La La Land Wins Best Film at the 2017 BAFTA Awards

Filmmaker Damien Chazelle's love letter to the Golden Era of Hollywood musicals, La La Land has been among the front-runners in the quest to be crowned Best Picture by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences throughout the current awards season. While that still remains the case now, with but a couple weeks left until this year's Academy Awards ceremony takes place, the odds seem less in favor of La La Land securing a sweep of the Oscar categories in which it has been nominated, in the vein of such past blockbuster sensations as Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (to name but two examples).

The acting categories at nearly every major film awards show this year have been dominated by such acclaimed dramas as Manchester by the Sea and Fences rather than La La Land, with fellow critical darling Moonlight having likewise made a good showing (and even secured the top honors at certain events) during its own sprint through this year's awards show circuit. That remained the case at the 2017 British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards ceremony: an event in which La La Land took home the top prize and several other awards, while other awards season heavyweights took home major BAFTA awards of their own.

La La Land took home five BAFTA awards in total, include wins for Best Film, Director and Actress (for Emma Stone), cementing its front-runner status for those categories at the Oscars show later this month. Meanwhile, Casey Affleck was recognized as Best Actor for his work on Manchester by the Sea and Viola Davis picked up yet another victory for Best Supporting Actress in Fences, further solidifying their own prospects of taking home an Academy Awards for their performances this year. That's not to say there weren't any surprises during this year's BAFTA awards show, however.

Cast in point, Laika's stop-motion animated Kubo and the Two Strings won the prize for Best Animated Film over Disney's smash-hit computer animated film Zootopia; itself, the longtime front-runner to win the Best Animated Feature Oscar this year. Zootopia is still arguably the favorite to be dubbed best animated feature over Kubo by the Academy, but an upset victory isn't out of the question either. It will be interesting to see if both Kubo and the Best Documentary winner at the BAFTAs, the Ava DuVernay-helmed 13th, repeat their wins at the Oscars, given the strong competition that they will be facing off against.

Elsewhere, in the technical categories, Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi film Arrival and Jon Favreau's live-action The Jungle Book (both of which are critical darlings) took home prizes of their own, including Best Visual Effects for the latter's almost completely CGI landscapes and non-human characters. The Harry Potter prequel/spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them also took home a BAFTA for Best Production Design, as did Mel Gibson's true story-based WWII drama/thriller, Hacksaw Ridge for editing. All four of those films are up for Oscars this month too, so it's plausible (if not exactly likely) that all of these 2016 releases will be adding Academy Awards to their collection in the near future, too.

You can read the full list of 2017 BAFTA award-winning films, actors and filmmakers, below!

13th - Netflix documentary poster and trailer

BEST FILM

Winner: LA LA LAND
ARRIVAL
I, DANIEL BLAKE
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
MOONLIGHT

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM

Winner: I, DANIEL BLAKE Ken Loach, Rebecca O'Brien, Paul Laverty
AMERICAN HONEY Andrea Arnold, Lars Knudsen, Pouya Shahbazian, Jay Van Hoy
DENIAL Mick Jackson, Gary Foster, Russ Krasnoff, David Hare
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM David Yates, J.K. Rowling, David Heyman, Steve Kloves, Lionel Wigram
NOTES ON BLINDNESS Peter Middleton, James Spinney, Mike Brett, Jo-Jo Ellison, Steve Jamison
UNDER THE SHADOW Babak Anvari, Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill, Lucan Toh

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER

Winner: Under the Shadow: BABAK ANVARI (Writer/Director), EMILY LEO, OLIVER ROSKILL, LUCAN TOH (Producers)
The Girl With All the Gifts: MIKE CAREY (Writer), CAMILLE GATIN (Producer)
The Hard Stop: GEORGE AMPONSAH (Writer/Director/Producer), DIONNE WALKER (Writer/Producer)
Notes on Blindness: PETER MIDDLETON (Writer/Director/Producer), JAMES SPINNEY (Writer/Director), JO-JO ELLISON (Producer)
The Pass: JOHN DONNELLY (Writer), BEN A. WILLIAMS (Director)

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Winner: SON OF SAUL László Nemes, Gábor Sipos
DHEEPAN Jacques Audiard, Pascal Caucheteux
JULIETA Pedro Almodóvar
MUSTANG Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Charles Gillibert
TONI ERDMANN Maren Ade, Janine Jackowski

DOCUMENTARY

Winner: 13th Ava DuVernay
THE BEATLES: EIGHT DAYS A WEEK- THE TOURING YEARS Ron Howard
THE EAGLE HUNTRESS Otto Bell, Stacey Reiss
NOTES ON BLINDNESS Peter Middleton, James Spinney
WEINER Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg

ANIMATED FILM

Winner: KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS Travis Knight
FINDING DORY Andrew Stanton
MOANA Ron Clements, John Musker
ZOOTROPOLIS Byron Howard, Rich Moore

DIRECTOR

Winner: LA LA LAND Damien Chazelle
ARRIVAL Denis Villeneuve
I, DANIEL BLAKE Ken Loach
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Kenneth Lonergan
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Tom Ford

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Winner: MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Kenneth Lonergan
HELL OR HIGH WATER Taylor Sheridan
I, DANIEL BLAKE Paul Laverty
LA LA LAND Damien Chazelle
MOONLIGHT Barry Jenkins

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Winner: LION Luke Davies
ARRIVAL Eric Heisserer
HACKSAW RIDGE Robert Schenkkan, Andrew Knight
HIDDEN FIGURES Theodore Melfi, Allison Schroeder
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Tom Ford

LEADING ACTOR

Winner: CASEY AFFLECK Manchester by the Sea
ANDREW GARFIELD Hacksaw Ridge
JAKE GYLLENHAAL Nocturnal Animals
RYAN GOSLING La La Land
VIGGO MORTENSEN Captain Fantastic

LEADING ACTRESS

Winner: EMMA STONE La La Land
AMY ADAMS Arrival
EMILY BLUNT The Girl on the Train
MERYL STREEP Florence Foster Jenkins
NATALIE PORTMAN Jackie

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Winner: DEV PATEL Lion
AARON TAYLOR-JOHNSON Nocturnal Animals
HUGH GRANT Florence Foster Jenkins
JEFF BRIDGES Hell or High Water
MAHERSHALA ALI Moonlight

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Winner: VIOLA DAVIS Fences
HAYLEY SQUIRES I, Daniel Blake
MICHELLE WILLIAMS Manchester by the Sea
NAOMIE HARRIS Moonlight
NICOLE KIDMAN Lion

Viola Davis hangs washing on a line in Fences

ORIGINAL MUSIC

Winner: LA LA LAND Justin Hurwitz
ARRIVAL Jóhann Jóhannsson
JACKIE Mica Levi
LION Dustin O'Halloran, Hauschka
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Abel Korzeniowski

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Winner: LA LA LAND Linus Sandgren
ARRIVAL Bradford Young
HELL OR HIGH WATER Giles Nuttgens
LION Greig Fraser
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Seamus McGarvey

EDITING

Winner: HACKSAW RIDGE John Gilbert
ARRIVAL Joe Walker
LA LA LAND Tom Cross
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA Jennifer Lame
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Joan Sobel

PRODUCTION DESIGN

Winner: FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Stuart Craig, Anna Pinnock
DOCTOR STRANGE John Bush, Charles Wood
HAIL, CAESAR! Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh
LA LA LAND Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, David Wasco
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Shane Valentino, Meg Everist

COSTUME DESIGN

Winner: JACKIE Madeline Fontaine
ALLIED Joanna Johnston
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Colleen Atwood
FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS Consolata Boyle
LA LA LAND Mary Zophres

MAKE UP & HAIR

Winner: FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS J. Roy Helland, Daniel Phillips
DOCTOR STRANGE Jeremy Woodhead
HACKSAW RIDGE Shane Thomas
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Donald Mowat, Yolanda Toussieng
ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY Nominees tbc

SOUND

Winner: ARRIVAL Claude La Haye, Bernard Gariépy Strobl, Sylvain Bellemare
DEEPWATER HORIZON Mike Prestwood Smith, Dror Mohar, Wylie Stateman, David Wyman
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Niv Adiri, Glenn Freemantle, Simon Hayes, Andy Nelson, Ian Tapp
HACKSAW RIDGE Peter Grace, Robert Mackenzie, Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright
LA LA LAND Mildred Iatrou Morgan, Ai-Ling Lee, Steve A. Morrow, Andy Nelson

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS

Winner: THE JUNGLE BOOK Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon, Andrew R. Jones, Adam Valdez
ARRIVAL Louis Morin
DOCTOR STRANGE Richard Bluff, Stephane Ceretti, Paul Corbould, Jonathan Fawkner
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Tim Burke, Pablo Grillo, Christian Manz, David Watkins
ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY Neil Corbould, Hal Hickel, Mohen Leo, John Knoll, Nigel Sumner

BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION

Winner: A LOVE STORY Khaled Gad, Anushka Kishani Naanayakkara, Elena Ruscombe-King
THE ALAN DIMENSION Jac Clinch, Jonathan Harbottle, Millie Marsh
TOUGH Jennifer Zheng

BRITISH SHORT FILM