‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ leads race for BAFTA awards

LONDON — Visceral German-language war drama “All Quiet on the Western Front” got a field-leading 14 nominations on Thursday for the British Academy Film Awards, with genre-bending comedies “The Banshees of Inisherin“ and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” each nominated in 10 categories. “What stays the same, like 100 years ago, is the horror and the brutality.” Martin McDonagh’s Irish tragicomedy “Banshees” has nominations including best picture, best director and best actor, for Colin Farrell. The nominations help cement “Banshees” and “Everything Everywhere” as awards-season favorites, following momentum-building wins at the Golden Globes and multiple nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, The BAFTA best-picture nominees are “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Elvis,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Todd Field’s symphonic psychodrama “Tár.” The 10 nominees for outstanding British film, a separate category, include Charlotte Wells’ 1990s family drama “Aftersun,” Sam Mendes’ semi-autobiographical “Empire of Light” and Sophie Hyde’s smart sex comedy “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.” Britain’s film academy introduced changes to increase the awards’ diversity in 2020, when no women were nominated as best director for the seventh year running and all 20 nominees in the lead and supporting performer categories were white. Leading actress contenders are Yeoh; Cate Blanchett for “Tár”: Viola Davis for “The Woman King”; Danielle Deadwyler for “Till”; Ana de Armas for “Blonde” and Emma Thompson for “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.” The best-actor category pits Farrell against Austin Butler for “Elvis”; Brendan Fraser for “The Whale”; Daryl McCormack for “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” Paul Mescal for “Aftersun” and Bill Nighy for “Living.” “I kind of love that half of them are Irish – myself, Colin and Paul,” said McCormack, who is nominated for his role as a sex worker in “Leo Grande.” This is a strong year for Irish talent at the BAFTAs, with Brendan Gleeson.