Sean Baker's Battle Cry: A Plea To Revive Cinema Culture

This past Sunday at the 2025 Oscars, a low-budget, independently made film took home five Academy Awards. Anora (2024), written and directed by Sean Baker, won Best Picture, Best Lead Actress, and three others, undeniably consecrating its widespread success. The film, starring Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)’s Mikey Madison and other lesser-known Russian actors, follows Ani (Mikey Madison), whose endearing Brooklyn charm gets her entangled with a callow, Russian nepo-baby, and the movie follows the rise and inevitable fall of their whirlwind romance. Ani is unable to conform to the bourgeois expectations of Ivan's family, as they refuse to see her as anything other than a sex worker. While the sheer amount of awards Anora took home is astounding, it was one of the lowest-grossing best picture winners, and ever since its outstanding reception at the Cannes Film Festival, it is no surprise that the film's creativity was honored at the past weekend's award show. Rather than basking in the multiple accolades, director Baker used his time on stage to remind us of something within the film industry that we risk losing, and how we must fight to keep it.

What is uniquely interesting about the Oscars and the Academy Awards is that it is oftentimes not solely about the movie itself. While specific nominations like Emilia Perez (2024) can misrepresent this notion, the films up for awards must, naturally, be superb, but to actually win awards, they have to do more than just be good. Studios campaign their films, just like in an election, and will spend millions of dollars to make sure that Academy members recognize their film as outstanding and culturally impactful, regardless of a movie’s box office performance.

This concept, one that feels almost antithetical to the art form that is film, controls and guides the results of the Oscars, and Anora was no stranger to such campaigning. Released in October of 2024, Anora’s theatrical rollout of exclusive, limited showtimes and its refusal to be available on subscription-based services only heightened its appeal. Interested patrons were forced to actually go outside, leaving the comfort of their beds and couches to purchase a ticket and enjoy the movie as an experience, rather than as passive watchers.

In his acceptance speech for Best Director, Sean Baker used his time on stage as an opportunity to highlight this fundamental issue, one that has plagued modern film culture, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. “Watching a film in the theatre, with an audience, is an experience. We can laugh together, cry together, scream in fright together, perhaps sit in devastated silence together… It's a communal experience you simply don't get at home." Baker was speaking for all of us last Sunday when he said "This is my battle cry. Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen."

He revealed to us the subconscious awareness we all have that without the help of a cinema, films lose some of their force. Baker appealed to the disappointment audiences feel each time they rent a movie on Prime and spend half of the film scrolling on their phone. He made clear the reason why the emotional kick of a devastating climax no longer incites tears or any feelings at all. The film industry is constantly changing and evolving, and by proxy, so are we as consumers. Baker begs that not all things must change and that not all change is beneficial. It isn't just Baker's speech that represents this important perspective but the film Anora itself. Made with a small budget of around 6 million dollars and without the support provided by a major studio, Anora’s Oscars success rebukes the formulaic, corporate tendencies of Hollywood’s “studio” legacy. Baker showcases how it is the work of those with few resources who continue to produce the most innovative and creative works.

Baker, throughout his career, pioneered a space for ingenious, independent filmmaking. His films Tangerine (2015), Starlet (2012), and The Florida Project (2017) all highlight underrepresented communities and experiences, and he manifests these realities with creative methods, his films Tangerine and Starlet both being shot entirely with iPhones. While Anora used more traditional filmmaking techniques, its subject matter did not deviate from Baker’s commitment to displaying stigmatized communities. Ani’s identity as a stripper is masterfully portrayed, and in Anora, Baker showcases the strong sense of community and sisterhood that exists within the sex industry. He also does not shy away from showing its realities.