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.
