We’ve been hearing the same story for a few weeks: Anora is winning, at minimum, Best Picture and Best Director at the 97th Academy Awards. Coming off its massive wins at the Directors’ Guild Awards (DGA) and Producers’ Guild Awards (PGA), Sean Baker’s breakthrough film is poised to ride the wave of Palme d’Or winner at Cannes to Best Picture winner at the Oscars, a wave that is admittedly incredibly difficult to keep moving over a long awards season.
Before the domination at the DGAs and PGAs, it was still a tossup for Picture and Director, with some thinking it may split between Baker and Brady Corbet for The Brutalist. This thought was quickly tossed aside after the back-to-back wins for Anora, but now that the dust has settled, it may be time to revisit this theory.
Baker hasn’t exactly swept the awards circuit this year, with Corbet winning the director prize at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and the Golden Globes. Wicked’s Jon M. Chu took home the prize at the Critics’ Choice Awards (CCA). Winning DGA and PGA carries a lot of weight, to be sure, but Corbet’s package of Globes and BAFTA isn’t too shabby either.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the implications of what happened at the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG) Awards: Anora got absolutely blanked. Two of the film’s strongest chances of winning at the Oscars took a massive blow, with Demi Moore edging out Mikey Madison for Best Actress and Conclave upsetting and taking home Best Ensemble. If either or both of those had won, you could have gift-wrapped Picture and Actress to Anora. And yet, they went home empty-handed.
I’m sure you’re asking, what does SAG have to do with the Best Director race? The SAG results speak to a lack of support for Anora from the biggest voting branch in the Academy, the actors. There’s a world where the momentum for Anora slowed down at just the right time for other films to sneak in the back door and upset in a few categories. In fact, we’re looking at the potential for Anora to win zero awards on Oscar Sunday, which feels crazy. Allow me to put on the tin-foil hat for a moment.
SAG opened the door for Conclave in Best Picture, and Demi Moore’s performance in The Substance is locked to win Best Actress. Yura Borisov is not going to beat out Kieran Culkin for Supporting Actor, and the tides are rising for a Conclave win in Editing. The Substance and A Real Pain are both strong contenders in Original Screenplay, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see either pull off the win.
Finally, we come to Best Director. Baker certainly has the edge by way of precursors, but Corbet’s resumé is strong. I also can’t shake that when you look at both films purely from a direction standpoint— and toss out any narratives about the directors themselves or their past work—it’s not even a contest with the better direction. Corbet’s authorial vision is so masterful that the work speaks for itself.
Final Prediction:
I am officially committing to the tin-foil hat theory that maybe Anora isn’t as strong as we thought a few weeks ago, and the support waned at the right time of Oscar voting for weird things to ensue. It’s been a doozy of an awards season, with twists and turns we haven’t seen in a few years. There’s one more surprise left for us, and it comes with Brady Corbet taking home the gold for a true masterpiece, The Brutalist. I hope you’ll fashion your own tin-foil hats and join me in the pursuit of chaos.
