Anora, Sean Baker’s gritty, Brooklyn-set screwball farce, has won Hollywood’s top prize.
In a fluctuating awards season, Anora, the Palme d’Or-winner at the Cannes Film Festival, emerged as the unlikely front runner. 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 US$6 million.
But Oscar voters, eschewing blockbuster contenders like Wicked and Dune: Part Two, instead added Anora 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 epitomised a kind of cinematic purity.
In personally winning four Oscars on Sunday, Baker tied the mark held by Walt Disney, who won for four different films in 1954.
Twenty-two years after winning best actor for The Pianist, Adrien Brody won the same Oscar again for his performance as another Holocaust survivor in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist.
“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.”
In the biggest surprise of the night, Mikey Madison won best actress for her breakthrough performance in Anora, a victory that came over the favourite Demi Moore (The Substance).The Academy Awards, the most coveted honours in the film business, take place with no clear front-runner among the movies contending for the prestigious best picture prize, including Anora, The Brutalist and Conclave.
Sean Baker has won the best director award for Anora, his humanist story of a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Its star, Mikey Madison, has won best actress, beating heavy favourite Demi Moore (The Substance).
This year’s Oscars race has featured twists and turns, and no movie dominated the precursor film awards.
Netflix musical Emilia Perez headed into the ceremony with the most nominations. But its chances of victory dwindled when offensive social media posts surfaced from its star Karla Sofia Gascon.
Her co-star, Zoe Saldana, won the supporting actress trophy for playing a fixer who helps a Mexican drug lord, played by Gascon, transition to a woman and start a new life. It is her first Oscar.
Kieran Culkin won best supporting actor, also his first Oscar. He was the favourite for the award for his role as a man who travels with his cousin to Poland to study family history in A Real Pain.
No Other Land, the story of Palestinian activists fighting to protect their communities from demolition by the Israeli military, won the Oscar for best documentary.
The best actress Oscare had been widely expected to go to Moore for The Substance, although one pundit said the category could produce an upset win for Brazil’s Fernanda Torres of I’m Still Here.
The evening’s many musical moments included a tribute to Quincy Jones, who died in November, and a performance by Wicked stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.
Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press