Anora
Anora is a 2024 American romantic comedy-drama film written, directed, produced, and edited by Sean Baker. It stars Mikey Madison as Anora "Ani" Mikheeva, a lap dancer from New York who marries the wealthy son of a Russian oligarch played by Mark Eydelshteyn. The supporting cast includes Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Darya Ekamasova, and Aleksei Serebryakov.
Anora premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2024, where it received critical acclaim and won the Palme d'Or. It was released theatrically on October 18, 2024 by Neon. The film grossed $58.2million worldwide against a $6million budget, making it Baker's highest-grossing film.
Anora received numerous accolades. The film was named one of the top ten films of 2024 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute. The film received six nominations at the 97th Academy Awards, winning five for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing. It is one of only four films to win both the Palme d'Or and the Oscar for Best Picture. Anora also received seven nominations at the 78th British Academy Film Awards, winning two; five at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards; three at the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards; and one at the 70th David di Donatello for International Movie, which the film won.
Plot
Anora "Ani" Mikheeva, a 23-year-old stripper, lives in Brighton Beach, a Russian-American neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City. Her boss introduces her to Ivan "Vanya" Zakharov, the 21-year-old son of the Russian oligarch Nikolai Zakharov, who requests someone fluent in Russian. Though Vanya is in the U.S. to study, he spends most of his time partying in clubs and playing video games in his parents' lavish Brooklyn mansion.Vanya hires Ani for several sexual encounters. He invites her to a New Year's Eve party at the mansion, and the following day, he offers her $15,000 to be his girlfriend for a week. During the week, Ani parties with Vanya and his friends, and they all go on an extravagant trip to Las Vegas. At the end of the trip, Vanya reveals that he has to return to Russia permanently to work at his father's company and expresses disdain for his parents. He suggests that he will not have to leave if he marries an American and impulsively proposes marriage. Ani is reluctant at first but agrees after Vanya assures her that his feelings are genuine. They elope at a Vegas wedding chapel. Vanya then buys her a large wedding ring and an expensive fur coat. She resigns from her job and moves into Vanya's mansion. When news of their marriage reaches Russia, Vanya's mother, Galina, orders his Armenian godfather, Toros, to find them and arrange an annulment while she and his father, Nikolai, fly to the U.S.
Toros sends his henchmen, Garnik and Igor, to the mansion. They inform Vanya that his parents are taking him back to Russia and enrage Ani by calling her a prostitute, suggesting Vanya only married her for a green card. Vanya flees the premises, and Ani engages in a violent struggle with Garnik and Igor before they restrain her. When Toros arrives, he tells Ani that Vanya's mansion and wealth belong to his parents and that he is immature and financially dependent on them. He confiscates her wedding ring, gags her, and offers her $10,000 for the annulment. Ani insists she and Vanya are in love, but she agrees to help find him.
Ani, Toros, Garnik, and Igor search Brooklyn. Ani learns from friends that Vanya is at her former strip club, where he is being entertained by Diamond, a rival dancer. They drag Vanya out of the club, but he is too intoxicated to listen to them, and the group is forced to wait outside the courthouse overnight. The annulment is dismissed since the marriage took place in Nevada.
At the airport, Ani introduces herself to Nikolai and Galina in Russian, but Galina rejects her. Conceding to his parents, Vanya coldly tells Ani their marriage must end while Galina orders everyone onto a plane to Las Vegas. Having not signed a prenuptial agreement, Ani pledges to file for a divorce settlement, but Galina threatens her with financial ruin if she does not comply. Realizing Vanya's cowardice and his family's power, Ani signs the annulment papers. Igor suggests Vanya apologize to Ani, but Galina objects. Ani insults both Vanya and Galina before leaving, telling Galina that Vanya only got married to spite her.
Igor takes Ani back to New York to collect her belongings. At the mansion, she confronts Igor about their encounter, accusing him of assault and saying he would have raped her if they had been alone, though Igor assures her that he had no intention of doing so. The next morning, Igor gives Ani the money Toros promised her and drives her home. In the car, he returns her wedding ring as a token of goodwill. Ani initiates sex with him but stops when he tries to kiss her; she breaks down and sobs in his arms.
