Sean Baker's 'Anora' picked up Best Picture at the Academy Awards, which provoked a strong fan reaction on social media.
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Oscar Fans Debate What Makes ‘Anora’ A Best-Picture Winner
‘Anora’ received a raft of trophies at the 97th Academy Awards, but the mixed reaction online shows the dangers in judging art like it can “win” or “lose.”
By
Callum Booth, Contributor.
Callum Booth covers the intersection of art and internet culture.
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Mar 03, 2025, 01:47am ESTUpdated Mar 3, 2025, 08:18am EST
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Mikey Madison and Sean Baker attend the "Anora" Photocall at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival/ (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
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The biggest night in entertainment may have come to a close, but the online discussion is still in full swing. While a range of topics from the 2025 Oscars are being talked about,
Anora winning Best Picture is provoking fierce debate online, with many shocked and stunned that the movie won the top prize at the event.
This mixed reaction to
Anora winning Best Picture at the
Oscars shows how award ceremonies and social media can come together to create controversy by encouraging people to hold entrenched opinions. Art can’t “win” or “lose,” but the nature of award ceremonies pushes people to holding this viewpoint.
What Is ‘Anora?’ And How Did It Perform At The Academy Awards?
Anora is an independent movie by Sean Baker. It follows the eponymous character—played by Mikey Madison— who’s a sex worker that marries a Russian oligarch’s son.
The film had a phenomenally successful night at the 2025 Oscars, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing.
In fact,
Anora did so well it broke records, with Sean Baker tying Walt Disney with the most Academy Award wins by a single person in one night. The difference, though, is that Baker won all of these for a single movie, while Disney picked up his trophies for an range of films.
While you might think this would be a cause for celebration across the industry, the response online has been less clear. While many films were honored,
Anora picking up so many awards and batting away the crowd, can be viewed in a less positive light by some.
How Has The Internet Reacted To ‘Anora’ Winning Best Picture At The Oscars?
“
Anora better than
Nickel Boys? Better than
Conclave? Better than
Wicked? Better than
The Substance?” asks one user on social media.
“The bar is so damn low,” reads one of the replies.
Many users online hold similar views, being disappointed and surprised that
Anora not only took home Best Picture, but a raft of other Academy awards too.
Beyond not being fans of the movie, there were other people online who saw
Anora in a more damaging light, finding its representation of sex workers lacking:
Yet despite there being a swell of people disliking
Anora’s Best Picture win, a lot of discussion online also praised the film.
“Anora deserved it and will be remembered as one of the best Best Picture winners of this decade,” one user said.
A fan community—something referred to as the
Anora hive—were also out in force online, celebrating the movie’s win:
This pattern is repeated across social media, with people in deep discussion about
Anora, all holding an array of differing views—and being vocal about it.
So... what’s going on? What’s driving this backlash?
What The Mixed Response To ‘Anora’ Winning Best Picture Means
One of the first things to note is
Anora has a particular style, aesthetic and non-mainstream approach to movies. As an
independent picture about a sex worker that’s filled with bad language and nudity, it’s bound to split opinion.
In other words, the topic and style of the movie were always going to provoke an online response if it won Best Picture.
Despite that, you can argue that this mixed response would’ve happened to any movie that won the award at the Oscars—and part of this is due to the nature of the ceremony itself.
Decreeing any piece of art as the “best” is a troublesome proposition, and this is at the core of events like these. Really, any sort of creative work is subjective, that’s what makes it interesting to study and engage with.
But when art is reduced to either “winning” or “losing”—such as what happens with the Academy Awards—that upsets this innate feeling we have of all these works being valuable. This entrenched idea is broken and, when that happens, it can instigate a strong response, either in favour or against the winner.
By judging which movies are “best,” we’re effectively forced to make the same decision—and media plays an intriguing role in channelling this response.
Studies show that the rise of the internet has changed fandom from a static state into something that’s far more dynamic. In the past, when people enjoyed a movie, their interaction would be passive, pretty much absorbing and watching a film like
Anora.
Yet, because the online world enables an increased level of interaction, fandom now is participatory. People online can get involved in the discussion and push a narrative.
In the context of the Best Picture win at the Oscars, this leads to things like the aforementioned “
Anora hive” where people celebrate the movie’s win. But it also provides the opposite: fans of other movies trashing what they perceive to be weaknesses in the winner’s case.
What this results in is not an online world that’s united behind a single movie, instead there are various collectives coming together trying to support their favorite films from the past year.
Art is subjective, but the outcome of awards aren’t, and the cognitive dissonance of those two elements can lead to a lot of backlash.
Anora winning Best Picture at the 2025 Oscars shocked a lot of people online, but, let’s be honest, that would’ve happened no matter who or what won.
