At this year’s Oscars, Anora filmmaker Sean Baker made history by personally receiving 4 Academy Award wins for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing. Only Warren Beatty, Alan Menken, Alfonso Cuaron and Chloe Zhao had achieved the record 4 nominations for a single film before him. And while the film’s success has introduced Baker to his biggest audience yet, he’s been steadily releasing independent films about misfits, immigrants and sex workers on the margins of American society for 25 years. Here are the 7 films that paved the way to Anora. 

Four Letter Words (2000)

After graduating from New York University’s film school, Baker struggled for much of his 20s, cobbling money together through odd jobs until he finally made his feature debut with 2000’s Four Letter Words. The film follows a group of college-aged men through a night of drugs, booze and suspended adolescent bickering, following in the lo-fi hangout tradition of early Kevin Smith and Richard LInklater films. It also saw his first collaboration with Armenian-American actor Karren Karagulian, who would go on to appear in all of Baker’s films, including his scene-stealing turn as Toros in Anora. The film made its debut at the 2000 SXSW Film Festival, announcing Baker as a new voice in independent film.

Four Letter Words kicked off Baker’s career and established his lifelong penchant for hustling tooth and nail to get his films made at any cost. 

Four Letter Words is not currently available to stream online, but a new blu-ray release is purportedly in the works. 

Take Out (2004)

Baker wrote and directed his second film, Take Out, in collaboration with fellow filmmaker Shih-Ching Tsou on a budget of only $3,000, shooting on digital video in a real New York City takeout restaurant with non-professional actors. The film follows undocumented Chinese delivery man Ming Ding as he tries to come up with enough tip money by the end of the day to pay off a debt to the smugglers who got him and his family into the country. Take Out premiered at the 2004 Slamdance Film Festival, but didn’t receive a proper release until 2008, when it got nominated for the John Cassavetes award at the Independent Spirit Awards alongside Baker’s third feature, Prince of Broadway. 

With this, his second film, Baker established a personal method of casting non-professional actors and using any equipment he can afford to get his movie made, an ethos he would maintain a decade later in Tangerine and beyond. 

Take Out is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel as part of their Three by Sean Baker collection.

Prince Adu and Aiden Noesi in 'Prince of Broadway'

Prince of Broadway (2008)

Prince Of Broadway follows another struggling immigrant, this time a Ghanaian seller of knock-off goods in New York’s wholesale garment district named Lucky. Baker self-financed, wrote, directed, edited and even paid distribution costs for his third labor of love, but when the 2008 recession rocked the independent film industry, Baker struggled to find proper distribution. Luckily, amidst the success of 2009’s Precious, filmmaker Lee Daniels took notice of Baker’s work and reached out to him, ultimately attaching as a presenter, and Elephant Eye Films gave the film a proper release. 

Prince Of Broadway is particularly representative of Baker’s ongoing determination to get his films made and seen, and is the only time he ever put his money into distributing the film himself. By doing so, he got wider spread attention and was able to level up with his next film.

Prince of Broadway is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel as part of their Three by Sean Baker collection, and will be released on Blu-ray as part of the Criterion Collection later this year. 

Starlet (2012)

With Starlet, Baker first delved into the world of sex work and moved his lens from New York to the sunny San Fernando valley. Dree Hemingway, daughter of actress Mariel Hemingway, and great-granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway, made her lead acting debut in the film as a budding adult film actress who befriends a cranky old woman played by first time actor Besedka Johnson. The film’s titular chihuahua was played by Baker’s own dog, Boonmee. Co-written with recurrent collaborator Chris Bergoch and shot on a small budget of $235,000, Starlet became Baker’s most widely-praised film, winning acclaim out of SXSW and receiving the Robert Altman Award at the 2013 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Johnson passed away shortly after the film’s release, having received praise and accolades for her performance. 

Starlet is Baker’s first foray into the world of sex work that he’s continued to explore up through Anora. By choosing to explore a subject that the industry might have considered taboo, Baker’s film stood out from others, by highlighting a little-seen world with freshness, vitality and truth, and his films continue this exploration to this day. 

Starlet is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel as part of their Three by Sean Baker collection.

Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez in 'Tangerine'

Tangerine (2015)

Hollywood came calling after the success of Starlet, but when the newfound attention didn’t materialize into his next movie, Baker returned to his DIY roots. Using financing put together by fellow indie maverick Mark Duplass, Baker shot Tangerine on the streets of Hollywood using an iPhone 5S. The film follows the comic and ultimately very moving misadventures of two transgender sex workers across an eventful Christmas Eve on Santa Monica Blvd. Baker met the leads, first time actors Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor, at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and the two went on to gain critical acclaim for their performances, with Taylor winning numerous breakthrough acting awards. Tangerine premiered at Sundance 2015 to universal acclaim and much press surrounding its unique production method, but the Oscar spotlight still eluded Baker. 

Like with Take Out a decade before, Baker used available resources and a lo-fi approach to get his film made, and in the case of Tangerine, the unorthodox production method actually served to get the film even greater publicity. 

Tangerine is currently streaming on Max. 

The Florida Project (2017)

After the high profile success of Tangerine, Baker was able to return to a 35mm film format, which he would continue to use through Anora, and cast his biggest actor yet, Willem Dafoe, in The Florida Project. Baker once again co-wrote with Bergoch, who came up with the initial idea for the film based on the children he’d frequently see playing in motel parking lots near his mother’s Orlando, Florida home. Breakout child actor Brooklynn Prince played the lead little girl, and Dafoe played the motel’s hardened manager, a role for which he went on to be nominated for an Academy Award, a first for a Baker film. Baker kept the crew small and intimate as per usual, shooting at a motel near Disney World, and stole shots for the climactic sequence within the famed theme park using an iPhone 6S. A24 quickly snapped up the distribution rights after a positive critical reception at the Cannes Film Festival, and turned the movie into Baker’s biggest financial success, grossing $11m from its $2m budget.

The Florida Project, with its relatively higher budget and name movie star, might have been an opportunity for Baker to water down or cater his work to a wider audience. By staying true to his vision and interests, he didn’t change his ethos to gain broader acceptance, but instead found a broader audience acceptance of an ethos he’s always maintained. The film is a testimony to staying true to one’s artistic voice, even when leveling up. 

The Florida Project is currently streaming on Max.

Red Rocket (2021) 

Even after the success of The Florida Project, Baker still struggled to get its follow-up off the ground. He finally decided to return to a lower budget and a character idea that he and Bergoch had conceived of during research for Starlet, an adult film star named Mikey “Saber” Davies. With a $1m budget and an idea to shoot the film secretly in Texas during the 2020 Covid-19 shutdown, Baker contacted former MTV VJ and actor, Simon Rex, and persuaded him to drive to Texas to take on the lead character. A24 once again acquired the film out of Cannes, and although it didn’t go on to achieve the box office success and Oscar attention of The Florida Project, due in part perhaps to debate around the film’s controversial sexual morality and troubling lead character, it still garnered acclaim for its performances, with Rex winning the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead and experiencing a career resurrection.

After experiencing his first brush with mainstream and Oscar attention, Baker doubled down on the techniques that got him there in the first place, lowering his budget, shooting guerilla style, and focusing back in on the fringe subject material and marginalized worlds that helped develop his artistic vision in the first place. 

Red Rocket is available to rent wherever you stream movies. 

Mark Eydelshteyn and Mikey Madison in 'Anora'

Anora (2024)

The most striking thing about the success of Anora, which finally won Baker the Palme D’or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and has gone on to gross $35m and win 5 Oscars, is that its conception and production is in no way different from any of Baker’s first 7 films. Baker remains fascinated by the struggle to get by on the margins of America, a theme that mirrors his own journey to survive on the margins of the film industry and make movies his own way. This time, he follows high-price stripper Anora “Ani” Mikheeva, as portrayed by Academy Award nominee Mikey Madison, who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, and is quickly pursued by the hard-working Armenian henchmen (including Baker mainstay Karagulian in his best role yet) in the employ of said Russian Oligarch. The film maintains the tight, screwball scripting that Baker’s always excelled at, the run-and-gun guerilla style he’s employed from Take Out to Tangerine, and an empathy for troubled protagonists navigating the hard-fought battle for financial success that we all must go through in the crushing capitalistic rat race of American society. 

Sean Baker’s success with Anora is an important reminder for any aspiring filmmaker - that by staying persistent no matter how hard the journey gets, by using available resources and whatever equipment one can afford, by insisting upon artistic integrity, and by being true to one’s vision, a strong filmmaking team will eventually achieve success on the level of Anora and beyond. The only thing more exciting than Baker’s hard-fought success, is the possibility of the projects he’ll dream up next. They will no doubt maintain his rebellious, independent spirit.