Anora has won the 2025 Academy Award for Best Picture. Sean Baker’s comic drama about a dancer and sex worker from Brooklyn who elopes with the son of a Russian oligarch beat out A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist, Dune: Part Two, Wicked, Conclave, Emilia Pérez, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys, and The Substance to take the prize.
Tonight’s formal winners for Best Picture are producers Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, and Sean Baker. Coco took the microphone first, saying: “We made this movie for six million dollars shooting on location in New York with about 40 crew members! They’re all back in New York; this is for you guys… If you’re making independent films, keep doing it. We need more—this if proof!”
“I don’t know how this can be real life. This is really an incredible, impossible journey for the past 10 months,” added Quan. “We made this with very little money, but all of our hearts. To all the dreamers and young filmmakers out there: tell the stories you want to tell, tell the stories that matter to you. you won’t regret it.”
Baker, the director and screenwriter of Anora, kept his speech short, yelling, “Long live independent film!” That’s because, earlier in the evening, Baker also accepted the trophies for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Anora also scooped up wins for Best Actress (Mikey Madison) and Best Film Editing. The movie received an additional nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category for Yura Borisov, too.
None of the nominated directors this year had previously helmed a Best Picture winner. A Complete Unknown director James Mangold was the crop’s most decorated by the Academy, given a surprising absence of trophies for multi-nominee Denis Villeneuve. This was also the first year since 1969 that two musicals—namely Emilia Pérez and Wicked—had been nominated.
Last year’s Best Picture winner was Oppenheimer. Follow all of Pitchfork’s coverage of the 2025 Academy Awards.