Is I Swear eligible for the Oscars? Robert Aramayo beat DiCaprio and Chalamet at the BAFTAs, yet missed the Academy's list
The man who beat Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet at the BAFTAs never stood a chance at the Oscars this year, and the reason has nothing to do with how good he was.
I Swear is Kirk Jones's biopic of John Davidson, the Scottish Tourette syndrome campaigner first seen by British audiences in the 1989 documentary John's Not Mad. Robert Aramayo, known as Elrond in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and young Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, plays Davidson as an adult, with Maxine Peake, Shirley Henderson and Peter Mullan around him. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2025, opened in UK cinemas through StudioCanal on October 10, and made about $16 million on a budget of roughly £5 million.
The BAFTA upset
On February 22, 2026, Aramayo won Best Actor in a Leading Role at the BAFTAs over Chalamet (Marty Supreme), DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners) and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia). He also took the EE Rising Star Award the same night, the first person to win both in one year.
He did not see it coming.
"I absolutely can't believe this."
Part of his speech went to one of the men he'd just beaten. Ethan Hawke had once given a talk to Aramayo's class at Juilliard, and Aramayo told him so from the stage: "So to be in this category with you tonight is incredible. Thank you, Ethan."
Why the Oscars skipped him
The Oscar nominations had already been announced on January 22, 2026, a month before the BAFTAs. Aramayo wasn't on the list, and neither was I Swear, because the film wasn't eligible.
The 98th Academy Awards honored films released in 2025, and the Academy only counts a release in the United States: a paid theatrical run in a qualifying area such as Los Angeles or New York. I Swear's UK release didn't count. Sony Pictures Classics bought the US rights in October 2025, but it set the American release for April 24, 2026.
So the Best Actor race went on without him. Four of his five BAFTA rivals made the Oscar list, Plemons didn't, and Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent) took the fifth slot. Jordan won the Oscar on March 15.
Don't miss: Rings of Power: who is Khamûl, the only Ringwraith besides the Witch-king that Tolkien ever named?
The 2027 Oscars
I Swear opened in US theaters on April 24, 2026, which makes it eligible for the 99th Academy Awards, the ceremony for films released in 2026.
The trouble is that it now has to compete as an old film. By the time nominations come around, the movie will be more than a year past its UK release, and the BAFTA buzz will be eleven months old. In its July 2026 predictions, AwardsWatch listed Aramayo outside its top ten for Best Actor, in the "next up" group. TV Guide UK calls an Aramayo win "extraordinarily unlikely."
The BAFTA night also attached a controversy to the film's name. Davidson attended the ceremony, and while Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting the first award, he shouted the N-word in an involuntary tic. Host Alan Cumming told the room that "the tics you've heard tonight are involuntary." The BBC aired the ceremony on a two-hour delay without cutting the slur, then apologized.
Nominations for the 99th Academy Awards will be announced on January 21, 2027, and Conan O'Brien hosts the ceremony on March 14.
Previously we wrote: Here's why Quentin Tarantino is not directing The Adventures of Cliff Booth