it was Steve McQueen’s Blitz.
Now the five films with the most votes automatically progress to the nominations, and a Bafta jury will choose five more to add, with the final five dropping off. The entire membership will vote for the winner.
Another strong showing for UK talent
Outside of the dedicated British categories, UK talent and producers are well represented throughout the longlists. In best film, four of the 10 features were UK productions or co-productions in the form of I Swear and The Ballad Of Wallis Island, both directed by UK filmmakers (Kirk Jones and James Griffiths respectively), along with Zhao’s Hamnet, co-written by Maggie O’Farrell based on her novel, and produced by Liza Marshall’s Hera Pictures with Pippa Harris and Sam Mendes’ Neal Street Productions. The fourth, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, was produced by UK-Ireland outfit Element Films, although it wasn’t entered into the outstanding British film category since it doesn’t have a UK writer or director.
In the acting strands, at least three UK and Irish actors have made it into each acting longlist. Leading and supporting actress present the strongest showing with four apiece. In leading are Wicked: For Good’s Cynthia Erivo, Dragonfly’s Andrea Riseborough and Hedda’s Tessa Thompson, along with Hamnet’s Irish lead, Jessie Buckley.
In supporting, Dragonfly’s Brenda Blethyn, Sinners’s Wunmi Mosaku, The Ballad Of Wallis Island’s Carey Mulligan, and Hamnet’s Emily Watson are all longlisted.
Leading actor sees I Swear’s Robert Aramayo, Pillion’s Harry Melling, and, from Ireland, Steve’s Cillian Murphy, make the cut, while supporting actor has I Swear’s Peter Mullan, with Blue Moon’s Andrew Scott and Hamnet’s Paul Mescal, both from Ireland.
Adapted screenplay has a decent showing for UK writers, longlisting 28 Years Later (Alex Garland), The Ballad Of Wallis Island (Tim Key and Tom Basden), Hamnet (co-written by Farrell) and Pillion (Harry Lighton).
However, the director category has longlisted just one UK filmmaker, Ramsay for Die My Love, while Jones is the only UK writer on the original screenplay longlist for I Swear.
New documentary chapter makes tentative start
This year, Bafta has tightened the eligibility to vote for best documentary, with members only eligible if demonstrating “specific documentary/non-fiction experience”. This category has long been a topic of concern for documentary filmmakers and stakeholders, and in recent years, the Bafta documentary longlist has seen a preponderance of celebrity biographical titles, typically not making the equivalent Oscar shortlist of 15, which is derived from the votes of the specialised Ampas chapter of practitioners.
This year, the chapter has longlisted the following five films that also appear on the Oscar shortlist for documentary: 2000 Meters To Andriivka, Apocalypse In The Tropics, Cover-Up, Mr Nobody Against Putin and The Perfect Neighbor. Bafta has also longlisted: Becoming Led Zeppelin, The Librarians, Ocean With David Attenborough, One To One: John & Yoko and Riefenstahl (all not on the Oscar shortlist).
Films that made the Oscar documentary shortlist, and were eligible to Bafta voters but not longlisted, include Come See Me In The Good Light, Cutting Through Rocks, Folktales, Holding Liat and Mistress Dispeller.
While many will lament the exclusion of these from Bafta’s list, also noting the celebrity or biographical skew of the Bafta-only titles, Kim A Snyder’s The Librarians (a surprise omission by Oscar) is a good save, and the biographical titles on the Bafta longlist this year are all widely respected films.
This year’s outstanding British debut longlist (determined by a jury) includes four documentaries (up from two last year): Mother Vera, Ocean With David Attenborough, The Shadow Scholars and A Want In Her. There are no docs on the outstanding British film longlist – just like last year.
Many films are flying solo to the next stage
Several contenders have landed a single spot on the Bafta longlists, signalling a struggle for some of these titles to gain wider traction with voters. In best actress, three of the 10 are the only longlist mentions achieved for their films: Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue (Craig Brewer’s musical drama was a late arrival in the race), Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Thompson for Hedda.
In supporting actor, Adam Sandler becomes the only name moving forward for Netflix’s Jay Kelly, which lost momentum fairly swiftly following its Venice premiere – voters never really hooked onto the narrative of backing George Clooney, yet to win an acting Bafta, for a career celebration award.
