Dwayne Johnson and George Clooney among big names missing out on Baftas longlist

George Clooney, Dwayne Johnson and Julia Roberts are some of the big names to miss out at this year’s Bafta Film Awards, which can often be an accurate indicator of who will win at the Oscars.

Longlists for each Bafta category have been published, with Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, leading with 16 mentions.

The final nominations will be announced on 27 January, with six people in each acting category.

Clooney, Johnson and Roberts are all nominated at the Golden Globes, which take place on Sunday, for their respective films Jay Kelly, The Smashing Machine and After the Hunt.

In recent years, the Baftas and Oscars have often closely mirrored each other’s results.

Thirteen of the last 15 best actor winners at the Baftas have gone on to repeat their success at the Oscars.

Ten out of the last 12 Bafta best actress winners have also picked up the Oscar.

Only twice this century has an actor won a best actor Oscar without a Bafta nomination – Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club in 2014 and Denzel Washington for Training Day in 2002.

It is only twice in the last 21 years that best actress at the Oscars has triumphed without a Bafta nomination – Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye in 2022 and Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side in 2010.

Clooney has been praised for playing the title role in Jay Kelly, with New York Magazine saying his turn as an aging movie stars was “arguably his best performance ever”.

However his co-star, Adam Sandler has made the Bafta best supporting actor longlist, giving him a chance of his first ever Bafta nomination.

Johnson has been heavily tipped to challenge at the Oscars, after his film about the origins of UFC, The Smashing Machine, received a 15-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, reducing him to tears.

Julia Roberts is in the running to win a Golden Globe this weekend for playing a Yale Professor in Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt.

The most recent of her three Bafta nominations was 12 years ago, for August: Osage County.

KPop Demon Hunters, the favourite with pundits to win best animated film at the Oscars, was ruled ineligible for this year’s Baftas because it streamed on Netflix in the UK, before its brief cinema release in August.

Brazilian actor Wagner Moura also missed out for the Portuguese-language political thriller The Secret Agent.

The experts on the Oscars predictions site Gold Derby currently have him as one of the four dead certs to be nominated for best actor, along with Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme), Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another) and Michael B Jordan (Sinners). The latter three are all longisted for a Bafta.

Much-touted films to completely miss out in every category are the Bruce Springsteen biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere and Daniel Day-Lewis’s comeback, after eight years away from acting, Anemone.

Hamnet’s stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal are also among the acting names making the Bafta longlist, along with Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, and Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy for the film Steve.

The longlists also give an idea of which films have the general support of Bafta voters.

The stars of One Battle Another are recognised with Bafta longlist mentions for Leonardo DiCaprio, Chase Infiniti, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Torro and Teyana Taylor.

The films with multiple appearances on the longlist are:

• One Battle After Another: 16
• Hamnet: 14
• Sinners: 14
• Marty Supreme: 13
• Bugonia: 12
• Frankenstein: 12

The British box office hit I Swear, based the real life story of John Davidson living with Tourette’s syndrome, has also performed strongly, appearing on six lists.

British folk music comedy-drama, The Ballad of Wallis Island, has also done well, appearing in five categories including best film and outstanding British film. Its star Carey Mulligan is included in best supporting actress.

Kate Winslet’s directorial debut Goodbye June has also made the longlist for Outstanding British Film.