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"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 USD 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. On the campaign trail, Baker called for the return to the 90-day exclusive theatrical release. 

Adrien Brody wins Best Actor

 

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."

 

Brody's win came over Timothée Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown”), who had the chance of becoming the youngest best actor ever, a record owned by Brody – just short of 30 when he won for “The Pianist.”

 

“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.” 

Mikey Madison bags Best Actress 

 

Mikey Madison won the best actress Oscar on Sunday for “Anora,” a role that catapulted the 25-year-old into a burgeoning film career after achieving initial success on television.

 

The Brooklyn-set comedy-drama had received six nominations.

 

Madison had been best known for playing a sullen teenager in the FX comedy series “Better Things,” which ended in 2022. She also appeared in the hit movies “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” and the fifth installment of the horror franchise “Scream.” Those jobs attracted the attention of director-writer Sean Baker, who penned the title role in “Anora” for Madison. She studied Russian and did her own stunts in the film, in addition to learning to pole dance to play an exotic dancer who marries the son of a Russian oligarch.

 

Hollywood veteran Demi Moore of “The Substance” had been the Oscar front-runner, having won over Madison at the Golden Globes and SAG Awards. However, Madison beat out Moore for the BAFTA two days before Oscar voting ended, as well as at last weekend's Independent Spirit Awards.

Sean Baker shines

 

Sean Baker, the filmmaker of “Anora,” won best director, best original screenplay and best editing. In personally winning four Oscars on Sunday, 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 Florida low-budget motel in the shadow of Disneyland.

 

“Where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theater,” Baker said. “Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen. Long live independent film!” shouted Baker from the Dolby Theatre stage.

 

Awards galore 

The Oscars otherwise spread the love around, dishing out awards to “Anora,” “Conclave,” “Wicked” and “The Substance." Eight of the 10 movies nominated for best picture came away with at least one award at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday. That included the beleaguered Netflix contender “Emilia Pérez," which, despite a backlash to old offensive tweets by star Karla Sofía Gascón, won best supporting actress for Zoe Saldaña.

 

“I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands,” said Saldaña. “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, presented by Robert Downey Jr., 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' wins 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.