Sean Baker’s ‘Anora’ sweeps the Oscars, winning Best Picture, Directing and Writing awards

Sean Baker’s Anora swept the Oscars on Sunday, winning five awards, including for Best Picture and Directing. Baker’s acclaimed tragicomedy about a stripper’s disastrous entanglement with the dissolute son of a Russian billionaire triumphed in five out of the six categories in which it was nominated.

Anora trumped Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, about a Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor who struggles to find work and meaning after emigrating to America. Corbet’s ambitious epic won its lead actor Adrien Brody the Actor in a Leading Role award. Brody had previously won the same award for The Pianist (2002).

The Brutalist also win Oscars for music and cinematography.

Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, which had the highest number of nominations – 13 in all – won only two, for Zoe Saldana as Actress in a Supporting Role and Original Song. The film’s campaign was derailed after lead actress Karla Sofia Gascon was found to have made Islamophobic and racist tweets in the past.

While Gascon was present at the ceremony, which was hosted by Conan O’Brien, she didn't walk the red carpet.

Edward Berger’s Conclave, about a fictional election to elect a new Pope at the Vatican, won a single award, for Peter Straughn’s Writing (Adapted Screenplay).

Other prominent winners included Mikey Madison for the leading role in Anora and Kieran Culkin for Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain.

The International Feature Film Oscar went to Brazilian director Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here, set during Brazil’s brutal dictatorship. The film’s lead Fernanda Torres was also nominated for an acting award for playing a woman who investigates her husband’s sudden disappearance.

India was represented at the Oscars by Anuja in the live action short category. Adam J Graves’s film follows the dreams of two girls employed in a garment factory in Delhi. Anuja lost out to Victoria Warmerdam’s science fiction-themed I’m Not a Robot.

The 97th Academy Awards is one of the most political events in recent times, with several the nominated films reflecting global conflicts in one way or another. The ceremony took place in the shadow of recent devastating fires in Los Angeles, Donald Trump’s re-election as President, Israel’s war on Palestinie, and anxieties about pay parity and the use of artificial intelligence in Hollywood.

The winning entries included political statements. The film that spoke directly about the latest Israel-Palestine conflagration won the Documentary Feature Film award. No Other Land, made by Israeli and Palestinian activists Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, explores forced displacement and Israeli military aggression in the West Bank.

In his acceptance speech, Yuval Abraham criticised America’s foreign policy towards Israel, while also emphasising the need for peaceful solution. “We are intertwined,” Abraham said. “We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger. We see each other – the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people which must end; the Israeli hostages, brutally taken in the crime of October 7th, which must be freed.”

There were other efforts to stand up to Trump. “I am a proud child of immigrant parents,” Zoe Saldana said. Present Daryl Hannah yelled out “Slava Ukraine” (Glory to Ukraine). The Brutalist actor Guy Pearce wore a white dove-shaped brooch in support of Palestine.

Sean Baker was clearly the man of the moment. Apart from directing Anora, he also wrote and edited the Palme d’Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024.

The 54-year-old director thanked the sex worker community as well as made a strong pitch for watching films on the big screen. In his “battle cry”, Baker said, “We are all here tonight because we love movies. Where did we fall in love with movies? At the movie theatre.”

Baker was given the award by Quentin Tarantino, who had previously cast Mikey Madison in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

“Filmmakers keep making films for the big screen, I know I will,” Baker added. “Distributors, please focus first and foremost on the theatrical releases of your films. Parents, introduce your children to feature films in movie theatres and you will be moulding the next generation of movie lovers and filmmakers. And for all of us, when we can please watch movies in a theatre and let’s keep the great tradition of the moviegoing experience alive and well.”

In India, Anora can be rented from Prime Video, ZEE5 and and BookMyShow Stream.

Here is the complete list of winners.

Best Picture

Winner: Anora

The Brutalist

A Complete Unknown

Conclave

Dune: Part Two

Emilia Pérez

I’m Still Here

Nickel Boys

The Substance

Wicked

Directing

Winner: Sean Baker, Anora

Brady Corbet, The Brutalist

James Mangold, A Complete Unknown

Jacques Audiard, Emilia Perez

Coralie Fargeat, The Substance

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Winner: Sean Baker, Anora

Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist

Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain

Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum; co-written by Alex David, September 5

Coralie Fargeat, The Substance

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Winner: Peter Straughan, Conclave

James Mangold and Jay Cocks, A Complete Unknown

Jacques Audiard, in collaboration with Thomas Bidegain, Lea Mysius and Nicolas Livecchi, Emilia Perez

RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes, Nickel Boys

Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar; Story by Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John “Divine G” Whitfield, Sing Sing

Actress in a Leading Role

Winner: Mikey Madison, Anora

Cynthia Erivo, Wicked

Karla Sofia Gascon, Emilia Perez

Demi Moore, The Substance

Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here

Actor in a Leading Role

Winner: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist

Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown

Colman Domingo, Sing Sing

Ralph Fiennes, Conclave

Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice

Actress in a Supporting Role

Winner: Zoe Saldana, Emilia Perez

Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown

Ariana Grande, Wicked

Felicity Jones, The Brutalist

Isabella Rossellini, Conclave

Actor in a Supporting Role

Winner: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Yura Borisov, Anora

Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown

Guy Pearce, The Brutalist

Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice

International Feature Film

Winner: Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here (Brazil)

Magnus von Horn’s The Girl with the Needle (Denmark)

Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez (France)

Mohammed Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany)

Gints Zilbalodis’s Flow (Latvia)

Documentary Feature Film

Winner: No Other Land

Black Box Diaries

Porcelain War

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

Sugarcane

Documentary Short Film

Winner: The Only Girl in the Orchestra

Death by Numbers

I Am Ready, Warden

Incident

Instruments of a Beating Heart

Live Action Short Film

Winner: I’m Not a Robot

A Lien

Also nominated

Anuja

The Last Ranger

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

Animated Feature Film

Winner: Flow by Gints Zilbalodis

Inside Out 2

Memoir of a Snail

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

The Wild Robot

Animated Short Film

Winner: In the Shadow of the Cypress by Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani

Beautiful Men

Magic Candies

Wander to Wonder

Yuck!

Film Editing

Winner: Sean Baker, Anora

David Jancso, The Brutalist

Nick Emerson, Conclave

Juliette Welfling, Emilia Perez

Myron Kerstein, Wicked

Cinematography

Winner: Lol Crawley, The Brutalist

Greig Fraser, Dune: Part Two

Paul Guilhaume, Emilia Perez

Ed Lachman, Maria

Jarin Blaschke, Nosferatu

Production Design

Winner: Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales, Wicked

Judy Becker, The Brutalist

Suzie Davis, Conclave

Patrice Vermette, Dune: Part Two

Craig Lathrop, Nosferatu

Costume Design

Winner: Paul Tazewell, Wicked

Arianne Phillips, A Complete Unknown

Lisy Christl, Conclave

Janty Yates and Dave Crossman, Gladiator II

Linda Muir, Nosferatu

Makeup and Hairstyling

Winner: Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stephanie Guillon and Marilyne Scarselli, The Substance

Mike Marino, David Presto and Crystal Jurado, A Different Man

Julia Floch Carbonel, Emmanuel Janvier and Jean-Christophe Spadaccini, Emilia Perez

David White, Traci Loader and Suzanne Stokes-Munton, Nosferatu

Frances Hannon, Laura Blount and Sarah Nuth, Wicked

Sound

Winner: Gareth John, Richard King, Ron Bartlett and Doug Hemphill, Dune: Part Two

Tod A Maitland, Donald Sylvester, Ted Caplan, Paul Massey and David Giammarco, A Complete Unknown

Erwan Kerzanet, Aymeric Devoldere, Maxence Dussere, Cyril Holtz and Niels Barletta, Emilia Perez

Simon Hayes, Nancy Nugent Title, Jack Dolman, Andy Nelson and John Marquis, Wicked

Randy Thom, Brian Chumney, Gary A. Rizzo and Leff Leffert, The Wild Robot

Visual Effects

Winner: Paul Lambert, Stephen James, Rhys Salcombe and Gerd Nefzer, Dune: Part Two

Eric Barba, Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser, Daniel Macarin and Shane Mahan, Alien: Romulus

Luke Millar, David Clayton, Keith Herft and Peter Stubbs, Better Man

Erik Winquist, Stephen Unterfranz, Paul Story and Rodney Burke, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Pablo Helman, Jonathan Fawkner, David Shirk and Paul Corbould, Wicked

Music (Original Score)

Winner: Daniel Blumberg, The Brutalist

Volker Bertelmann, Conclave

Clement Ducol and Camille, Emilia Perez

John Powell and Stephen Schwartz, Wicked

Kris Bowers, The Wild Robot

Original Song

Winner: El Mal from Emilia Perez

The Journey from The Six Triple Eight

Like a Bird from Sing Sing

Mi Camino from Emilia Perez

Never Too Late from Elton John: Never Too Late

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