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Greig Fraser, Guy Pearce, ‘Better Man’ VFX team secure BAFTA nods

Guy Pearce in 'The Brutalist'.

Aussies Greig Fraser and Guy Pearce have maintained their awards season momentum ahead of next week’s Oscar nominations, with the pair in the mix for this year’s BAFTAs.

The VFX team behind the CGI chimp in Michael Gracey’s Robbie Williams-inspired Better Man, comprising Luke Millar, David Clayton, Keith Herft, and Peter Stubbs, also got a nod for Special Visual Effects in the nominations announced on Wednesday (UK time).

Pearce is among 14 first-time nominees in the performance categories, recognised in the Supporting Actor field for his turn as the wealthy and mysterious Pennsylvania industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren in Brady Corbet’s post-WW2 drama The Brutalist. He is up against Yura Borisov (Anora), Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown), Clarence Maclin (Sing Sing), Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice), and Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain), who won the Golden Globe in the corresponding category earlier this month.

It is one of nine nods for The Brutalist, the third-most nominated film behind Conclave (12) and Emilia Pérez (11). All three will battle for Best Film against Anora and A Complete Unknown.

Fraser will be hoping he can replicate his 2022 cinematography win for Dune with his work in Dune: Part 2. The renowned lenser, who yesterday was announced as this year’s AACTA Byron Kennedy Award recipient, is nominated alongside Stéphane Fontaine (Conclave), Paul Guilhaume (Emilia Pérez), Jarin Blaschke (Nosferatu), and Lol Crawley (The Brutalist).

Millar, Clayton, Herft, and Stubbs will carry the hopes of Better Man, competing with fellow Wētā FX-led production Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, whose team was made up of Erik Winquist, Rodney Burke, Paul Story, and Stephen Unterfranz. Dune: Part 2, Gladiator 2, and Wicked round out the category.

In congratulating this year’s nominees, BAFTA chair Sara Putt said the skills on display from creative and technical practitioners were “phenomenal” across the board.

“From a total of 235 films entered, we are delighted to announce 42 extraordinary and creatively ambitious films that have been nominated,” she said.

The EE BAFTA Film Awards ceremony, hosted by David Tennant, will be held at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in central London on Sunday, February 16.

Find the full list of nominees here.

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