Cast
Production
The director, Sean Baker, said Anora was inspired by a story from a friend about a Russian-American newlywed kidnapped for collateral. He was also inspired by his work in 2000 and 2001, when he edited wedding videos, including ones of Russian-Americans in New York. Baker said his intentions were towards "telling human stories, by telling stories that are hopefully universal It's helping remove the stigma that's been applied to , that's always been applied to this livelihood." Baker hired Andrea Werhun, a Canadian writer and actress known for her 2018 memoir Modern Whore about her prior time as a sex worker, as a creative consultant.Baker cast Mikey Madison after seeing her in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Scream. He hired Madison without an audition. Madison learned Russian, visited strip clubs, and studied the Brooklyn accent to prepare. Although some media outlets incorrectly reported that Anora Mikheeva was Uzbek-American, Baker said that Anora "is of Russian ethnicity" and "from one of the post-Soviet countries".
Principal photography took place starting in February 2023 in Brooklyn, including the neighborhoods of Brighton Beach, Coney Island, and Sheepshead Bay. Anora was filmed over 37 days, with the 25-minute home invasion scene taking 10 days. It was shot on Kodak 35 mm film framed in 4-perf widescreen anamorphic using an Arricam LT, with color correction completed via DaVinci Resolve at FotoKem. Vintage LOMO prime and zoom lenses were mainly used for filming, while Atlas Orion lenses were used for low-light scenes. Scenes were also shot at the Palms Casino Resort and on Fremont Street in Las Vegas. The film's cinematography was inspired by 1970s crime dramas set in New York, including The French Connection and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Alex Coco, one of the producers, worked as a disc jockey for the music in the scenes in the club. Baker is credited with the casting, with the cast including more than 30 different speaking parts.
For the Zakharov mansion, Baker filmed at 2458 National Drive, a Mill Basin mansion once owned by Vasily Anisimov, an oligarch with ties to Russia. Baker had searched on Google for "the biggest and best mansion in Brighton Beach". To learn more about the area, Baker and Mikey Madison temporarily moved to southern Brooklyn during pre-production. Toros' and Ani's search for Vanya was filmed in several restaurants and clubs that the producers had frequented.
At a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Madison said that Baker and the producer Samantha Quan, Baker's wife, would act out different sex positions to demonstrate what they wanted the actors to do. Madison was offered an intimacy coordinator, but said: "As I'd already created a really comfortable relationship with both of them for about a year, I felt that that would be where I was most comfortable with and it ended up working so perfectly."
The soundtrack includes Robin Schulz rework of "Greatest Day" by Take That and "All the Things She Said" by t.A.T.u. Madison also said that her friend curated a "stripper playlist" for her to get into character, including tracks from Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and Slayyyter.
Like his previous films, Baker edited the film himself in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Release
Worldwide distribution rights were acquired by FilmNation Entertainment in October 2023. The film was then sold by FilmNation to Le Pacte for France, Lev Cinemas for Israel, Kismet Movies for Australia and New Zealand, and Focus Features/Universal Pictures International for the rest of the world excluding North America in deals similar to those made on Baker's previous film, Red Rocket. In November 2023, Neon acquired North American distribution rights to the film, and opened it in limited release on October 18, 2024.Anora premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2024, and won the festival's Palme d'Or on May 25. It earned a 10-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening. It became the fifth consecutive Palme d'Or winner distributed by Neon in the United States, and the first American-produced film to win the Palme d'Or since Terrence Malick's 2011 epic The Tree of Life.
Anora also played at the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the San Sebastián International Film Festival, the Busan International Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival, the Rome Film Festival and several others. It was also the closing film at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024. The film was released on digital platforms on December 17, 2024, with a streaming release on Hulu on March 17, 2025. It was released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection on April 29.
According to Tom Quinn, CEO of Neon, the P&A and the awards season publicity campaign budget was $18million.