Edward Berger’s gripping, and gutting, World War I drama All Quiet on the Western Front continued its extraordinary award season run on Thursday when it picked up 14 BAFTA nominations, leading the pack, ahead of Martin McDonagh’s Irish drama The Banshees of Inisherin and Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s metaverse action comedy Everything Everywhere All At Once, which received 10 nods each.
The 14 noms tied the all-time record for a non-English-language film, blowing past the 12 nominations secured by Michel Hazanavicius’ silent film tribute The Artist (2011), while equaling the tally scored by Ang Lee’s wuxia masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon more than 20 years ago.
In addition to the expected nomination in the best non-English-language feature category, the war drama picked up nominations for best film for producer Malte Grunert, best director for Berger, best adapted screenplay (co-written by Berger, Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell) and a best supporting actor BAFTA nom for Albrecht Schuch, who plays veteran soldier Stanislaus Katczinsky, the mentor to the fresh-faced recruit Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer).
All Quiet on the Western Front is the first-ever German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic anti-war novel, first published, in German, in 1929. The book follows the experiences of an ordinary German front line soldier in the trenches. Lewis Milestone’s English-language adaptation won the best picture and best director Oscar in 1930. A U.S. television version from 1979, starring Richard Thomas as Paul Bäumer and Ernest Borgnine as Katczinsky, won an Emmy.
“We are speechless and overwhelmed. It’s an enormous honor to be acknowledged by the British Film Academy,” Berger said in a statement, commenting on the BAFTA nominations. “That the film has resonated with so many people is a testament to Erich Maria Remarque’s extraordinary book, written one hundred years ago and yet sadly still relevant today. It was our north star. The novel’s powerful anti-war message unites us, no matter which country we live in.”
All Quiet producer Malte Grunert called the 14 nominations “overwhelming” and thanked the British Academy for the “incredible honor.” Citing the other BAFTA nominees, Gurnert said it was “humbling to be in such great company. Thank you, BAFTA.”
All Quiet dominated the BAFTA’s craft categories —picking up nominations for James Friend for best cinematography; Sven Budelmann for best editing; Volker Bertelmann for best original score; best production design for Christian M. Goldbreck and Ernestine Hipper; Lisy Christl for best costume design; Lars Ginzsel, Frank Kruse, Viktor Prášil and Markus Stemler for best sound; Markus Frank, Kamil Jafar, Viktor Müller and Frank Petzoid for best visual effects; Simone Bär for best casting; and Heike Merker for best makeup and hairstyling.
Led by All Quiet, Netflix easily won the BAFTA’s distributors’ horse race. The streaming giant reigned supreme with a total of 21 BAFTA nominations —in addition to 14 for All Quiet, Netflix secured 3 for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio and one each for Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, the Tobias Lindholm-directed The Good Nurse, Sally El Hosaini’s The Swimmers and Sebastián Lelio’s The Wonder.
That tally compares to 14 each for A24 — which received 10 for Everything Everywhere All at Once and four for Darren Aronofsky’s melodrama The Whale starring Brendan Fraser — and Searchlight — which picked up 10 BAFTA noms for The Banshees of Inisherin, three for Sam Mendes’ 1980s-set Empire of Light and a single nomination for Tom George’s West End period crime comedy See How They Run.
Berger’s anti-war epic was a frontrunner going into the nominations. The Netflix movie led the BAFTA longlist with 15 mentions, the most of any film since the BAFTA longlist was reintroduced three years ago. Of the 15 longlist contenders, only Felix Kammerer failed to score a BAFTA nom in the super-competitive best actor category.
The BAFTA bonanza should help maintain the awards momentum behind All Quiet, which is on the Oscar shortlist for best international feature and is considered a frontrunner to make the final five when the Academy Award nominations are unveiled in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Word-of-mouth buzz for the film, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September and was released by Netflix worldwide Oct. 28, continues to grow.
Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon translated its record BAFTA performance into four wins, including best director, best non-English-language film, best costume design and best film music. The Artist fared even better at the BAFTAs, sweeping the 2012 awards with seven wins including best film, best director and best actor for star Jean Dujardin.
Crouching star Michelle Yeoh nabbed a BAFTA best actress nomination but no win, an oversight BAFTA voters could correct this year, as Yeoh is nominated in the same category for her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Both Crouching Tiger and The Artist went from BAFTA to Oscar success, with the former winning four Academy Awards and later taking five, including best picture.
