What do the following films have in common: Parasite, Titane, Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall, and Anora? A few things, actually: they’re all excellent movies that you should watch (especially the one about a woman who has sex with a car, and then becomes pregnant with the car’s baby); they were all distributed by Neon; and they’re the last five winners of the Cannes Film Festival’s highest prize, the Palme d’Or. However, of the first four, only one also won Best Picture at the Academy Awards: Parasite. Could Anora be next?
Anora stars Better Things breakout Mikey Madison as a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, played by Mark Eidelstein. It was written and directed by Sean Baker, who should have received loads of nominations from the Oscars for his last two films, The Florida Project (emphatic, devastating, unforgettable) and Red Rocket (a brilliantly prickly depiction of the Trump era without being explicitly about Trump). But both were snubbed. It does not appear history will repeat itself with Anora.
Outside of the Palme d’Or, Anora was also the second runner-up for the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. That might sound like a minor achievement, but the last film to pull of the same feat was Parasite. As IndieWire film critic David Ehrlich joked, “I’m the worst Oscar prognosticator in the world but I choose to believe this means something.”
Gold Derby believes it does, too; Anora is listed among the frontrunners to receive a Best Picture nomination at the 2025 Oscars. So does Variety, IndieWire, The Hollywood Reporter, and Awards Watch. That’s a strong showing for a movie from the guy who created Greg the Bunny about a sex worker.
About that: it’s not that the Oscars have ignored depictions of sex workers (or “call girls,” among other less-progressive terms) in the past. Julia Roberts was nominated for Pretty Woman, for instance, as was Elisabeth Shue for Leaving Las Vegas. Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda even won for BUtterfield 8 and Klute, respectively. Heck, the first Best Actress winner ever was Janet Gaynor, who “tries to prostitute herself” in 1928’s Street Angel. But none of those films were nominated for Best Picture (even if Klute should have been).
So why does Anora have a chance if the Academy also hasn’t been receptive to Baker’s work in the past? It checks a lot of boxes: Anora is “heartbreaking but hilarious,” “endearing,” and “timely and thoughtful.” But most of all, it’s “crowd pleasing,” and in a year without an undeniable phenomenon like Oppenheimer, that could be enough to put it over the top for Best Picture (see: CODA and Everything Everywhere All at Once). Anora, the character, is impossible to not root for, and on January 17, 2025, when the Best Picture nominations are announced, a lot of people will be rooting to hear her name.
Anora comes out in theaters on October 18.