Oscars 2025: Sean Baker wins ‘Best Director’
In what could be considered something of a minor upset, the Oscars have awarded ‘Best Director’ to Anora’s Sean Baker.
After all, The Brutalist’s Brady Corbet was considered the favourite heading into the Academy Awards after winning the Golden Globe and Bafta in the corresponding category, although Baker remained in the mix throughout awards season after claiming top honours from the Directors Guild of America.
Baker has always been regarded as one of independent cinema’s most important and potent creative voices with films like Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket to his name, but Oscars recognition had always eluded him until Anora, which follows Mikey Madison’s title character as she embarks upon a whirlwind romance with the son of a Russian oligarch.
A Cinderella story of an entirely different kind, Anora became a critical and commercial success story that finally launched Baker into the Oscars conversation, with ‘Best Director’ just one of four nominations he received for the movie. The filmmaker is also shortlisted for ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Original Screenplay’, and ‘Best Film Editing’.
In his victory speech, Baker said: “Indie film is struggling right now more than ever. The system has to change because this is simply unsustainable. Let’s not undervalue ourselves any longer… Cinema is a communal experience you don’t simply get at home. And right now, it is under threat… We lost nearly 1000 screens in the US”.
For the current and future generations of filmmakers, his message and rallying war cry was clear: “Keep making films for the big screen.”
In Far Out‘s review, Emily Ruuskanen wrote: “It’s sobering and emotionally devastating, highlighting how dehumanised we have become by normalising transactional relationships, with the value of a woman being reduced to sex. What’s particularly evil about this is that Ivan is initially painted as someone who is leagues below Anni, someone who constantly admires her physical beauty and how lucky he is to be with her. Ultimately, a beautiful woman is seen as a commodity that can be possessed, and with the colossal wealth gap between them, Ivan holds a level of power that Anni can’t compete with.”
Seeing off the competition of Corbet, The Substance’s Carolie Fargeat, A Complete Unknown’s James Mangold, and Emilia Perez’s Jacques Audiard, Anora was instantly greeted as one of the year’s most acclaimed and best-directed features, and Baker now has the Oscar to prove it.
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