BAFTA 2025: Betting Odds and Prediction
Brody or Fiennes?
On February 16, the winners of the BAFTA Awards, the UK's most prestigious film and television honors, will be announced at London's Southbank Centre. Should we expect surprises? How might the results help predict the Oscar winners? And, of course, who should you bet on? We'll answer all these questions in our review.
Best British Film Award
BAFTA 2025 Betting Odds
The main intrigue is which film will be declared the Best British Film of the Year. In the other major categories—Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Actress—we can rely on the results of the recent Golden Globes. The preferences of the "jury" often align, with a match rate of 40 to 60 percent across various categories.
Best Film
Anora's failure at the Golden Globes has reshuffled the odds. The Cannes triumph, once predicted to sweep all the awards, is now only the fourth favorite. The new frontrunner is Brutalist, the Golden Globe winner. This monumental film about an architect pursuing the American Dream has strong chances to claim victory. However, there's one catch—British Academy voters often favor intimate cinema. Exceptions like Oppenheimer and All Quiet on the Western Front are rare, which boosts the chances of Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes. We’ll return to that film later.
Top 5 Contenders
Don’t bet on the burlesque Emilia Perez. In nearly 80 years of the awards' history, only two musicals have won the top prize: La La Land and My Fair Lady. As for the chances of the Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet, the odds say it all. In the past 20 years, no film with such unfavorable odds has ever won.
Best British Film
Conclave, a tale of Vatican intrigue directed by Edward Berger, seems tailor-made for BAFTA recognition. Berger’s previous film, All Quiet on the Western Front, tied for the most BAFTA nominations in history, winning seven awards, including Best Film and Best Director.
The war drama Blitz, from auteur Steve McQueen—who previously swept major awards (including the BAFTA) with 12 Years a Slave—delivered a lackluster performance at the Golden Globes and is not considered a serious contender for victory this year.
Its place has been taken by the audacious Kneecap, a film about the survival of the Irish language in modern Britain. A win for such a film would be a powerful political statement. However, BAFTA tends to shy away from divisive topics. Over the past three years, the Academy has overlooked Belfast and The Banshees of Inisherin, and has generally steered clear of socially charged films. Even Joker and Parasite failed to make an impression, despite global acclaim.
Top 5 contenders
Best Actor and Actress
In the 21st century, BAFTA voters have deliberately avoided selecting the most obvious artists to distinguish their awards from others. However, certain patterns do emerge.
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Biographical roles, where actors portray real-life figures, tend to dominate. Examples include Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln, and Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher.
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The Academy also favors challenging roles that demand significant emotional or physical transformations, such as Christian Bale, who lost weight for The Fighter, or Eddie Redmayne, who embodied Stephen Hawking.
On paper, Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan seems like an ideal favorite. However, BAFTA isn’t particularly inclined toward young actors. Since 2000, only one winner has been under 29 (Chalamet’s current age). The average age of winners during this period is 45.5 years, putting Chalamet at a disadvantage.
Top 5 contenders for the best actor award
Next to giants like Brody, Fiennes, and Grant, it’s easy to get overshadowed. And while Brody may be the frontrunner, we can’t overlook how patriotic BAFTA tends to be in this category. Ten of the last 25 awards for Best Actor have gone to British talent.
As for the women, the percentage of British winners is lower—around 25%. This adds extra weight to the case for the dazzling Demi Moore, who has emerged as the main favorite after her Golden Globe triumph.
Top 5 contenders for the best actress award
We maintain that Mikey Madison is the leading contender for the Oscar, which means BAFTA is likely to choose an alternative winner.
BAFTA 2025 Prediction
BAFTA is one of the most conservative awards, so we can expect prizes to go to the three films with the most nominations: Conclave, Emilia Perez, and Brutalist.The top three bookmakers—Unibet, Bluefox, and 10Bet—are in full agreement about the favorites in the most prestigious categories. In fact, for some categories, such as Best Film, their odds are almost identical.
Two categories where we’re ready to challenge the bookmakers, considering the Academy's love for British actors and transformative performances, are Best Actor and Best Actress.
As for the women, the situation is so tangled that Demi Moore, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and Karla Sofia Gascon all have a real chance of winning the award. Still, the latter—especially due to her transformation and as a consolation for her Golden Globe loss—is the more preferable option.
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