Strip club Cinderella story ‘Anora’ wins best picture at 97th Academy Awards

LOS ANGELES — “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.”

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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 Saldana.

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 Timothee 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 Perez,” the lead nominee going into the show, went home with two awards -- best song and best supporting actress, for Saldana -- after a scandal caused by offensive tweets by star Karla Sofia Gascon torpedoed its chances.

“I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands,” said Saldana. “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 win 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.”

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 Perez.” But while “Emilia Perez” 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.”

By Jake Coyle