BAFTA Tweaks Film Awards Rules, Updates AI Guidance

The British Academy has unveiled new changes to its film awards eligibility and voting rules going into the 2027 awards, which are small tweaks compared to the substantial edits recently made by AMPAS for the Oscars.

Among the major alterations is with the Outstanding British Film category, which now sees the longlist after the first round of voting expanded from 15 films to 20. The category will retain 10 nominations, with five chosen by the membership vote and five by the nominating jury.

“We just wanted to widen the pool for consideration and to get more members watching more British films and voting on them,” said BAFTA‘s executive director of awards and content Emma Baehr. “For us, it’s a celebration — it’s our flagship category.”

Another tweak comes in the performance categories, where members of BAFTA’s casting chapter will now be invited to vote alongside the acting chapter in the longlisting and nominations rounds. The decision here was more to help “increase the expertise,” says Baehr, who notes that there are more than 700 performance candidates to consider across four categories, which close a week earlier than the others. “So it’s really important that we keep that engagement up.”

But BAFTA hasn’t gone down the road of the Oscars, which earlier this year made the change to allow performers have multiple nominations in the same category. This was actually permitted at the British Academy previously, most notably when Margot Robbie received two supporting actress nominations in 2020, but was banned following a major review that followed. “That was one our key rule changes — that is not allowed,” said Baehr. “We want to make sure we’re levelling that playing field in those performance categories.”

Given the growing impact of AI, the British Academy has also made further tweaks to clarify its approach to the technology. Having already included the words “human achievement” last year, it has now added this paragraph to it rulebook: “The Awards are presented annually to recognise, honour and reward individuals for outstanding human achievement in originating, shaping and realising the final artistic outcome, regardless of the tools used to bring this work to life. Where the use of Generative AI or other digital tools is relevant to the consideration of the work, BAFTA reserves the right to request additional information regarding the nature of such use and the extent of human creative involvement.”

According to Baehr, the addition gives BAFTA the “opportunity to just dig in a bit deeper if there’s something we want to check.” But it would be then up to the film committee to decide if a film doesn’t fit in with the eligibility and the rules. Asked whether a fully AI-generated movie or AI performance could ever make it through to the nominations, Baehr said that it “would always be a human that picks up a BAFTA.” (Sorry, Tilly Norwood).

Elsewhere, BAFTA is continuing to make bullying and harassment measures policies mandatory for its British categories, a rule which requires production entrants to declare that they’re aligned with standards set by CIISA (Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority). But it’s now requesting information from all submitted productions, although its asserts it’s not mandatory for those outside the British categories. This is something it says will be monitored with the “expectation that this will become a requirement in future years.”

Alongside the rule changes, the British Academy has also revealed the key dates for the upcoming film awards. Entries open on July 22, with round one voting opening Dec 4. The longlists are published Jan 7, the same day that round two voting opens, and final nominations open Jan 19. . The final round of voting opens Jan 26 with the BAFTA film awards ceremony being held Feb. 21.