The BAFTAs Went Bananas for Monkey Movies

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has gone totally chimp crazy. Today, the BAFTAs released the full nomination list for the organization’s upcoming film awards, a crucial annual Oscars precursor. If this year’s lineup of nominees is any indication for the awards season to come, some trends emerge: Conclave and Emilia Pérez are leading the race, The Substance continues to gain steam, and if there’s anything the British love more than that cheeky monkey Hugh Grant, it’s actual monkeys.

Computer generated monkeys, anyway. As well as chimpanzees, baboons, apes, and primates in general. The BAFTAs nominated five films from 2024 for its Special Visual Effects Award: Better Man, Dune: Part Two, Gladiator II, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and Wicked. Save for Dune: Part Two, all of these movies feature scary, realistically animated monkeys. In Planet of the Apes and for some reason Better Man, these apes are first on the call sheet, Chimps in a Leading Role, top banana. In fraternal twins Wicked and Gladiator II (born on the same day!), the monkey ensembles are introduced in horrifying set pieces, all toothy screeching, wherein they’re sicced upon the protagonists. What they all have in common is the Brits appear to have absolutely eaten them up and been thoroughly entertained by their silly monkey japes, like a whole nation of Caracallas clapping gleefully at their pet capuchin (who was played by a real monkey named Sherry.)

If I was making a new Gladiator film I would simply not include CG baboons pic.twitter.com/EwVlHgLupQ

— David Franklin (@davefranklin) September 23, 2024

Notably snubbed from this veritable zoo enclosure of nominees is Mufasa, which heavily features a “realistic” animated interpretation of Rafiki the baboon. You know your animation looks disgusting and weird when it can’t even crack a nearly all-monkey category, in which two of the nominees are also musicals that somehow make their singing animals not look so disturbing. (It’s a shame because Rafiki’s big number is actually really catchy, as long as you don’t accompany it with the awful visuals.) Mufasa was also shut out of BAFTA categories like Animated Film and Children & Family Film (a couple of these nominees, Flow and Kensuke’s Kingdom, have a lemur and some orangutans, respectively.)

Chistery outsold https://t.co/t5qtv2gnRm pic.twitter.com/csGVpLINue

— Tom Zohar (@TomZohar) January 11, 2025

Okay, so why does any of this matter? My gambit is unless the British all really love Robbie Williams as much as they say they do, all the monkey nominees will cancel each out in an epic simian smackdown, leaving ape-less Dune: Part Two as the one true winner of the category. This will set enough of a prophecy for the film to ascend as the one true winner of the Visual Effects category at the Oscars later this year. A word to the wise when making your Oscar predictions: Follow the mon(k)ey.

Related

• The 2025 BAFTA Nominations Are Here
• A Minute-by-Minute Breakdown of Everything That Happens in Better Man