film

Anora, which came out last year and is a very modern Cinderella tale involving a sex worker who impulsively marries the feckless, flashy son of a Russian oligarch, recently garnered six Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. Even more notably, however, director Sean Baker has received four personal nominations for his film (for best director, picture, original screenplay and editing), meaning his name is now added to a very short list of directors who have achieved that feat. So short that we can reproduce the rest of it here, in fact: Warren Beatty. Alan Menken. Chloe Zhao. Alfonso Cuarón.

“It’s surreal, a lot of those are my heroes,” Baker said in the wake of the announcement of the nominations. “Especially since I thought I was making a movie whose subject matter was out of fashion.” Films of this quality never go out of fashion, though, and this brilliant dramedy driven by an unbelievably good central performance from Mikey Madison, for which she has received a Best Actress Oscar nomination ,deserves every one of its laurels.