Anora, Sean Baker’s screwball tragicomedy of a young sex worker who married the son of a Russian oligarch, swept the 97th Academy Awards last Sunday. It won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing. The only nomination for which Anora did not secure a win was for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Yura Borisov. If Kieran Culkin was not making a case for himself in category fraud with his clearly co-lead turn in A Real Pain, I would believe that Yura would have won too. (Also read: Before winning Oscars for Anora, Sean Baker made The Florida Project: A compassionate portrait of life on the margins)
How did Anora emerge as the frontrunner this awards season? It went home empty handed at the 2025 Golden Globes, even though it had 5 nominations. That brings us to one of the most chaotic and exhausting awards season run in recent years, where social media and more controversies put many roadblocks in the way of many titles in their campaigns for awards.
Emilia Pérez controversy
The biggest controversy at this awards season has to be with around Emilia Perez. Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language, genre-defying musical drama starring Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña was a hot bed for controversies. Set in Mexico, the film was widely criticised in the country for not only trivialising Mexican history but also enforcing stereotypes. Critics also called out the film’s insensitive portrayal of a transgender character filled with cliches.
Then all hell blew past anyone’s control when lead star Karla Sofía Gascón’s past tweets emerged, ranging from George Floyd, Islam, and diversity at the Oscars, which was met with severe social media backlash. The actor apologised first, and then proceeded to delete her X (formerly Twitter) account entirely. “I believe I have been judged, I have been convicted and sacrificed and crucified and stoned without a trial and without the option to defend myself, ” she said, reported Deadline.
Emilia Pérez was the frontrunner when the awards season started, going off strong with 4 Golden Globe wins. But the controversy put a definitive pause to a smooth award season run, with Karla Sofía Gascón not attending any of the precursor awards show- where she was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Her film, which was leading with 13 nominations on Oscars night, lost even the most predictable win in the Best International Feature.
Brazil’s big win
That win was secured by I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui), the Brazilian film from director Walter Salles. If there was any silver lining about the awards season this year, it was the univocal love and passion with which Brazilians cheered and celebrated the big win for the country together. People took to the streets, gathered in large groups and watched the ceremony together in the videos that emerged on X.
The film, a remarkable and gripping portrait of a real-life woman named Eunice Paiva enduring through Brazil’s era of military dictatorship, received high acclaim and massive box office success in the country. Its leading star Fernanda Torres delivers a breathtaking dramatic turn in it, and her surprise Golden Globe win paved the way for a deserving spot in the Best Actress category. For Brazilians, she had already won.
The wonderful images and videos of celebration of an entire country coming together for a film made me wonder how long will it take for India and Indian films to reach that stage? This year, there was a very good chance with Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light had such a great momentum to take home the same award, winning almost all the important precursor critics circle awards in the category. But the film was not even the first choice by the Selection Committee here. Clearly, a long and arduous road is ahead of us if we truly want to celebrate our films and our stories.
The Brutalist controversy
The awards season also had another major controversy, associated with another contender- The Brutalist. Brady Corbet’s over 3 hours-long epic was the odds-on favourite to win Best Director, after securing the same award at the Venice Film Festival, Golden Globes and BAFTAs. But then its editor revealed that generative AI was used in the making of the film and enhance the Hungarian accent used by its actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. This led to increased social media debate that the actors’ performances should not be deemed for the Oscars. Adrien still won Best Actor, but Brady lost to Sean Baker.
Anora picked up pace in the awards season with a surprise win at the Critics Choice Awards for Best Film, and then went on to win the trifecta of guild awards- the WGA (Writers Guild of America) for Best Original Screenplay, the DGA (Directors Guild of America) for Best Director, and the PGA (Producers Guild of America) for Best Picture. The only film to win all these three awards and not win Best Picture was 1995’s Apollo 13. Three decades later, The Academy did repeat that.
Even as gliding past these controversies was not as smooth for Anora given some backlash surrounding the comment made by Mikey Madison where she said that there was no intimacy coordinator on the set during the sex scenes, the film made a gigantic case for itself with a brilliant campaigning run orchestrated by Neon. The indie film company deserves all the attention for a superb awards show campaigning strategies, winning the Best Picture statuette twice in the course of 7 years. They also have the unprecedented streak of distributing the last five Palme d’Or winners at Cannes Film Festival in the U.S. Neon spent $18 million on the marketing, distribution and awards campaign of Anora, reported Variety. Made for $6 million, it was thrice the budget of making the entire film with an ensemble cast that consisted mostly of newcomers.
Anora’s big win on Oscar night made a superb case for independent filmmaking, marking an end to an exhausting awards season run that was filled with glaring missteps and controversies. This year’s awards run will make for a great case study on how not to sidestep social media discourse, because at the end of the day, the internet always remembers.