In the screenplay categories, Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? grabbed its sole spot in original, while Rian Johnson makes the longlist for the third time running in adapted with his latest Knives Out mystery, Wake Up Dead Man. He went on to achieve a nomination with the first film in 2020, while follow-up Glass Onion stalled at the longlist stage.
In outstanding British film, six of the 15 longlisted titles make their sole appearance here: Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, The Choral, Goodbye June, H Is For Hawk, Mr Burton and The Roses. That’s one more than last year when it was Bird, Love Lies Bleeding, Paddington In Peru, We Live In Time and Wicked Little Letters, of which Bird and Love Lies Bleeding progressed to nominations.
Elsewhere, the film not in the English language, documentary and animated film categories all feature multiple sole nominees, as do the juried outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer and children’s & family categories.
Across remaining categories, the following films made a single craft category longlist: The Fantastic Four: First Steps (production design), Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (sound), The Smashing Machine (make-up & hair), and Jurassic World Rebirth, Superman and Tron Ares, all in special visual effects.
Universal leads the distributor pack
Universal heads the distributor rankings with an impressive 47 longlist spots in total, thanks to a strong showing for its Focus Features label, which is behind Hamnet with 14, Bugonia (12) and The Ballad Of Wallis Island (5).
Universal also received multiple craft hauls for Wicked: For Good (8), Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (2) and How To Train Your Dragon (2).
Ranked second is Warner Bros Discovery with 36 spots, buoyed by the most longlisted film One Battle After Another (16) as well asSinners (14), Weapons (3) and Mickey 17 (2). It also co-released Pillion with Picturehouse, which has six spots.
Netflix has also done well, taking third place with 31 longlist spots, thanks to a diverse haul that includes Frankenstein (12), A House Of Dynamite (4), Ballad Of A Small Player (3), Train Dreams (3), Steve (2), and documentaries including Cover-Up and The Perfect Neighbor.
Mubi is the leading independent distributor, amassing 31 spots across a wide number of titles, led by Sentimental Value (8), Die My Love (4), It Was Just an Accident (2) and The Secret Agent (2).
Next up are Disney, Entertainment Film Distributors and Sky, each with 14 spots on the longlist. Disney picked up two spots each for Avatar: Fire And Ash, Elio, Rental Family and Zootropolis 2. Entertainment’s haul was led by an impressive 13 for A24 title Marty Supreme, while Sky’s was headed by Nuremberg (6).
Among UK distributors, there was also a decent showing from Picturehouse, boosted by six spots for Pillion (co-released with Warner Bros) and two for Arco, as well as Altitude which scored spots for Nouvelle Vague (2), Ocean With David Attenborough (2), Sirāt (2) and The Voice Of Hind Rajab (2).
Cannes films dominate non-English-language list
Cannes once again demonstrated the strong sway it exerts on the film not in the English language category, with five of the 10 longlisted titles having premiered in Competition last May: Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident, Mendonca Filho’s The Secret Agent, Trier’s Sentimental Value, Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Oliver Laxe’s Sirat.
Shih-Ching Tsou’s Left-Handed Girl, which debuted in the independent Critics’ Week sidebar, makes it six from Cannes, although that’s a decline on last year when eight Cannes debuts made the longlist.
Indeed, Venice has made a modest comeback, rising from last year’s sole entry I’m Still Here (which went on to win the Oscar) to three Venice premieres this time: Paolo Sorrentino’s festival opener La Grazia, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice and Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice Of Hind Rajab, which took the grand jury prize and had a famously emotional first screening on the Lido.
The final longlist slot went to Searchlight Pictures’ Rental Family starring Brendan Fraser, which premiered at TIFF and whose Japanese director Hikari is also on the director shortlist.
Sentimental Value leads the non-English-language pack overall with appearances on seven further longlists, including stars Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in acting categories and Trier in director and original screenplay.
Ben Hania joins Hikari and Trier on the director longlist, while original screenplay also includes Panahi and Mendonca Filho (although his Secret Agent star Wagner Moura failed to make the leading actor cut as some had anticipated).
Nouvelle Vague and Sirat each made one additional longlist – costume design and casting, respectively.
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