Anora Surprises as Best Picture Winner at 2025 Critics Choice Awards: ‘So Unexpected’

Anora took home the top prize at the 2025 Critics Choice Awards.

On Friday, Feb. 7, writer-director Sean Baker took the stage in Los Angeles to accept the best picture win, beating out fellow nominees A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, Nickel Boys, Sing Sing, The Substance and Wicked.

While accepting the award, Baker expressed his shock at the win, calling it “so unexpected.”

“When those who dedicate their lives to their love of film and film criticism and film journalism, when they see something positive in your work, just a little, it means everything in the world,” he said. “So thank you guys so much.”

Baker continued, “We made this little film — it was $6 million. That’s micro-budget these days. We shot on film. We shot in New York City. That all happened because of my incredible cast and crew who roughed it up. We put every dollar up on that screen.”

He then said of the independent film community, “We have to go for it to stay on the big screen. And that’s what I want to say. We made this film for the big screen. We thank everybody who saw it on the big screen.”

The director concluded his speech with a nod to movie theaters. “We have to think about the theaters. That’s where we all fell in love with the movies, at the movie theaters. They’re going through some hard times. We lost 1,000 theaters during COVID. We lose them almost daily. That’s where we love to see films. Let’s see films in our local theaters.”

Anora stars Mikey Madison as a New York City sex worker whose whirlwind Cinderella story after meeting and marrying Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the young son of a Russian billionaire family, takes a turn for the worse when Ivan’s parents find out about the marriage.

Anora was nominated for seven total awards at the Critics Choice Awards, including nominations for Madison in best actress, Yura Borisov in best supporting actor, the entire cast in best acting ensemble, Baker for best director and best original screenplay and best editing.  

Music biopic A Complete Unknown stars Timothée Chalamet as 1960s-era Bob Dylan. Aside from the movie’s best picture nomination at the Critics Choice Awards, Chalamet, 29, is nominated for best actor, while Edward Norton received a nomination for his supporting performance as Pete Seeger.

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A Complete Unknown was directed and co-written by James Mangold (Walk the Line); Monica Barbaro portrays Joan Baez in the film, while Elle Fanning portrays Dylan’s then-girlfriend Sylvie Russo; Boyd Holbrook portrays Johnny Cash, and Scoot McNairy plays Woodie Guthrie.

The Brutalist stars Adrien Brody as a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who emigrates to the U.S. after surviving World War II and the Holocaust. The movie won three awards at the 2025 Golden Globes on Jan. 5, including honors for Brody’s performance, filmmaker Brady Corbet’s work as director and as best picture in the Globes’ drama category.

Director Edward Berger’s Conclave is one of two movies to receive 11 total nominations at this years’ Critics Choice Awards, along with Wicked. The movie, which is adapted from author Robert Harris’ 2016 novel of the same name, follows a group of Catholic cardinals who gather in modern-day Vatican City to elect a new pope in the days following a pope’s death.

Dune: Part Two, which also stars Chalamet, headed into the Critics Choice Awards with 10 total nominations, tied for second-most among all nominated movies with Emilia Pérez. 

The movie, which picks up where 2021’s Dune: Part One left off, costars Chalamet with Zendaya, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and more.

Emilia Pérez follows a high-powered lawyer named Rita (Zoe Saldaña), who is hired by a Mexican cartel leader (Karla Sofía Gascón) to help them fake their death and undergo gender-affirming procedures so that they can transition into life as a woman.

The film, now streaming on Netflix, won four awards at the 2025 Golden Globes on Jan. 5; its 10 nominations at the Critics Choice Awards are tied with Dune: Part Two for second-most nominations among all films.

Nickel Boys is a unique screen adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning historical novel based on real-life abusive reform schools in America. The movie stars Ethan Herisse as Elwood, who is sent to reform school Nickel Academy in 1960s Florida, and Brandon Wilson as Turner, whom Elwood befriends at the school.

Sing Sing, the Colman Domingo-led indie that follows a group of incarcerated men who participate in an arts and theater program at New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility, was up for five awards at this year’s Critics Choice Awards. Sing Sing is based on a real life program called Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) and Maclin’s real-life experience learning to act while incarcerated at Sing Sing. The movie features a number of nonprofessional actors and men who were formerly incarcerated at the maximum security prison.

The Substance raced its way into the Critics Choice Awards with seven total nominations, including nods for stars Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. Moore and Qualley portray different versions of the same character in The Substance; Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle seeks out a black-market drug called The Substance after she is fired from her long-running workout television program, only to find that the drug creates a younger version of her. Tasked with living life in one body at a time for seven days a piece, Elizabeth and Sue (Qualley) come to gory, shocking odds as the younger woman begins stealing time from Elizabeth’s life.

Jon M. Chu’s musical adaptation Wicked: Part One, which stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, is tied with Conclave among all nominated movies with 11 nominations. Audiences, critics and Hollywood fans alike will expect Wicked to return to awards season in 2026 after Wicked: For Good releases in theaters Nov. 21.

See PEOPLE’s full coverage of the 30th annual Critics Choice Awards as they’re broadcasting live on E! from Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. The show will also be available to stream the following day on Peacock.