4 min readLondonUpdated: Feb 23, 2026 11:24 AM IST
Like every year, the world of entertainment lost a number of artists around the globe in 2025-2026. The In Memoriam segment at the BAFTA Awards in London on Sunday paid a tribute to the departed. Alongside towering Hollywood legends, an Indian actor also featured prominently in the featurette. It was the late legendary Dharmendra, who breathed his last on November 24, 2025.
Dharmendra’s name and picture appeared next to those of German actor Udo Kier and French actor-singer Brigitte Bardot. British singer-songwriter Jessie Ware rendered Barbara Streisand’s title song of Sydney Pollack’s 1973 romantic film The Way We Were in memory of the artists who passed away in the last year.
Robert Redford, American actor and filmmaker who played the lead opposite Barbara in The Way We Were, also featured prominently in the In Memoriam segment. So did Annie Hall (1977) actor Diane Keaton, Schitt’s Creek actor Catherine O’Hara, When Harry Met Sally (1989) director Rob Reiner, The Godfather (1972) actor Robert Duvall, and The French Connection (1971) actor Gene Hackman.
Other artists who also featured in the In Memoriam segment at the BAFTAs this year include American actors Diane Ladd and Terence Stamp, British actor Pauline Collins Obe, British screenwriters Tom Stoppard and Graham Greene, among other artists and technicians. One of the longest snippets in the featurette, along with Redford, O’Hara, Keaton, and Hackman, was reserved for Val Kilmer, from his memorable exchange with Tom Cruise in Tony Scott’s 1986 blockbuster action film Top Gun.
However, the internet couldn’t help but point out two major omissions in BAFTAs’ In Memoriam segment — Grey’s Anatomy actor Eric Dane and Dawson’s Creek actor James Van Der Beek, both of whom passed away earlier this month. Other Indian actors like Manoj Kumar, Satish Shah, and Asrani among others, who passed away last year, were also not featured in the segment.
Dharmendra, who was 89 at the time of his passing, is one of the most popular actors in the history of Hindi cinema, having performed extensively for decades across genres. His swansong, Sriram Raghavan’s period war drama Ikkis, released in cinemas last month. Also, days after his demise in Mumbai, a 4K restored version of his iconic 1975 blockbuster Sholay was released in cinemas as Sholay: The Final Cut, on December 12, 2025, days after his 90th birth anniversary.
India had a notable presence at the BAFTA Awards this year. Besides the tribute to Dharmendra in the In Memoriam segment, a Manipuri film won the Best Children’s & Family Film. Boong, directed by Lakshmipriya Devi and produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani’s Excel Entertainment, was one of the only two Indian nominations at the BAFTAs this year.
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Along with the Boong team, Alia Bhatt also attended the ceremony. She walked the red carpet and presented the Best Non-English Feature Film category with a memorable speech, in which she spoke in Hindi and greeted the audience with a “namaste”. Joachim Trier’s Norwegian movie Sentimental Value bagged the award in that category.
Dharmendra features alongside Udo Kier in the In Memoriam segment at the BAFTA Awards.