Well that was quite a weekend, and I am not talking about the Super Bowl, even if Anora rolled over its competition the same way Philadelphia decimated Kansas City.
So unusually both PGA and DGA, two ever-so-important guild awards ceremonies that can predict the Oscars somehow landed, for the first time I can recall, on the same night in two nearby hotels in Beverly Hills. I made the decision to go to PGA, and was happy to be invited to sit at the front row table for nominated documentary feature, Porcelain War. It lost at PGA, but just a few minutes later won at DGA so the champagne was flowing on both sides of Santa Monica Blvd.
Directly next to us was a NEON table for Anora. Producer Alex Coco was there, and Mikey Madison came in briefly before going on stage to introduce the Best Picture nominee clip from her film (turns out she had done the same thing at DGA earlier). I figured it would be quite late, closer to 11 pm, before we heard what happened at DGA, and with the wifi dead to my phone I stopped getting emails at 6:30 down in the Fairmont Century Plaza Ballroom. Lo and behold in the darkened room Anora director Sean Baker turns up with his co-producer and wife Samantha Quan, and publicists from NEON and sits directly in front of me. This was at around 9:30 pm. PGA still had a few presentations before the final for Best Picture.
Sean Baker at the DGA Awards and the PGA Awards on Saturday night
Getty; Michael Buckner
I was completely clueless with no wifi and was not aware DGA agreed to start a bit earlier so some shared nominees could come over to the Fairmont before the last award. When I got his attention I asked Baker if DGA was still going on. “No. It ended,” he said much to my surprise. “Oh wow. Who won?” I naively asked. “I did”, he smiled. As the PGA show continued, our tables did a couple of quiet whoops to celebrate him. A few minutes later Jodie Foster announced Anora as the PGA winner and Sean Baker was holding his second prize of the night.
The celebration continued upstairs in the lobby as the Porcelain War DGA winners and PGA nominees had champagne toasts and the two ceremonies continued to merge when Baker and the Anora team came up and joined in turning this into a night like no other PGA or DGA awards I have ever been to. Fun, informal for a change, and different.
At the cocktail reception, and really at every event I have been to lately I kept getting asked, “who do you think is going to win the Oscar?” In the past week my answer has consistently been “talk to me on Monday”.
So here it is Monday, and after a whirlwind weekend that began actually Thursday with the AFI Awards, Friday with the Critics Choice Awards (finally), and then a Saturday bonanza of PGA and DGA, plus the Annies, and even earlier in the day the AARP’s Movies For Grownups Awards where you had to be over 50 to win, my answer is much clearer because Anora came from the middle of the pack (at least in terms of what pundits were predicting) to suddenly become the clear front runner in the Oscar race after running the table at CCA, DGA, and PGA, three bellwether groups that more often than not are in lockstep with Academy voters and, perhaps because Oscar voting begins tomorrow, more influential than ever for a body of voters, many preoccupied with the L.A. fires in one way or another, and perhaps looking for guidance, if looking to vote at all.
Jacques Audiard accepting DGA nomination medallion from Zoe Saldana
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for DGA
Up until now this race has been all over the place. With its 13 nominations, a near record-tying total and the biggest ever for a foreign language film, Emilia Pérez was the closest thing we had to a “front runner”, especially after winning several Golden Globes including Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, but that got swallowed up in all the drama around the implosion of Best Actress nominee, and first Trans performer ever, Karla Sofia Gascon’s campaign after all those shocking tweets resurfaced. But did it hurt the film overall? That still remains to be seen, particularly with the strong international voting bloc in the Academy, but it is safe to say it didn’t help.
