Welcome back to the next installment of The Oscar Code’s Case Study series. I hope you all enjoyed my Conclave article from Tuesday and learned about that film’s Oscar campaign path. As mentioned before, this is a series that will go over the previous year’s nominees and why it won or lost the award that year using historical data. The order of the series will be in reverse chronological order of the odds of winning for last year’s Best Picture nominees from Ben Zauzmer’s Oscar Betting Odds 2025 article. This is the final installment from the 2024-2025 Oscar race and this article will discuss the Best Picture winner Anora.

The Story During Awards Season: Anora, a romantic dramedy about a stripper who marries the wealthy son of a Russian oligarch, was nominated for Best Picture after receiving unanimous critical acclaim and won several awards in the festival circuit. The film was acclaimed for Mikey Madison’s performance as the title character and how its realistic tonal changes elevated the typical Cinderella story. It was director Sean Baker’s highest grossing film grossing $58.2 million worldwide against a $6 million budget. It was nominated for 6 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing. The film was the leader in wins where it won 5 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing. Anora was both Neon’s second Best Picture win and was the fourth Palme d’Or winner to win Best Picture. Director Sean Baker became the first person to win 4 awards in Oscar history to win for a single film (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Original Screenplay) and tied with Walt Disney for the most ever wins at a single Oscar ceremony.

What Helped Its Nomination: Anora‘s Oscar victory journey began at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024 where it won the Palme d’Or. It was distributor Neon’s fifth consecutive Palme d’Or win at the Cannes Film Festival and the first American Palme d’Or winner since 2011’s Tree of Life. From there, it placed as the 2nd Runner Up for the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was nominated for 5 Golden Globes including Best Picture- Musical or Comedy, where it went home empty handed. It also won Best Picture at the Producers Guild of America Awards and Best Director at the Directors Guild of America Awards. It was nominated for Best Ensemble, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor at the Screen Actors Guild Awards where it went home empty handed. It won Best Picture at the Critics Choice Awards, making it the only film in that awards show’s history to win Best Picture without winning any other awards. It also won Best Picture at the Independent Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. It also was named on the top 10 films lists of both the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute. Mikey Madison’s performance was a late surge for Best Actress in the race when she had won Best Actress at the British Academy Film Awards. Anora had several wins and nominations throughout the awards season that guaranteed it its Best Picture nomination.

Why It Won Best Picture: For full transparency, I had predicted Anora to win the Oscar for Best Picture last September based on this particular data point. Anora is the second film to win both the Palme d’Or and placed top three at the Toronto International Film Festival. Do you know what the first was? Parasite, which was the first Neon distributed film to win both the Palme d’Or and Best Picture. When I noticed that trend, I had a huge gut feeling that this showed strong international support for the film and as a result, lead to Oscar victory. This trend, which I will call the “Paranora path”, ended up proving my prediction true. Not only did it do well at both of those festivals, it had strong Guild support with its wins at the Producers Guild of America Awards and Directors Guild of America. In the past 20 years, 65% of the Best Picture winners won 2 or more of the major Guild Awards. 75% won the Producers Guild and 65% won the Directors Guild. Both of them were the two highest percentage points of the three major Guilds, which showed strong industry support for the film outside the festival circuit. While it went home empty handed at the Golden Globes, that actually helped its chances statistically. Only 10% of the Best Picture winners in the past 20 years also won the Golden Globe for Best Picture-Musical or Comedy. I truly would have been more worried if Anora had won there. Neon made the right moves campaign wise and that proved victorious for Anora. As for Mikey Madison’s late surge win for Best Actress despite losing the Screen Actors Guild award, she is the latest example of the trend of voters awarding the “face of the film” for Best Lead Performance in the past five years. Previous examples include Frances McDormand for Nomadland, Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer. Because of that trend this decade, I also called this win before the ceremony. Truly, I had wanted to start this site for years, but calling Anora‘s victory this past ceremony back in September based on the “Paranora path” when there were several doubters was the moment that kickstarted developing The Oscar Code for real. I won’t always be right, but this was one of my prouder Oscar seasons.

The Ultimate Takeaway: With strong critical acclaim, international love, and industry support, Anora was always destined to win Best Picture. Neon ran a great campaign, very similar to its last Best Picture winner Parasite and the “Paranora path” is a trend we should continue looking into. Unfortunately, this year’s Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident did not place at Toronto so this year we cannot use that tool. Even more unfortunate is that Neon has a full slate this awards season with Sentimental Value and No Other Choice also in the fold with It Was Just an Accident. I am not as confident in Neon winning Best Picture this year, but given their strong campaigns for both Parasite and Anora, I am very confident they will win another in the near future.

I want to thank everyone who read the Case Study series the past few weeks. I hope you all learned a lot about last year’s nominees and their eventual fate at the Oscars. I also hope you all enjoyed reading these installments! Feel free to provide feedback and ask any questions about this series! This will be the last Case Study until next year, but I have one more article to share. Tune in on Sunday where I will reveal my early frontrunner prediction to win Best Picture. I look forward to hearing from all of you and sharing this prediction.