Every Sean Baker Movie, Ranked
“Anora,” the winner of the 2024 Palme d’Or, is a film that’s all too easy to describe as a star is born moment. The film, a madcap romance between the wealthy son of a Russian oligarch and a Brighton Beach sex worker that channels everything from the screwball comedies of Ernst Lubitsch to the intimate neo-realist dramas of Federico Fellini features a performance from Mikey Madison in the lead role that feels destined to raise the “Better Things” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” star’s profile immediately.
Beyond its leading lady, “Anora” also feels like it’s destined to be the moment where its director Sean Baker goes from indie darling to award darling. Baker, who made his directorial debut in the year 2000 with the obscure “Four Letter Words,” has slowly risen in stature for years now. After three more features — “Take Out,” “Prince of Broadway,” and “Starlet” — came out to relatively little notice, a streak of movies starting with 2015 Christmas Eve comedy “Tangerine” — that also includes Disney World drama “The Florida Project” and toxic character study “Red Rocket” — turned him into one of the more acclaimed directors currently working today.
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“Anora,” as his funniest and perhaps most accessible film yet, promises to raise his stature further. While Baker’s previous efforts might have their places on online best of the year or best of the decade lists, they didn’t make much impact at the Oscars, where his rugged naturalism and modest independent lens proved insufficiently flashy; the sole nomination any of his films managed to get was a Best Supporting Actor nod for Willem Dafoe in “The Florida Project,” easily the most famous actor Baker has ever worked with.
This year though, after some expansions to Academy ranks that have made the awards body far more adventurous? “Anora” isn’t just expected to contend for the Oscar, it’s arguably the frontrunner, and Baker himself seems likely to get the recognition he deserves from the directing branch come nomination morning. It’s both thrilling and somewhat disorienting, given how Baker has devoted his career to making films about the type of people who are, pretty much, the exact opposites of your stereotypical Oscar attendee.
A white man who was born and raised in Upper Middle Class New Jersey and attended New York University film school, Baker isn’t quite the obvious type to — as critics have often defined his work — spotlight those in the margins of America. But at the core of his filmmaking is a fascination for how those in the lowest strata of America’s capitalist structure operate underneath the crushing weight of economic uncertainty. While his early films like “Take Out” channeled these concerns through the stories of gig workers, his recent string of chamber dramas look at the lives of people in the most stigmatized American profession, sex work. Every film he’s made since “Tangerine” touches on the topic, and Baker’s skill as a storyteller lies in his ability to portray those who make their living in sex work not as symbols or two-bit stereotypes, but as vividly rendered, heartbreakingly real human beings.
With “Anora” in theaters now and Baker serving as the keynote speaker at our Future of Filmmaking event on November 2, IndieWire is taking a look at the director’s filmography to determine which of his diamonds-in-the-rough shines the brightest. Read on for all eight of Sean Baker’s films, ranked from worst to best.
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