Baftas 2026 live: Robert Aramayo beats DiCaprio and Chalamet in shock Best Actor win

Sunday night’s show largely went off without a hitch, but host Alan Cumming did at one point have to apologise and explain why some viewers may have heard bad language emanating from the audience during the show. He explained that this was the result of involuntary outbursts made by the Tourette Syndrome campaigner John Davidson, the inspiration for the film I Swear.

Wunmi Mosaku, winner of the Best Supporting Actress prize for Sinners, spoke to the press backstage and expressed her joy over her director Ryan Coogler’s win in Best Original Screenplay...

If you missed here, here’s Robert Aramayo’s very shocked acceptance speech after he beat far bigger names in the Best Actor category.

And we’re done! But not before a vaguely political but not really political last monologue by Alan Cumming.

“We have welcomed people from all over the world, people who look and sound and love differently, for a celebration of stories and ideas and culture, in fact, a celebration of diversity and equality and inclusion,” Cumming said. “And guess what? Nobody died.”

This was a very Bafta-coded Bafta ceremony, which was neither scandalous nor particularly funny, but also missing that necessary bit of slight madness to it that (on paper) should make this annual ceremony really distinct.

Which is a long way of saying, where on earth was Ariana DeBose?

And Best Picture goes to... One Battle After Another!

Producer Sara Murphy gives the bulk of the speech, presumably as PTA has given two other speeches already tonight. The win leaves One Battle the big winner of the night, with six awards.

And the Jessie Buckley award for Best Jessie Buckley goes to... Hamnet’s Jessie Buckley!

She’s had Best Actress in the bag for a while, but a lovely speech all the same.

“As a little girl, I never in a million years thought I’d be allowed to make a film, but here I am,” she says.

Buckley tells a story about arriving in London and taking a meeting with the woman that would become her agent. “I had nuclear bad fake tan on,” she jokes, “and I had the audacity to say to her that one day I’d love to be Judi Dench.”

And Best Actor goes to... um... Robert Aramayo for I Swear!

This is... a shock result! And good for him! But also, let’s not go nuts, surely?

Aramayo is tonight’s big surprise, beating DiCaprio, Chalamet and Jordan to the prize.

“I honestly cannot believe I’ve won this award,” he says. “Everyone in this category blows me away.”

He shares that he once met Ethan Hawke when he was studying at Juilliard, where he trained, and Hawke gave an inspirational speech to the students there.

“To be in this category with you tonight is incredible,” he says.

And here’s Prince William!

He’s here to announce the Bafta Fellowship Award, which is given to Donna Langley, the British-born super-producer who chairs Universal Pictures.

To really drive home how big a deal she is, we get a montage of talking heads expressing their respect for her, among them the guys behind Working Title as well as Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan. And Christopher Nolan is always moaning about film execs so you know he means it when he’s giving praise to one!

Anyway, here’s Best Director! And it goes to... Paul Thomas Anderson, who’s back on stage for his second speech of the night so far.

This isn’t a huge shock, but great all the same.

“I feel like the prettiest girl in the room right now,” PTA jokes.

He also pays tribute to assistant director Adam Somner, who he worked with on several films including Licorice Pizza and Phantom Thread, who died with cancer in 2024.

(Also, Chloe Zhao in hindsight probably should have done the speech for Hamnet’s Best British Film win, right?)

Alan Cumming is back, and acknowledges the tics and language you may have heard at home (though I don’t think we did, just a few noises, right?). More on that here...

And some in-the-room intel from Jacob on I Swear and John Davidson, the inspiration for the film, who has Tourette’s.

I have to commend Bafta for their sensitive handling of John Davidson's Tourette outbursts, which I’m imagining are confusing those watching at home. We here had the benefit of being informed that the subject of brilliant film I Swear was present – he got a HUGE cheer – so everyone knew to expect it and so thought nothing of it when the tics reared. But I'm worried viewers will think he's simply another heckler without the context. Robert Aramayo's (deserved) win for EE Rising Star thrust Davidson's campaign work into the spotlight, following which Cumming apologised for any offence caused by Davidson's tics. I've never seen this in an awards ceremony before and I gotta say it’s good Bafta embraced the situation.