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Stars: Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Darya Ekamasova, Yura Borisov, Paul Weissman, Lindsey Normington, Emily Weider, Luna Sofía Miranda, Vincent Radwinsky, Brittney Rodriguez, Sophia Carnabuci | Written and Directed by Sean Baker

Since releasing his first feature in 2000, writer/director Sean Baker has built himself a name as an exciting voice in independent cinema. As his works have gotten more attention, from Tangerine being shot on multiple iPhones, to Willem Dafoe’s Oscar nomination for The Florida Project, Baker has grown in stature as a director. This leads us to Anora, the writer/director’s eighth feature which won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes festival, and manages to be another exemplary piece of cinema from the creative.

British viewers may find themselves surprised in this film’s opening moments, as a remix of Take That’s ‘Greatest Day’ plays while a line of exotic dancers perform for paying customers.

This review was originally published during the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

Sean Baker is the type of filmmaker who knows what it takes to make films about difficult human experiences with genuineness and without judgment. In The Florida Project, he demonstrated the hardships faced by a single mother raising a young girl from a motel. With Tangerine, heartbreak from a sex workers perspective was at the forefront. For the 77th Cannes Film Festival, Baker returned with a story about the rise and fall of an exotic dancer's American dream. Anora is an unrealistic, yet lovable rags-to-riches story that is bursting with chaos, hilarity, raunchiness, and a stupendous performance from Mikey Madison.

Anora

Director Sean BakerRelease Date October 18, 2024Studio(s) Cre Film, FilmNation EntertainmentWriters Sean BakerCast Zo Vnak, Anton Bitter, Sophia Carnabuci, Michael Sergio, Vincent Radwinsky, Charlton Lamar, Paul Weissman, Masha Zhak, Alena Gurevich, Emily Weider, Darya Ekamasova, Lindsey Normington, Ross Brodar,...

Sean Baker's new movie Anora is one of the best-reviewed films of the year, which makes the arrival of its anticipated release all the more exciting. After the director's previously acclaimed works like The Florida Project and Red Rocket, the built-in excitement in seeing what he would do next made Anora a project to look forward to. It was only after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival that hype for the film grew to new heights. The response vaulted Anora into the thick of awards season, with it predicted to dominate 2025 Oscar nominations in multiple categories.

The 2024 movie stars Mikey Madison as a sex worker named Anora and follows her life after falling in love. Following its Cannes debut, where it won the Palme d'Or - setting it up as an Oscars 2025 Best Picture nominee, the love for Anora grew with each new festival showing. The result is a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes,...

A new trailer offers a closer look at Anora. The critically acclaimed movie, which hold a Certified Fresh 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes from more than 80 Anora reviews following its premiere at Cannes in May, is the latest feature from writer-director Sean Baker and stars Mikey Madison in the title role as a New York City-based stripper who finds herself plunged into a whole new world of wealth and intrigue when she agrees to marry the rich Russian heir Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn).

Neon has now unveiled the second official trailer for Anora. It kicks off with a full minute exploring how Anora and Vanya meet and fall in love, before bringing in the conflict at the center of the movie when Vanya's parents send a handler to fix their son's mistake. This results in Anora physically fighting back, followed by a shot of her gagged with what appears to be a red scarf.

The eponymous character of Anora, a feisty 23-year-old Brooklyn sex worker, lives the sort of hardscrabble and precarious life that writer-director Sean Baker has vigorously tracked across his work. But while Baker’s protagonists are typically mired in the same place, Ani (Mikey Madison), as Anora emphatically prefers to be called, manages to escape the familiar, and crash through the class divide with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball. Her quixotic quest to remain among Russian oligarchs is a riotously funny neorealist farce that will be familiar to fans of Tangerine and Red Rocket, though at times it feels like the rougher edges of Baker’s vision have been smoothed out in the interest of driving home an easily digestible allegory.

We meet Ani inside the strip club where she works as a dancer, an environment that she manages an impressive level of control over. She easily seduces the...