Strip club Cinderella story 'Anora' wins best picture at 97th Academy
Awards
[March 03, 2025]
By JAKE COYLE
LOS ANGELES (AP) — "Anora,” a strip club Cinderella story without the
fairy tale ending, was crowned best picture at the 97th Academy Awards
on Sunday, handing Sean Baker’s gritty, Brooklyn-set screwball farce
Hollywood’s top prize.
In a stubbornly fluctuating Oscar season, “Anora,” the Palme d’Or-winner
at the Cannes Film Festival, emerged as the unlikely frontrunner.
Baker’s tale of an erotic dancer who elopes with the son of a Russian
oligarch — unusually explicit for a best-picture winner — was made for
just $6 million but went home with five big awards, including four for
its scrappy indie director.
But Oscar voters, eschewing blockbuster contenders like “Wicked” and
“Dune: Part Two,” instead added “Anora” — which has one of the lowest
box-office totals ever for a best picture winner with $16 million in
ticket sales — to a string of recent indie best picture winners,
including “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “CODA” and “Nomadland.” “
For a film industry that’s been transformed by streaming and humbled by
economic turmoil, Baker and “Anora” epitomized a kind of cinematic
purity. On the campaign trail, Baker called for the return to the 90-day
exclusive theatrical release.
“Where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theater,” Baker
said Sunday, accepting the award for best director. “Filmmakers, keep
making films for the big screen.”
In personally winning four Oscars (picture, directing, editing,
screenplay), Baker tied the mark held by Walt Disney, who won for four
different films in 1954. That Baker and Disney share the record is
ironic; his “The Florida Project” took place in a low-budget motel in
the shadow of Disney World.
“Long live independent film!” shouted Baker from the Dolby Theatre
stage.
Other awards spread around
Eight of the 10 movies nominated for best picture came away with at
least one award in a ceremony buoyantly hosted by Conan O'Brien that
favored song and dance over strong political statements. Acting awards
went to Madison,Adrien Brody,Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña.
Twenty-two years after winning best actor for “The Pianist,” Brody won
the same Oscar again for his performance as another Holocaust survivor
in Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist. His win came over Timothée Chalamet
(“A Complete Unknown”), who had the chance of becoming the youngest best
actor ever, a record owned by Brody.
“I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas and the
repercussions of war and systematic oppression and of antisemitism and
racism and othering,” said Brody. “I pray for a healthier and happier
and more inclusive world. If the past can teach us anything it’s to not
let hate go unchecked.”
Madison won best actress for her breakthrough performance in “Anora,” a
victory that came over the category favorite, Demi Moore (“The
Substance”). Both she and Baker spoke, as they did at the Cannes Film
Festival where “Anora” won the Palme d'Or, about honoring the lives of
sex workers.
Netflix's beleaguered contender, “Emilia Pérez," the lead nominee going
into the show, went home with two awards — best song and best supporting
actress, for Saldaña — after a scandal caused by offensive tweets by
star Karla Sofía Gascón torpedoed its chances.
“I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and
hard-working hands,” said Saldaña. “I am the first American of Dominican
origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last.”
An expected win and an upset
The night’s first award went to Kieran Culkin for best supporting actor.
Culkin has cruised through the season, picking up award after award, for
his performance alongside Jesse Eisenberg in “A Real Pain.”
“I have no idea how I got here,” said Culkin, “I’ve just been acting my
whole life.”
The biggest upset early on came in the best animated feature category.
“Flow,” the wordless Latvian film upset DreamWorks Animations' “The Wild
Robot." The win for “Flow,” an ecological parable about a cat in a
flooded world, was the first Oscar ever for a Latvian film.
"Thank you to my cats and dogs," director Gints Zilbalodis accepting the
award.
‘Wicked’ and ‘The Brutalist’ each wins two
“Wicked” stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo kicked off the ceremony
with a tribute to Los Angeles following the wildfires that devastated
the Southern California metropolis earlier this year. Grande sang
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and Erivo performed Diana Ross’ “Home”
before the “Wicked” stars joined together for “Defying Gravity” from
their blockbuster big-screen musical.
Later, “Wicked,” the biggest box-office hit among the best-picture
nominees, won awards for production design and costume design.
