Don’t Write Anora’s Oscar Obituary Just Yet

Awards season is all about bringing the glamour of the movies into the real world, but for Anora, the Golden Globes were an instance of life imitating art a little too well. Just like its heroine, Sean Baker’s film had a whirlwind night that began with excitement and optimism, but ended in crushing disappointment. After coming into the Globes tipped as a major Oscar contender, Anora went home empty-handed.

Its first loss, in Supporting Actor, was expected. But the two that followed stung. In Screenplay, Anora had been a popular pundit’s pick, but Baker lost out to Conclave’s Peter Straughan. And since the Globes usually love an ingénue, star Mikey Madison had been pegged as a strong possibility in Best Actress — Musical or Comedy. Instead, Madison had to sit on the sidelines as The Substance’s Demi Moore not only took the trophy, but delivered a note-perfect acceptance speech that suddenly made her look an awful lot like the Oscar front-runner. By the time Best Director and Best Picture — Musical or Comedy rolled around, Anora missing felt like a given. Those trophies went to The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez, respectively, cementing the pair as the night’s big winners, and Anora, conversely, as the biggest loser.

I’m not going to try to tell you any of this was good for Baker & Co. But I will lightly suggest that any fans writing the film’s Oscar obituary might want to hold off. If you’re still in line to root for Anora, stay in line!

The first reason is the thing we always say about the Golden Globes: Unlike other awards, which are decided by critics’ groups or industry professionals, Globes voters are — with all due respect — a bunch of total randos. The old Hollywood Foreign Press Association was a bunch of glad-handing international journalists who stumbled into a TV deal; the new Golden Globes organization is mostly those same people, with a few hundred other unpaid voters thrown in to provide more legitimacy. They have essentially zero overlap with the people who will decide the rest of awards season.

Which is not to say that the Globes don’t matter. (Just look at Moore’s post-victory glow.) But it’s a reminder that missing at the Globes has never been a death knell for a contender’s hopes. Everything Everywhere All at Once lost Best Musical or Comedy. Parasite won only Foreign-Language Film. CODA and Spotlight went home empty-handed. At the industry awards, which do have more overlap with the Academy, Anora has shown up everywhere it needs to. Heck, Yura Borisov and Mark Eydelshteyn both made the BAFTA longlist for Supporting Actor. There is still a lot of love out there for this film.

At the risk of sounding Pollyannaish, there is even reason for optimism after the Globes. The results solidified The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez as our two biggest Best Picture threats. They are both impressive films that are going to win a lot of trophies before the season is done. However, both of them are also big swings, polarizing films that people either love or hate. Anora, by contrast, seems a little more of a consensus pick — exactly the kind of movie that could play better on Oscar’s preferential ballot. Of course, the same applies to Conclave, the final member of what appears to be our quartet of top-tier Best Picture contenders. But the Globes are the last time Anora and Conclave will be competing for the same Screenplay trophy. Everywhere else, they’ll be slotted separately in Original and Adapted. If the road to a Best Picture trophy runs through Director or Screenplay, then each of these four titles still has a plausible path.

Again, I won’t deny that blanking at the Globes hurts Anora’s chances, especially for Madison in Best Actress. It’s always hard to be the season’s early leader, a status the comedy held since winning the Palme d’Or last May. But in that case, losing its shine might be the best thing to happen to a small, scrappy film like Anora. Being an underdog suits it more than being a front-runner ever did.