2012 BAFTA Film Award Nominations

This evening the Orange British Academy announced the 2012 BAFTA Film Awards nominees with The Artist taking the nomination crown with 12 total nominations followed by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with 11. Both films were joined by The Descendants, Drive and The Help as contenders for Best Film.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy pulls double duty with a nomination in Outstanding British Film where it was joined by My Week with Marilyn, Shame, We Need to Talk about Kevin and the documentary Senna. A documentary, I feel I should mention, that didn’t even make the Academy’s documentary shortlist as the Academy proved once again their taste in documentaries is incredibly questionable.

Martin Scorsese‘s Hugo didn’t enjoy a nomination in either of the top categories, but it did enjoy the third most nominations with nine. The majority of the film’s noms are in the technical categories, but Scorsese does join Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive), Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk about Kevin) in the Best Director category. Scorsese’s documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World was also nominated.

In most categories it’s plenty of the usual suspects with a few unique (but deserving) contenders popping up here and there, particularly contenders such as Michael Fassbender getting a nom for Shame, Carey Mulligan getting a surprise nom for Drive and even Judi Dench getting in on things with a nomination for her entertaining work in My Week with Marilyn.

Additionally, I know these are the UK’s equivalent to the Oscars, but Jim Broadbent for The Iron Lady? Really? I’ll give you Meryl Streep, but what did Broadbent do with that role that was deserving of an acting nomination? And I say this as a die hard fan of the man’s talent.

The 2012 BAFTA Film Awards will be handed out two weeks before the Oscars on Sunday, February 12 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London with Stephen Fry playing host.

I have included the complete list of nominees directly below. Have a look and tell me if anything in particular stands out to you. If you ask me, it’s nice to see love for Drive for Best Film as well as appreciation for Fassbender and Ramsay as both look like they’ll be ignored by the Academy, but I’ll have a little more on my feelings as to what’s “best” when it comes to 2011 tomorrow.

BEST FILM

The Artist (Thomas Langmann)
The Descendants (Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor)
Drive (Marc Platt, Adam Siegel)
The Help (Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Robyn Slovo)

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM

My Week with Marilyn (Simon Curtis, David Parfitt, Harvey Weinstein, Adrian Hodges)
Senna (Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Manish Pandey)
Shame (Steve McQueen, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Abi Morgan)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Robyn Slovo,

Bridget O’Connor, Peter Straughan)
We Need to Talk about Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, Luc Roeg, Jennifer Fox, Robert Salerno, Rory Stewart Kinnear)

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER

Attack the Block, Joe Cornish (Director/Writer)
Black Pond, Will Sharpe (Director/Writer), Tom Kingsley (Director), Sarah Brocklehurst (Producer)
Coriolanus, Ralph Fiennes (Director)
Submarine, Richard Ayoade (Director/Writer)
Tyrannosaur, Paddy Considine (Director), Diarmid Scrimshaw (Producer)

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, Luc DÃ©ry, Kim McGraw)
Pina (Wim Wenders, Gian-Piero Ringel)
Potiche (FranÃ§ois Ozon, Eric Altmayer, Nicolas Altmayer)
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
The Skin I Live In (Pedro AlmodÃ³var, Agustin AlmodÃ³var)

DOCUMENTARY

George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Martin Scorsese)
Project Nim (James Marsh, Simon Chinn)
Senna (Asif Kapadia)

ANIMATED FILM

The Adventures of Tintin (Steven Spielberg)
Arthur Christmas (Sarah Smith)
Rango (Gore Verbinski)

DIRECTOR

The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Hugo (Martin Scorsese)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson)
We Need to Talk about Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
Bridesmaids (Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig)
The Guard (John Michael McDonagh)
The Iron Lady (Abi Morgan)
Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Descendants (Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash)
The Help (Tate Taylor)
The Ides of March (George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon)
Moneyball (Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Bridget O’Connor, Peter Straughan)

LEADING ACTOR

Brad Pitt (Moneyball)
Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
George Clooney (The Descendants)
Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
Michael Fassbender (Shame)

LEADING ACTRESS

Berenice Bejo (The Artist)
Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)
Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn)
Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk about Kevin)
Viola Davis (The Help)

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Christopher Plummer ( Beginners)
Jim Broadbent (The Iron Lady)
Jonah Hill (Moneyball)
Kenneth Branagh (My Week with Marilyn)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Ides of March)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Carey Mulligan (Drive)
Jessica Chastain (The Help)
Judi Dench (My Week with Marilyn)
Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)
Octavia Spencer (The Help)

ORIGINAL MUSIC

The Artist (Ludovic Bource)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross)
Hugo (Howard Shore)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alberto Iglesias)
War Horse (John Williams)

CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Artist (Guillaume Schiffman)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Jeff Cronenweth)
Hugo (Robert Richardson)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Hoyte van Hoytema)
War Horse (Janusz Kaminski)

EDITING

The Artist (Anne-Sophie Bion, Michel Hazanavicius)
Drive (Mat Newman)
Hugo (Thelma Schoonmaker)
Senna (Gregers Sall, Chris King)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Dino Jonsater)

PRODUCTION DESIGN

The Artist (Laurence Bennett, Robert Gould)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan)
Hugo (Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Maria Djurkovic, Tatiana MacDonald)
War Horse (Rick Carter, Lee Sandales)

COSTUME DESIGN

The Artist (Mark Bridges)
Hugo (Sandy Powell)
Jane Eyre (Michael O’Connor)
My Week with Marilyn (Jill Taylor)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Jacqueline Durran)

MAKE UP & HAIR

The Artist (Julie Hewett, Cydney Cornell)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (Amanda Knight, Lisa Tomblin)
Hugo (Morag Ross, Jan Archibald)
The Iron Lady (Marese Langan)
My Week with Marilyn (Jenny Shircore)

SOUND

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (James Mather, Stuart Wilson, Stuart Hilliker, Mike Dowson, Adam Scrivener)
Hugo (Philip Stockton, Eugene Gearty, Tom Fleischman, John Midgley)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (John Casali, Howard Bargroff, Doug Cooper, Stephen Griffiths, Andy Shelley)
War Horse (Stuart Wilson, Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson, Richard Hymns)

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS

The Adventures of Tintin (Joe Letteri)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (Tim Burke, John Richardson, Greg Butler, David Vickery)
Hugo (Rob Legato, Ben Grossman, Joss Williams)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White)
War Horse (Ben Morris, Neil Corbould)

SHORT ANIMATION