Anora - 6 nominations

 

• 
  • Best Motion Picture of the Year
• 
  • Best Achievement in Directing

  • Sean Baker
• 
  • Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

  • Mikey Madison
• 
  • Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

  • Yura Borisov
• 
  • Best Original Screenplay

  • Sean Baker
• 
  • Best Achievement in Film Editing

  • Sean Baker

Anora is the incredibly compelling story of a young Brooklynite exotic dancer "Ani" who is connected at her strip club with Vanya, the son of a Russian oligarch because she is able to speak Russian. He invites her to do a little more than dance at his mansion where she is to live for a week to party with his friends and live it up, drunken debauchery at its best. Suddenly, Vanya proposes and off they go to Vegas to marry, with one hell of a ring. When his parents discover what Vanya has done, they send their henchmen Igor and friends to pay Ani off and get the marriage annulled. When they find her home but not him, they begin a search to find Vanya, dissolve the marriage, and move on with their lives.

This film was the most unexpected among all of the Best Picture nominees and is frankly one of the top 10 that I would call a don't miss. The performances are stellar (particularly by the tough and sparkly Mikey Madison), and people with a keen eye will notice that Sean Baker is nominated for 4 awards just for this film as the producer, director, writer, and editor - if only he was any sort of good actor! But the whole is so much more than the sum of its excellent parts. It defies genre - is it a rom-com? An action film? A chase story? Rags to riches? Gangster? Well, yes. It feels fresh, like something you don't see every day. 

While I'm not sure that it will win any of its 6 nominations, it is most certainly worth the time to watch it.