Sean Baker’s cutting comedy-dramaAnoranow looks to be in with a great chance of taking home the biggest prize of the night at the 2025 Academy Awards. The small indie movie made with a relatively tiny $6 million budget will be causing a massive upset if it beats bigger films likeThe Brutalist,ConclaveandEmilia Pérezto the Best Picture Oscar this year. Yet, Anora is now odds-on favorite to win. If it does so, it’ll achieve a historic double that only other movie in the past 69 years has managed.
Anora, which is abouta 23-year-old Russian-American stripper who marries one of her clients, was also the big winner at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, becoming the lowest-budget American film in more than 20 years to win the Palme D’Or. The movie would achieve something even more spectacular if it adds the Best Picture statuette to the main prize at Cannes. Since the end of Hollywood’s Golden Age, only Bong Joon-ho’s masterpieceParasitehas managed to win both the Palme D’Or and the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Anora Would Be The 4th Film To Win Both Cannes’ Palme D’Or And Best Picture At The Oscars
And Only The 2nd Film Since 1956 To Achieve This Double
If it does win out at the Oscars,Anorawould be the fourth movie overall to win bothof world cinema’s most coveted awards. BeforeParasite, we have to go all the way back to 1956 for the previous movie to achieve this extraordinary feat. That movie wasMarty, a social drama starring Ernest Borgnine, which likeAnorais set in a migrant community in New York.Martyis an understated film that seems to have been forgotten by time, but is well worth revisiting in light of the record it could be about to share with2025’s Best Picture winner.
“Anoraevolves from an unlikely romantic drama to a full-on chaotic quest that is sure to keep you laughing from the gut."- Patrice Witherspoon -ScreenRant’s review ofAnora
The first film to win both the Oscar for Best Picture and the Palme d’Or was 1945’sThe Lost Weekend, a noir classic that’sone of Billy Wilder’s best movies, and only the fourth he made in Hollywood. The enormous gap between these two early double successes andParasiteis testament to how far apart the voting trends have beenbetween the American-dominated Oscar polls and the European-dominated Cannesjuries. A double win forAnorathis March could indicate that things are beginning to change.
Parasite And Anora Could Signal The Start Of A New Oscars Trend
They Could Be A Sign That Oscars Voters Are Starting To See Eye-To-Eye With Cannes Judges
With a significantdiversification of Oscar nominationsand the Academy’s voting pool between 2016 and last year, it’s clear that Academy Awards ceremonies are no longer the hegemonic Hollywood-only affairs they used to be. IfAnoradoes indeed become the fourth movie to win both the Palme d’Or and Best Picture, it could signal the start of a new trend, in which the big prize atCannes becomes a factor in the big prize at the Oscars. In that scenario,ParasiteandAnorawill have both achieved in the space of five years what no film before them achieved in almost 70 years.
5 Reasons Anora Is Now Favorite To Win Best Picture After So Many Counted It Out
After being discounted from the Oscars race for a while, Anora has surprisingly emerged as the frontrunner to win Best Picture — but why?
It’s clear that industry trends in Hollywood and in continental Europe are moving closer together, as the cinema industry becomes more integrated on a global scale. What’s more, with the clout of big streaming platforms able to transcend national boundaries in ways that the movie and TV industries were previously incapable of doing, audience tastes are becoming more international than ever before. Cannes and the Oscars seem to be acknowledging these changes, and acknowledging each other in the process.Anoracould be the current award season’s ultimate beneficiary as a consequence.
