Oscar Who? The Winners Are Obscure

Who cares about movies. I only watch the BBC and documentaries on PBS.

Oscar Who? The Winners Are Obscure

‘Anora’ swept the night, but has anyone actually seen it?

By Kyle Smith

March 3, 2025 4:55 pm ET

Mikey Madison poses in the press room during the 97th annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, March 2. Photo: caroline brehman/Shutterstock

Sunday’s Oscars ceremony was a triumphant night for Sean Baker, Mikey Madison and “Anora.” Most of America responded: Who, who and what?

Mr. Baker is the indie filmmaker whose movies are made on such a shoestring that he frequently performs many jobs on each of them—he is even credited as casting director and “precision driver” on his 2021 comedy “Red Rocket.” He’s the writer, director, editor and a producer of “Anora,” a raunchy screwball comedy about a stripper-prostitute played by Ms. Madison. Sweeping up Oscars for best picture, best director, best original screenplay and best film editing all in a single evening, Mr. Baker now has as many as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese have won throughout their combined careers.

“Anora,” as host Conan O’Brien noted in his opening monologue, contains nearly 500 uses of the F-word and is the most sexually explicit film ever to win best picture (more so even than “Midnight Cowboy,” which was rated X on its original 1969 release but was re-rated R in 1971). It isn’t exactly a multiplex favorite: Despite having been released in 1,500 theaters in November, it has grossed less than $16 million at the domestic box office. Even the PTSD drama “The Hurt Locker” (2009) did better than that ($17 million, or about $25 million in today’s dollars). “Moonlight,” a low-key drama from 2016, did twice as well as “Anora,” earning $27.9 million, or roughly $36 million adjusted for inflation.

After the 2009 Oscars, which were mildly scandalized when “The Dark Knight” failed to get a best-picture nomination, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences started to sense that it was losing touch with the audience (even though that year’s big winner, “Slumdog Millionaire” was a massive hit). Viewership of the awards show, at around 37 million, was gradually subsiding. After more than 60 years of selecting five best-picture nominees, it expanded the shortlist to as many as 10, hoping that more blockbuster movies would be honored.

Yet the Academy’s voters are growing even more estranged from the audience: Following “Nomadland” (2020) and “CODA” (2021), “Anora” is the third film this decade to win best picture despite the general public barely being aware of its existence. “CODA,” a dramedy about a hearing child of deaf parents, was bought by Apple TV+ and barely released in theaters (Apple never released its box-office numbers). “Nomadland” earned only $3.7 million at the domestic box office in the pandemic year of 2021.

Domestic viewership of the Oscars telecast has settled in below 20 million, failing to reach that mark even last year, when the hit “Oppenheimer” won best picture and “Barbie” got a lot of attention. Other winners last night included “The Brutalist” (best actor for Adrien Brody, $15.8 million in domestic ticket sales), “A Real Pain” (best supporting actor for Kieran Culkin, $8.3 million) and “Emilia Pérez” (best supporting actress for Zoe Saldaña, released on Netflix to a 16% audience-approval score on Rotten Tomatoes).

For decades, Oscar night was a glamorous Hollywood party to which everyone felt invited. These days, the audience has a right to wonder: why should I have a rooting interest at this festival of esoterica?

Mr. Smith is the Journal’s film critic.