Baftas 2018 ceremony as it happened: Three Billboards clears up as Time's Up proves running theme throughout

Three Billboards and Gary Oldman score success at the Bafta Awards

Awards season arrived to UK shores this Sunday, as the Baftas honoured the last year in film - and what a truly spectacular one it was.

While Guillermo del Toro's aquatic romance The Shape of Water, garnered 12 nods, the most of any film this year, it was actually Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri which walked away the night's big winner with five awards in total: Best Film, Best British Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor.

The ceremony also carried on the Time's Up conversation, with attendees continuing the show of solidarity by wearing black on the red carpet from the Golden Globes, with many others bringing along activists. You can read our coverage of the ceremony as it happened below.

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Key Points

• Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri conquers the night with five awards 
• The red carpet was dominated by the Time's Up movement, as attendees wore black in solidarity
• Joanna Lumley's opening monologue compared the Time's Up and women's suffrage
• Protestors stormed the red carpet wearing 'Time's Up Theresa' t-shirts

[18 February 2018 22:05 · clarisse.loughrey]

After an awkward attempt to poke fun at the Oscar's mix-up (don't get ideas above your station, BAFTAs), Bryan Cranston comes on to list off some British things. He's here to present Best Supporting Actress to I, Tonya's Allison Janney. An entrance accompanied by blaring '80s music, of course.

"I want to clear up a little lie I've perpetrated for the last 30 years - I did not in fact graduate from RADA," she jokes. 

[18 February 2018 22:09 · clarisse.loughrey]

Martin Landau, Jeanne Moreau, Jóhann Jóhannsson, George A. Romero, Jonathan Demme, Bill Paxton, Harry Dean Stanton, Sir Roger Moore - only a few of the incredible talents we've lost over the year. The always moving In Memoriam segment is this year accompanied by a string movement by The Kanneh-Masons.

[18 February 2018 22:13 · clarisse.loughrey]

An obvious winner for Best Sound, as Dunkirk scoops up the prize. Although Christopher Nolan is inevitably having a small personal crisis over the mention of watching these films on an i-Pad. 

[18 February 2018 22:20 · clarisse.loughrey]

Nicholas Hoult and Rachel Weisz hand the Best Original Screenplay award to Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri.

Martin McDonagh thanks his "muse", Sam Rockwell. He adds, "What we're most proud of with this film... is that it's a film about a woman who refused to take any sh*t anymore, played by a woman who refuses to take any sh*t."  

[18 February 2018 22:24 · clarisse.loughrey]

Salma Hayek nods to Natalie Portman's legendary Golden Globes jab by pointing out she's here specifically to celebrate men, namely by presenting the Best Actor award. 

The winner, which is no surprise to anyone, is Gary Oldman for his Churchill rendition in Darkest Hour. That's after Hayek jokingly reveals Frances McDormand as the winner, which only works since we all know she's about to win Best Actress anyway.

 

BAFTAs 2018: Gary Oldman wins Best Actor award for Darkest Hour

He, of course, thanks Churchill himself: "He held the line for honour, for integrity, and freedom. For his nation and the world. I thank you, Sir Winston, I thank you, the Churchill family... I am so grateful for this incredible honour."

[18 February 2018 22:32 · clarisse.loughrey]

Chiwetel Ejiofor is here to present Best Actress to (shortest drumroll ever) Frances McDormand. Who, really, if we actually let Salma Hayek be in charge, should have won Best Actor too.

She first explains why she's not dressed in black, the dress code for those supporting Time's Up ("I have a little trouble with compliance"), while adding: "I am in full solidarity with my sisters tonight in black."

Referencing the use of the film's titular billboards to protest injustices around the world, she adds: "I appreciate a well-organised act of civil disobedience... power to the people." 

[18 February 2018 22:37 · clarisse.loughrey]

Guillermo del Toro picks up Best Director for The Shape of Water. He offers a wonderfully location-specific speech, naming off British inspirations: Powell and Pressburger, Sally Hawkins, Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel...

But most importantly: "A teenager by the name of Mary Shelley... a figure as important to me as family. She gave voice to the voiceless, and a presence to the invisible."

[18 February 2018 22:41 · clarisse.loughrey]

Daniel Craig takes to the stage to present the night's big one: Best Film, to Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri.

Graham Broadbent points out everyone on stage has already won, so everyone might as well just finish and go have dinner. Indeed, McDonagh actually seems to be struggling to think of a follow-up to his previous speech, slightly nervously adding: "The film is a hopeful one, but it's also an angry one. As we've seen this year, sometimes anger is the only way to make change."

[18 February 2018 22:47 · clarisse.loughrey]

Prince William introduces Sir Kenneth Branagh who introduces our Fellowship winner - the "indisputable master"  Sir Ridley Scott. The highlight reel of his work (mysteriously) does not seem to include Alien: Covenant's immortal line, "I'll do the fingering".

[18 February 2018 22:55 · clarisse.loughrey]

Although Scott has an utterly infamous reputation for saying whatever may pop into his head, like cinema's grumpy uncle who sits in the armchair in the corner, it's clear the award's prestige has struck him in an emotional place. 

Opening with a small joke that BAFTA guessed it'd "better give him something before it's too late", the rest of the speech is actually quite sweet: a testament to the important of good education, a quick "You bored?" thrown out at the audience, and a endearingly rambling summary of his professional career.