Anora

Today we have Criterion's release of Sean Baker's biggest film yet, Anora.  And by biggest, I guess I mean mostly in terms of accolades.  It just won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Actress, Editing and Original Screenplay, plus a nomination for Supporting Actor.  And that's not getting into the Palme d'Or, its many BAFTAs and all its other prizes.  Compare that to his previous pinnacle, The Florida Project, which just got the one nomination for Dafoe.  Criterion's already been working with Baker, though.  They released his early film, Take Out, in 2022, and one of his more obscure films, Prince of Broadway, is scheduled for next week.  Maybe next year we can look forward to a Greg the Bunny boxed set.  Anyway, Anora.  It's just come out this month and is available in a 2-disc DVD set, a 2-disc BD set and a 3-disc UHD/ BD combo-pack.

Anora, starring Mikey Madison (Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, Scream 5) and Karren Karagulian (who's been in all of Baker's films), feels a bit like the perfection of themes Baker's been developing throughout his earlier work.  I mean, this is what, his fifth film about sex workers in a row?  And he's announced that his next will be, too.  This man is definitely settling into a groove.  Anora's living conditions with her sister and her boyfriend feel like a reprise of Starlet, and her desperate search for her husband Vonya throughout Coney Island plays almost like a remake of Sin-Dee's search for Chester throughout Hollywood in Tangerine.  But what the hell, we don't get mad at Dario Argento for making more and more giallos about black gloved killers.  And Baker is definitely in his Tenebrae period now, not his Card Player, so settle in and enjoy.

2025 Criterion BD top; 2025 Criterion UHD bottom.

2025 Criterion BD left; 2025 Criterion UHD right.

Anora is presented in its OAR of 2.39:1.  There's nothing about the transfer in the enclosed booklet.  This film was shot on 35mm, but as a brand new release, I'm sure Criterion was just given the same DCP Neon's been screening; they wouldn't have done any film scanning or restoration on their own.  There's a definite jump in PQ from the BD to the UHD, though, just from the resolution bump alone.  We can just about read that "11 23" window tag on either disc, but it's a pixelated mess on the BD compared to the smooth photo-realism of the UHD.  And the HDR breathes a little m ore life into this film's many shadows, though the club and neon sign colors are attractively vibrant on either disc.  Really, you can't go wrong, but the UHD does go that extra mile, and then even a little bit more.

Both discs also have the 5.1 audio track in DTS-HD with optional English subtitles.  In addition, there's an audio descriptive track in Dolby 2.0.

The extras package is really nice here.  Some Criterions have been getting rather light in recent years, but they're pulling out all the stops for Anora.  First off, there are two lively audio commentaries.  The first is Baker with his DP and producers, where they're having fun but still staying relatively focused and giving out a lot of behind the scenes information.  It does veer towards the technical at times, especially when the DP starts talking about the lighting, but personally I dug it.  Then Baker is back on the second track with his stars, Madison and Karagulian.  In addition, three of the Russian supporting players have comments edited into the track during their key scenes.  It's a good track, too, but Baker wastes a lot of time repeating himself (i.e. he points out every cameo from his earlier films in both audio commentaries, makes the same observations about the locations, etc).  But they're ample enough that I'd recommend both.

That repetition does leak into some of the other extras, too.  We've got an on-camera interview with Baker, a joint interview with him and Madison and a press conference with many of the cast and crew at Cannes.  Then there's another press conference specifically for sex workers with Madison and co-star Lindsay Normington, which is a bit silly.  For instance when Normington first brings up the term a big graphic comes up giving the dictionary definition of "sex worker," as if anybody on Earth would have made it to the special features blu-ray of Anora without knowing what it meant (and it's completely self-explanatory in the first place).  And anecdotes are getting repeated throughout all of these features, so viewers may prefer to skip around rather than watch everything all the way through.

One thing you should definitely not skip, though, is the feature length 'making of' doc, comprised entirely of on-set footage that takes us through every single day of shooting.  Additionally, there are a handful of deleted scenes (two of which I think they maybe should've kept in the movie), audition footage for many of the supporting cast members, and three trailers.  Criterion's combo-pack is a digibook housed inside an outer slipbox with a 24-page booklet with essays by experts Dennis Lim and Kier-La Janisse.