What is 'Anora' about? The 2025 Oscar winner for Best Picture, explained (2025)

Director Sean Baker’s drama film Anora won big at the 2025 Oscars, taking home five Academy Awards. With the NEON movie headed to streaming in early 2025 and digital copies already available for purchase or rental, let’s dig into the details of the lush fairytale gone wrong.

Anora‘s plot

Anora is about sex work, wealth, and intimacy. It follows an enterprising young woman called Anora Mikheeva from Brooklyn, who’s determined to build a better life. She gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets the son of an oligarch named Vanya at a strip club, and quickly becomes his go-to booty call.

However, the dreamy fantasy she envisions at the start of their relationship begins to fray once the news of their Vegas wedding reaches Russia. Her fairytale ending and the opportunity to leave clubs behind are threatened as the boy’s parents set things in motion to get the marriage annulled. They send for-hire goons loyal to the family to sort the situation out, leading to the ultimate test of this young love: will Vanya bend to his family’s will or defend the woman he claims to love?

Between the slapstick comedy hijinks and the no-holds-barred portrayal of sex work, Anora is ultimately a character piece. So the narrative details aren’t as important as how the protagonist reacts to them and what the journey says about her interiority.

Who’s in the movie?

Anora is led by Mikey Madison as Anora Mikheeva, otherwise known as “Ani.” She’s joined by Yuriy Borisov as Igor and Mark Eydelshteyn as Vanya in the film’s two biggest supporting roles. Prior to breaking new ground in this film, Madison was most known for her role in 2022’s Scream requel and the beloved dramedy Better Things.

Cast list:

• Mikey Madison as Anora “Ani” Mikheeva
• Mark Eydelshteyn as Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov
• Yura Borisov as Igor
• Karren Karagulian as Toros
• Vache Tovmasyan as Garnik
• Luna Sofía Miranda as Lulu
• Lindsey Normington as Diamond
• Emily Weider as Nikki
• Paul Weissman as Nick

How to watch Anora

Anora will be streaming on Hulu on March 17, 2025, at no extra cost to subscribers. You can also purchase or rent a digital version of the movie right now from the likes of Apple TV. But if you prefer physical media, you’ll be delighted to hear that a fancy Criterion Collection edition of the movie will be released on ‎April 29, 2025. This release comes with a 4K digital master, supervised by director Sean Baker, as well as a making-of documentary (remember those?) and numerous other goodies

What Anora won at the Oscars

Oscar voters made Anora the night’s big winner, taking home an impressive five statues. It won Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing. Baker as an individual took home more Oscars than any other person that night (4), thanks to the fact he edited, wrote, and directed. The occasion marked Baker’s first Oscars win, and the same goes for Madison, who was a first-time nominee. Anora won five of the six awards it was in the running for.

In one of his acceptance speeches, Baker took the opportunity to shout out independent filmmaking and the artistic value it has in an era of endless sequels and studio tentpoles dominating the box office. While accepting his Best Director win, Baker said, “We’re all here tonight and watching this broadcast because we love movies. But where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theater. Watching a film in the theater with an audience is an experience. We can laugh together, cry together, and, in a time in which the world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever.”

“The theater-going experience is under threat,” he concluded. “During the pandemic, we lost 1,000 screens in the U.S., and we continue to lose them regularly. If we don’t reverse this trend, we’ll be losing a vital part of our culture.”

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