BAFTAs 2026 shocks: I Swear's Robert Aramayo wins best actor while Marty Supreme misses across the board

The BAFTAs routinely deliver some golden moments for pop culture – from speeches to awards, it’s always a night of tears, applause, and some fancy golden statues which are definitely ending up in someone famous’ downstairs loo.

Last night, the 79th BAFTA awards took place at London’s Royal Festival Hall, with Alan Cumming charming crowds and conducting the evening.

As pointed out by Edith Bowman, it has been a glut year for movies, with stiff competition between brilliant films like Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Sinners, Sentimental Value, and Bugonia, battling it out for the tragicomic theatrical mask statues.

There were already eyebrows raised over some of the BAFTA noms for 2026, with omissions like Jennifer Lawrence for Best Actress, and Paul Mescal in the supporting actor category – although most critics (okay, armchair critics) pointed out that the BAFTA noms were more accurate than the Oscars this year.

Last night had a few surprises, with the biggest twist of the evening being Robert Aramayo beating out Timothee Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael B. Jordan for the award of leading actor for his incredible role in I Swear, a biopic about Tourette’s activist John Davidson.

The actor who has starred in Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and psychological thriller Behind Her Eyes also won the EE Rising Star Award, voted for by the public. Whilst many had expected Chalamet to clinch the award for Best Actor for his role in Marty Supreme, the actor lost out to Aramayo, with Marty Supreme not getting a single award across any of its nominated categories.

• Check out our interview with the I Swear cast here

Anyone who has watched I Swear won’t be surprised by Aramayo’s win, nor by the three awards the film scooped up across the evening. However, with the film not yet released in the States, many were shocked that it won over some of the bigger blockbusters, such as Marty Supreme, Sinners, and One Battle After Another. The twist is also narrowing Chalamet’s odds for winning the Oscar in the same category; originally the frontrunner for the award, people are speculating whether he will miss out again, with it already being a tight fight for the coveted award.

There weren’t many shockers across the rest of the evening, with One Battle After Another getting the most awards of the night, including Best Film, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, and Editing.

Hamnet won Outstanding British Film, as well as Best Actress for Jessie Buckley, making her the first Irish actor to win the award in the history of the BAFTAs. Wunmi Mosaku won Best Supporting Actress for Sinners, and the film also won for Original Screenplay and Original Score. Sentimental Value won for Film not in the English Language, even though our bet was on The Voice of Hind Rajab. Frankenstein fared well across Make-up and Hair, Production design, and Costume design.

• The Big Awards Season Movie Preview: 2026 Oscars, BAFTAs and Golden Globes predictions

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