Oscars hit Anora may not have been nominated for as many awards as its big budget competitors, but proved much more successful at converting nominations to wins.
The romantic comedy-drama went into this year’s ceremony with six nominations, well behind the likes of Emilia Perez (13), The Brutalist (10) and Wicked (10).
But, as the night went on, Anora steadily clocked up the victories and ended up walking away with five Oscars – more than any other film and almost a clean sweep of the categories it was contending.
Anora vastly outperformed all its rivals.
Emilia Perez picked up only two wins from its mammoth 13 nominations, while The Brutalist ended up with three out of 10 and Wicked had to make do with two from 10.
But even these films fared better than A Complete Unknown, the biographical drama based on the early life of Bob Dylan, which was nominated for eight Oscars and then failed to win a single one.
The religious thriller Conclave was also nominated in eight categories, but avoided leaving the ceremony empty-handed thanks to a solitary win for best adapted screenplay, which went to veteran British writer Peter Straughan.
Among those films nominated across a smaller number of categories, Dune: Part Two performed best, converting five nominations to two wins.
Anora’s success at this year’s Academy Awards means its director, Sean Baker, becomes only the third film-maker in history to win an Oscar for editing a movie they also directed, joining James Cameron (for Titanic) and Alfonson Cuaron (for Gravity).
Both Cameron and Cuaron were co-editors of their respective films, however.
Baker is the first director to win an Oscar for a sole editing credit.
Elsewhere, Zoe Saldana’s Oscar for best supporting actress, for the film Emilia Perez, means this award has gone to a non-white performer six times in the last 10 years, making it easily the most diverse of the acting categories.
There have been four non-white winners of best supporting actor in the past decade, along with two winners of best actor and one winner of best actress.
The United States bagged all four acting Oscars this year as well as best director – the first time this has happened since 2017.
By contrast, this is the fourth year in a row that the UK has failed to win in any of the acting categories.
It is the longest gap for a UK acting win this century.
The last time the UK won an Oscar in any of the acting categories was in 2021, when Sir Anthony Hopkins was named best actor for The Father and Daniel Kaluuya picked up best supporting actor for Judas & The Black Messiah.
The next longest spell without any UK acting wins were the five years from 1994 to 1998 inclusive.