However voting for PGA, where it lost, had closed on January 30 just as Gascon issued her first apology after the revelations of the tweets that week. PGA voting had been open for two weeks prior so largely was not affected by Gascon. DGA on the other hand had ballots out until shortly before the awards Saturday. Critics Choice which often uncannily mirrors Oscars had ballots due way back on January 10 before the ceremony itself moved twice due to the fires, finally landing on February 7. Emilia Pérez picked up three awards there, but the 600+ critics organization’s choice of Anora as Best Picture now seems prescient, cemented back then, even though in surely a first, it was the only CCA award it won. Then impressively paired with the DGA and PGA wins 24 hours later, these first of the key guilds to weigh in are generally the true indicator of where Oscar voters could be heading. Memberships in the guilds cross over heavily with AMPAS. Actually I always wait to gauge the race until the guilds weigh in, a smart move on my part since not a single pundit on Gold Derby’s survey of “experts” was predicting a DGA win for Baker – no one. Things can turn on a dime when voting gets to this point. And since WGA, which holds its awards ceremony this coming Saturday, ruling films ineligible that didn’t comply with their minimum basic agreement (this year including Conclave, Brutalist, Emilia Pérez, The Substance) Anora is also a heavy favorite to take Original Screenplay there unless Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain pulls an upset.
The WGA ceremony falls smack in the middle of Oscar voting so headlines of another win could make an impact, as could the results of BAFTA, which takes place Sunday and could also throw a wrench in things where Anora is facing nominations leader Conclave with its imposing 12 nominations. Remember this was where Edward Berger’s All Quiet On The Western Front upset the apple cart two years ago. Could he do it again? Globe winners Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist, and A Complete Unknown are also looking now to stop Anora, and this could be their best shot to do it.
Jon M. Chu at the 30th Annual Critics Choice Awards held at The Barker Hangar on February 7, 2025 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by JC Olivera/Variety via Getty Images)
JC Olivera
SAG, another major bellwether, is currently voting until February 21, just two days ahead of their February 23 show, which no matter what happens will have no effect on Oscar voters. However it could still shake up perceptions of the race should Anora go home empty handed there, and say SAG nominations leader Wicked pulls off a coup in the Outstanding Cast category. Oscar nomination-less Jon M. Chu’s Pop-U-Lar Best Director win at Critics Choice could help, just as it did at Critics Choice for Ben Affleck and Argo in 2012 on the same exact day the Academy’s directing branch snubbed him. On the other hand remaining SAG voters might be influenced by all the Anora headlines now. Voters are like sheep. They follow the flock.
Where SAG will be really informative is in the individual acting races, which now after Golden Globes and Critics Choice will look to BAFTA first, then SAG to see if all are in lockstep with clear front runners Adrien Brody, Demi Moore, Kieran Culkin,and Zoe Saldana. Could Timothee Chalamet rally? Or Ralph Fiennes? The wild card until Oscar night will remain Best Actress nominee and Golden Globe-Drama winner Fernanda Torres whose stirring role in surprise Best Picture nominee, I’m Still Here might pull off an upset even without nominations for SAG or BAFTA. It’s rare but it could happen, especially with a strong international turnout making up for a weaker than usual L.A.-based vote.
Getty
Anora’s ascendancy, which could also help Mikey Madison’s Best Actress chances, should not really be shocking. After all there were indications all the way back to Cannes in May where it proved to be the little engine that could and won the Palme d’Or. Should it pull off a Best Picture Oscar win it will be only the third to do it after 1955 Palme d’Or winner Marty and 2019’s Parasite (like Anora a NEON release). Critics groups in L.A., Boston, Dallas, Georgia, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Mexico, North Dakota, San Francisco, Central Florida, and Michigan among others have also anointed Anora, so this train is just continuing to pick up speed even if it did get shut out completely at the Globes. Don’t the Globes seem like a year ago at this point?
Consultants can take heart that even with all-important PGA and DGA wins, films like La La Land, Brokeback Mountain, Saving Private Ryan – to name three – did not ultimately become Best Picture Oscar winners, but the compressed voting period and the Academy’s misbegotten determination to cut off voting sooner than actually needed in order to free up ABC’s Promos barrage for the Academy Awards (don’t ask), means all the momentum as we head into final balloting tomorrow (for just one week), is now unquestionably with Anora. That is where you want to be at this point in the game, standing on the 20- yard line and driving into the end zone.