Netflix drama Adolescence makes history at Bafta TV Awards after a dominant Sunday night at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The four-part limited series won four main-ceremony prizes on May 10, 2026, the most won by a single TV series at the main ceremony.
Adolescence won best limited drama. Stephen Graham won best leading actor for playing Eddie Miller, Christine Tremarco won supporting actress for playing Manda Miller, and 16-year-old Owen Cooper won supporting actor for playing Jamie Miller. The result capped a huge awards run for the Netflix crime drama, which Graham co-created with Jack Thorne.
The ceremony, hosted by Taskmaster star Greg Davies, also honored The Celebrity Traitors, Last One Laughing, Amandaland, Code of Silence, The Studio, Prisoner 951, EastEnders, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, and Grenfell: Uncovered. However, the night belonged to Adolescence, which had already won two BAFTA Craft Awards for directing and sound the previous weekend.
Netflix Drama Adolescence Makes History at Bafta TV Awards With Four Wins
Adolescence entered the evening as the major awards-season force. The Netflix series explores a teenage boy accused of a terrible crime, and its one-shot structure helped turn the show into one of television’s most discussed dramas.
The Guardian described the drama as a four-part series where each episode was filmed in a single take. Its story follows 13-year-old Jamie Miller after he is arrested for murdering a girl at his school. The series also digs into disaffected teenage boys, online safety, and so-called incel culture.
Graham had been nominated for a BAFTA eight times before the 2026 ceremony. After finally winning, he said, “I might take my time. I’ve been nominated eight times and this is the first time I’ve won.”
He also thanked the people who showed him that television was possible. As a child, he watched Scully, written by Alan Bleasdale, and remembered Drew Schofield living across from his nana’s house. Graham told young viewers, “For any other young kid, no matter where you’re from, anything is possible.”
That line suited a night built around discovery. Cooper arrived as the ceremony’s breakout face, while Tremarco’s supporting actress win added another emotional note to the show’s sweep.
Owen Cooper, Stephen Graham, and Christine Tremarco Lead the Adolescence Cast Breakdown
Owen Cooper plays Jamie Miller, the 13-year-old boy at the center of Adolescence. At the BAFTA TV Awards, Cooper won Supporting Actor at the age of 16. The category also included Ashley Walters for Adolescence, Fehinti Balogun for Down Cemetery Road, Joshua McGuire for The Gold, Paddy Considine for Mobland, and Rafael Mathé for The Death of Bunny Munro.
Stephen Graham plays Eddie Miller, Jamie’s father. Graham also co-wrote the script with Jack Thorne and won leading actor over Colin Firth for Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, Ellis Howard for What It Feels Like for a Girl, James Nelson-Joyce for This City Is Ours, Matt Smith for The Death of Bunny Munro, and Taron Egerton for Smoke.
Christine Tremarco plays Manda Miller, Jamie’s mother. She won supporting actress over Aimee Lou Wood for The White Lotus, Chyna McQueen for Get Millie Black, Emilia Jones for Task, Erin Doherty for Adolescence, and Rose Ayling-Ellis for Reunion.
The wider Adolescence awards conversation also included Ashley Walters as DI Luke Bascombe and Erin Doherty, whose one-shot scene with Cooper became one of the show’s most discussed sequences. Cooper later said that the scene was difficult because Doherty was “the first person I worked with,” but added that “everyone around me got me there.”
Owen Cooper Says Adolescence Changed His Life
Cooper’s supporting actor win came with one of the night’s clearest star-is-born moments. Lifting the trophy, he joked, “Wow, it’s heavy that to be fair.”
He then connected the win to where he had been a year earlier. “A year ago, I was presenting an award and now I’m collecting one. This is a bit mad,” Cooper said.
Backstage, Cooper said the Netflix series had “changed” his life. He described the last two years as “unreal” and said he had met “all these beautiful people.” His family had also traveled the world because of the show.
Cooper also gave the night its most quotable life advice. “In the words of John Lennon, you won’t get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it,” he said. He added that success needs three things: “an obsession,” “a dream,” and “The Beatles.”
Graham echoed that sentiment during his own speech. “The kid’s already said it, but in the words of The Beatles, all we need is love, namaste,” he said.
Celebrity Traitors, The Studio, Amandaland, and Other Winners
The Celebrity Traitors won two prizes: best reality show and the P&O Cruises Memorable Moment Award for Alan Carr’s treacherous victory. Carr asked, “Was I good? Was I really? Or were the other celebrities just thick?”
The ceremony also kept returning to Celia Imrie’s now-infamous flatulence moment from The Celebrity Traitors. Greg Davies referenced it from the stage, Carr joked that he could “even smell Celia’s fart,” and Seth Rogen built part of his The Studio acceptance speech around it.
The Studio won best international series. Rogen accepted the award and paid tribute to Catherine O’Hara, who played Patty Leigh in the Apple TV comedy before her death in January at age 71. “She meant so much to all of us,” Rogen said. “So this is for Catherine.”
Last One Laughing won Entertainment Programme, while Bob Mortimer won Entertainment Performance. Amandaland won scripted comedy. Katherine Parkinson won actress in a comedy for Here We Go, and Steve Coogan won actor in a comedy for How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge).
Code of Silence won Drama Series. The ITV drama stars Rose Ayling-Ellis as a deaf canteen worker who helps police with a dangerous investigation through advanced lip-reading skills. Its team used the moment to call for better industry representation, saying, “The industry needs to improve and hopefully it will.”
Narges Rashidi won Leading Actress for Prisoner 951, based on the true story of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Rashidi dedicated the prize to Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family, praising their “resilience,” “dignity,” and “love through impossible circumstances.”
Mary Berry, Martin Lewis, and the Factual Winners Add Weight to the Night
Dame Mary Berry received the BAFTA Fellowship at age 91. The former Great British Bake Off judge said she was “really bowled over” and felt “very honoured” to receive BAFTA’s highest award. She also thanked her three children, including her late son William, who died in a car accident in 1989 at age 19.
Martin Lewis received the BAFTA Special Award. The consumer champion said he wrote his speech on Thursday, 42 years after his mother died when he was 11. “For six years, barring school, I barely left the house. Now I’m picking up a BAFTA,” he said.
Gaza: Doctors Under Attack won Current Affairs after Channel 4 aired the documentary. The BBC had originally commissioned it, then dropped it over impartiality concerns. Executive producer Ben de Pear challenged the delayed BBC broadcast by asking whether the broadcaster would “drop us from the Bafta screening later tonight.”
Grenfell: Uncovered won Single Documentary. Director Olaide Sadiq said the victims of Grenfell deserved more than remembrance and “deserve justice.” Other winners included See No Evil for factual series, Simon Schama’s The Road to Auschwitz for specialist factual, Scam Interceptors for daytime, and EastEnders for soap.
Why the Adolescence BAFTA Sweep Matters
The BAFTA result did more than add another trophy line to Netflix’s year. It turned Adolescence into a rare awards-season story where a grim crime drama, a first-time young actor, and a veteran performer all peaked together on British television’s biggest night.
That is why Netflix drama Adolescence makes history at Bafta TV Awards is more than a winners-list headline. The show won best limited drama, delivered acting wins for Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper, and Christine Tremarco, and left the 2026 BAFTA TV Awards with a place in the ceremony’s record book.
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