Sean Baker has won the Academy Award for Best Director at the 2025 Oscars. He wins for helming Anora, which has had a great night at the awards ceremony. Accepting the award, he said, "Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen. Distributors, please focus first and foremost on the theatrical releases of your films."
Anora is Baker's seventh feature film after his previous success with movies like The Florida Project, Red Rocket, and Tangerine. It follows Ani (played by Mikey Madison), a stripper and escort from Brighton Beach in New York City. She finds herself in a whirlwind romance with Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the wealthy son of a Russian oligarch after they meet at her club. What follows is a wild comedy-drama as Vanya's parents find out what happened and are not very pleased.
Baker's win is something of a surprise, after The Brutalist's Brady Corbet has taken home a huge chunk of the wins during the awards season so far. However, he did win the Independent Spirit Award and the Directors Guild of America Award.
Speaking to 12DOVE about Anora for our Big Screen Spotlight series, Baker said: "The unfair stigma applied to sex work has not gone away. My hope is that continuing to make these stories is helping to chip away at that stigma."
For more, make sure you follow along with our Oscars 2025 live blog for all the news as it happens. We also have a guide to the best Oscar-winning movies to watch now.
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