“I’m the first Black man to receive the costume design award,” said
costume designer Paul Tazewell, who couldn’t finish that sentence before
the crowd began to rise in a standing ovation. “I’m so proud of this.”
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Sean Baker, winner of the awards for best original screenplay, best
film editing, best director, and best picture for "Anora," poses in
the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, March 2, 2025, at the Dolby
Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) poses
in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, March 2, 2025, at the
Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
 Best makeup and hairstyling went to
“The Substance" for its gory creations of beauty and body horror.
“Dune: Part Two” won for both visual effects and sound, and its
sandworm — arguably the star of the night — figured into multiple
gags throughout the evening.
Brady Corbet’s sprawling postwar epic “The
Brutalist,” shot in VistaVision, won for its cinematography, by Lol
Crawley, and its score, by Daniel Blumberg. The papal thriller
“Conclave,” which some had picked to upset “Anora,” went home with
just one award, for best adapted screenplay.
Politics go unmentioned, at first
Though the Oscars featured the first time an actor was nominated for
portraying a sitting U.S. president (Sebastian Stan as a young
Donald Trump in “The Apprentice”), politics went largely unmentioned
through most of the ceremony.
The president’s name was never uttered during the nearly four-hour
ceremony. While the show featured several striking political
moments, much of this year’s Oscars was more dedicated to
considering the fluctuating place of movies in today’s culture, and
in Los Angeles’ resilience following the devastating wildfires of
January.
O’Brien avoided politics completely in his opening monologue. The
first exception was nearly two hours in, when presenter Daryl Hannah
announced simply: “Slava Ukraini" ("Glory to Ukraine!")
“No Other Land,” a documentary about Israeli occupation of the West
Bank made by a collation of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, won
best documentary. After failing to find a U.S. distributor, the
filmmakers opted to self-distribute “No Other Land.” It grossed more
than any other documentary nominee.
“There is a different path, a political solution, without ethnic
supremacy, with national rights for both our people,” said Yuval
Abraham, an Israeli, speaking beside co-director Basel Adra, a
Palestinian. “And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in
this country is helping to block this path. Why? Can’t you see that
we are intertwined, that my people can’t be truly safe if Basel’s
people aren’t truly free?
Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here,” a portrait of resistance under the
Brazilian military dictatorship, won best international film. At one
point, that award seemed a lock for “Emilia Pérez." But while
“Emilia Pérez” collapsed, “I’m Still Here” rode a wave of passionate
support in Brazil and political timeliness elsewhere.
O'Brien scores in opening
O’Brien, introduced as “four-time Oscar viewer,” opened the ceremony
with genial ribbing of the nominees and the former talk-show host’s
trademark self-deprecation.
“‘A Complete Unknown.’ ‘A Real Pain.’ ‘Nosferatu.’ These are just
some of the names I was called on the red carpet," said O'Brien.
Hosting for the first time, O'Brien was a smash success. In his
opening monologue, the former talk show host leaned on the
disappointed face of John Lithgow, a full-throated “Chalamet!” from
Adam Sandler and a gag of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos being delivered
to the red carpet in a cardboard box.
O'Brien's most sincere comments were reserved for Los Angeles,
itself, in speaking about the enduring “magic and grandeur” of film
in wake of the wildfires. O'Brien, whose house in the Pacific
Palisades was spared by the fires, then segued into a musical
routine, singing: “I won't waste time.”
An unpredictable Oscar year
This year's Oscars, among the most unpredictable in years, unspooled
after a turbulent year for the film industry. Ticket sales were down
3% from the previous year and more significantly from pre-pandemic
times. The strikes of 2023 played havoc with release schedules in
2024. Many studios pulled back on production, leaving many out of
work. The fires, in January, only added to the pain.
Last year’s telecast, propelled by the twin blockbusters of
“Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” led the Oscars to a four-year viewership
high, with 19.5 million viewers. With smaller indies dominating this
year, the academy was sure to be tested in finding as large an
audience.
The ceremony took place days following the death of Gene Hackman.
Morgan Freeman, his co-star in “Unforgiven” and “Under Suspicion,”
honored him.
“This week, our community lost a giant,” said Freeman, “and I lost a
dear friend.”
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