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More than five months in, it’s easy to think of awards season as being one long schlep to Oscars night— you know, the movie world’s equivalent of Reese Witherspoon’s long but triumphant journey in Wild. The trouble with such thinking is that it both diminishes all the other awards along the way—they become mere “predictors” of the Academy Awards—and it overlooks what makes each awards show distinctive.

​Take this evening’s BAFTA Awards ceremony, held at the Royal Opera House (which, so far anyway, isn’t called the Kodak Royal Opera House or the Office Depot Royal Opera House). Beginning with the opening drolleries by host Stephen Fry (who pointedly kissed Meryl Streep by way of tweaking Donald Trump), its salient quality is captured by that initial “B.” These are British awards, and though Britain and America have a special relationship in movies and TV as well as politics—Englishmen have won three of the last six Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscars—what makes the ceremony interesting is the way it sometimes embodies a different culture’s point of view and taste.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. This sounds absolutely, irredeemably wrong. After all, La La Land won Best Film, Damien Chazelle won Best Director, and Leading Actress went to Emma Stone, all of which is likely to be repeated in Hollywood in two weeks—as is the Best Supporting Actress statuette likely going to Viola Davis. Still, what was interesting about the show was the way it was different.

1. ​The BAFTAs still feel a bit old-fashioned.

It wasn’t so long ago that many big stars wouldn’t bother to turn up at the BAFTAs. But in these days of endless red carpets unfurling toward an infinity of awards ceremonies, this is now part of the circuit. However, in a nice touch, the BBC’s coverage of the red carpet still had a bit of innocent charm. Yes, the presenters sounded starstruck, just like they do here. And yes, they were attuned to fashion, telling us that Naomie Harris had turned up in Gucci and that Felicity Jones, now known worldwide from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, would be sitting in the front row at London Fashion Week shows. Yet, the hosts hadn’t completely fallen into the commentary of their American counterparts. When Amy Adams turned up, they didn’t just speculate on her chances of winning a BAFTA, but incredibly, they actually began discussing the meaning of the movie Arrival. (E! would’ve cut to a commercial so fast.)

2. Dev Patel won Best Supporting Actor for Lion.

This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, and it isn’t simply a matter of British voters choosing a homey (he’s from London) although I’m sure they were delighted to do so. In addition to everything else, Patel is a very nice young man. It perhaps reveals something important about how Moonlight plays with foreign audiences. Although Mahershala Ali has won many of the big American awards, he lost to Aaron Taylor-Johnson at the Golden Globes, which are chosen by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and now he’s lost in London. I guess you have to be American to fully grasp just how Ali’s performance takes one of our most hideous pop culture clichés—the African-American drug dealer—and gives it a whole new resonance and spin.

3. Nocturnal Animals was up for nine awards.

​If you want to see a clear difference in cultural tastes, you only need to consider that Tom Ford’s movie was nominated nine times for tonight yet got only a single nomination from the Academy. Why? Put simply, Americans typically like their movies warm, whereas the British have always had a fondness for chilly stylishness, which Nocturnal Animals delivers in spades. It appears to have been filmed on dry ice.

4. Is it time for BAFTAsSoWhite?

​Now, to be fair, Patel did win Best Supporting Actor, Davis won Best Supporting Actress, and Ava DuVernay’s 13th was named Best Documentary. Still, it’s weird to listen to the list of nominated Best Directors and not hear the name of Barry Jenkins from Moonlight (one of the Best Film nominees) or hear Denzel Washington for Fences. Especially when you realize that Washington—probably the greatest screen actor of his generation—has never been nominated for a BAFTA even once. Draw your own conclusions.

5. The BAFTAs give special awards for British films.

​American culture thinks it’s the center of the movie world. Not so in Britain, which makes a point of giving national awards if only to make sure that Hollywood doesn’t steamroll the whole evening and that somebody British winssomething. In truth, this year’s choices weren’t bad. The Palme d’Or winner, I, Daniel Blake was named Outstanding British Film, and it’s easy to see why: It tells the powerful story about how the gutting of the British welfare state is destroying lives. The Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer went to Babak Anvari, for his fine horror film, Under the Shadow. And the EE Rising Star award went to the newest Spider-Man, Tom Holland, although I personally would have given it to Ruth Negga, who had a much better and more versatile year (Loving, Preacher).

6. Casey Affleck beat British actors at their own game.

​While the Brits adore La La Land—it’s the kind of movie they don’t make in the U.K.—they feel at home with Manchester by the Sea. Kenneth Lonergan’s film is a well-turned version of the glum, literate, working-class drama that has been a British specialty since the days of kitchen sink realism. While this means that they won’t be thrilled enough to give it Best Film, they appreciate the skill in Affleck’s understated, almost strangled performance, which has a cinematic richness missing from that of, say, Dave Johns’s turn in I, Daniel Blake. Both play working-class guys in distress, but Affleck is the performance you’ll remember.

7. La La Land keeps rolling.

​Now that it’s won best picture from the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs and the Producers Guild Awards…the one remaining question does concern the Oscars. Can anything stop it at the Oscars? Certainly nothing that happened tonight at the BAFTAs makes one think so. But here’s a thought: All along, people have been suggesting that the great threat to Chazelle’s musical would come fromMoonlight, yet talking around Hollywood, you get the sense that maybe the real sleeper in this race is Hidden Figures, which was barely mentioned at the BAFTAs. Why? Well, like La La Land, it’s a movie that Hollywood people genuinely like, and like La La Land, it’s been a surprise box-office hit. But unlikeLa La Land, it has a political thrust that perhaps appeals to the industry in the early days of the Trump administration. I’m still betting on La La Land, which is a much better made film, but if Hidden Figures does take Best Picture, remember that you read it here first.Read more at:prom dress shops in london | www.queenieprom.co.uk