Adolescence Makes BAFTA History With Record Four Wins

Netflix’s Adolescence has done it again. The four-part limited series capped one of the most decorated runs in television history on Sunday night, walking away from the 2026 BAFTA TV Awards with four prizes — a record haul that no show has ever matched at the ceremony. Not Killing Eve. Not Happy Valley. Nobody.

The ceremony, hosted by Taskmaster’s Greg Davies at London’s Royal Festival Hall, saw the Jack Thorne- and Stephen Graham-created drama take home best limited drama, best leading actor for Graham, best supporting actor for Owen Cooper, and best supporting actress for Christine Tremarco. Combined with two BAFTA TV Craft Awards won earlier this season, it’s been a clean sweep that feels almost surreal in its completeness.

Producer Mark Herbert, accepting the limited drama award on behalf of the cast and crew, captured the show’s raw power in one line: “Jack and Stephen, your amazing script — it ripped out our hearts and punched us in the gut.” He added that the production’s on-set motto, printed on every call sheet, was simple: “Don’t be a dick.”

Owen Cooper Makes History — Again

At 16 years old, Owen Cooper is now the youngest actor ever to win the BAFTA supporting actor prize. But that’s almost a footnote at this point. The teenager — who had zero professional acting experience before being cast as 13-year-old Jamie Miller, a boy accused of murdering a female classmate — has now won the Emmy, the Golden Globe, the Critics’ Choice Award, the Actor Award, and the BAFTA. He’s the youngest actor in history to sweep all four major U.S. TV awards for a single performance, and now he’s done the same on home soil.

“Wow, it’s heavy that to be fair,” Cooper said as he lifted the award. “A year ago this time last year I was presenting an award and now I’m collecting one, so this is a bit mad.”

He dedicated his win with a quote that’s already becoming his signature: “In the words of John Lennon, you won’t get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it.” Then he laid out his personal formula for success — “One, an obsession. Two, a dream. And three, the Beatles.”

His central episode of Adolescence, filmed in a single unbroken hour-long take opposite Erin Doherty as clinical psychologist Briony Ariston, was the kind of television that people will still be talking about in ten years. Cooper beat out a stacked field that included his own castmate Ashley Walters and Paddy Considine in MobLand.

Graham Finally Gets His BAFTA

For Stephen Graham, Sunday night was deeply personal. He’s been nominated at the BAFTA TV Awards eight times across his career — all in acting categories — and never won. That changed in spectacular fashion.

“I’ve been nominated eight times and it’s the first time I’ve won,” he told the audience. “Nice one BAFTA, this is lovely.”

Graham co-created, co-wrote, executive produced, and starred in Adolescence — playing Eddie Miller, a plumber and father thrust into the nightmare of his 13-year-old son’s arrest. He produced the series through Matriarch Productions, the banner he co-founded in 2020 with his wife Hannah Walters, alongside Warp Films and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment. The series, directed by Philip Barantini in four unbroken continuous takes with no cuts or digital blending, premiered on March 13, 2025 and became the second-most-watched English-language series in Netflix history.

He used his moment at the podium to speak to something bigger. “We’re not digging holes, we’re not digging ditches, we’re not saving lives, but we have the opportunity to tell the human condition, and we have the obligation to tell beautiful stories and we need to keep that going,” he said. And then, following his young co-star’s lead, he closed with the same reference: “The kid’s already said it, but in the words of the Beatles, all we need is love.”

He also had a direct message for any children watching: “No matter where you’re from, anything is possible.”

Graham has already collected the Primetime Emmy, the Golden Globe, and the Critics’ Choice Award for the role. He also co-wrote the series with Jack Thorne, and won the Emmy for writing alongside him. Thorne, for his part, attended Downing Street to meet Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss the show’s themes around online safety and incel culture — and Netflix made the series freely available to schools as a teaching resource.

Christine Tremarco, who played Jamie’s mother Manda, won best supporting actress — a mild surprise given that Adolescence co-star Erin Doherty was also nominated in the same category for her work on the show. Tremarco dedicated her win to the production’s family spirit. The show received 12 nominations across the BAFTA Television and Craft Awards, entering Sunday night with 11 in the TV ceremony alone.

The Rest of the Night’s Big Moments

The Celebrity Traitors — BBC One’s most-watched programme of 2025 with over 15 million viewers — won best reality programme, with host Claudia Winkleman accepting and dedicating it to the “extraordinary cast who played with dignity, gusto and their entire hearts.” Alan Carr’s victory on the show was also voted the year’s most memorable TV moment in the public-voted P&O Cruises Memorable Moment Award. Carr’s acceptance speech was characteristically self-deprecating: “Was I good? Was I really — or were the other celebrities just thick?!”

Prime Video’s Last One Laughing took best entertainment programme and saw Bob Mortimer win best entertainment performance, beating out Claudia Winkleman and a field that included Lee Mack and Romesh Ranganathan.

Narges Rashidi won best leading actress for playing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in BBC One’s Prisoner 951. Born in Iran herself, Rashidi delivered one of the night’s most moving speeches, dedicating the award directly to Zaghari-Ratcliffe: “Your resilience, your dignity, your love through impossible circumstances have moved us all. Your courage will stay with me for the rest of my life. This is for you.”

ITV’s Code of Silence — starring Rose Ayling-Ellis as a deaf woman who assists police with her lip-reading skills — won best drama series. Steve Coogan took best actor in a comedy for How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge), promising the audience that Alan Partridge isn’t going anywhere: “I will keep on doing it. If anyone wants to know when Alan Partridge is going to die, it’s about the same time that I am going to die.” Katherine Parkinson won best comedy actress for Here We Go, while Amandaland took the scripted comedy prize.

The current affairs award went to Gaza: Doctors Under Attack — a documentary the BBC pulled last year over what it described as impartiality concerns, and which was subsequently broadcast by Channel 4. Reporter and producer Ramita Navai accepted the award and spoke about the numbers of women, children, and healthcare workers killed in Gaza. Basement Films founder Ben de Pear was more pointed, thanking Channel 4 directly and asking the BBC a pointed question: “Given you dropped our film, will you drop us from the BAFTA screening later tonight?” His comments were later included in the BBC’s own broadcast of the ceremony. Netflix’s Grenfell: Uncovered won best single documentary.

For the international award, the BAFTA went to The Studio on Apple TV. Co-creator Seth Rogen paid tribute to the late Catherine O’Hara, saying: “I assume her work has been so important to you all over here as it was to us. So this is for Catherine.”

Mary Berry and Martin Lewis Close the Night

Dame Mary Berry, at 91 years old, received the BAFTA Fellowship — the organisation’s highest honour. “I’m really bowled over by this accolade. I’m a cook, I’m a teacher, so I feel very honoured to be given BAFTA’s highest award,” she said. She closed by thanking her three children, including her late son William, who died in a car accident in 1989 at the age of 19. “William is in heaven, but I thank him,” she said.

Financial journalist Martin Lewis received the Special Award, and his speech was the kind that stays with you. He told the audience he had written it on a Thursday — 42 years after the death of his mother, when he was just 11 years old. “For six years, barring school, I barely left the house. Now I’m picking up a BAFTA,” he said. “Life can be transformed, it can get better. If you had told that broken, scared boy that I’d proudly be a campaigning journalist, his jaw would have dropped. So I dedicate this to consumer journalism, where I found my voice.”

As for Adolescence — a show that began as a Netflix drama and became a national reckoning — Owen Cooper said it best a year into this wild ride: “Thank you to the Adolescence family — and they are family now.”