'Anora' Wins Palme D'Or, Cannes Film Festival's Top Honor

Sean Baker’s “Anora,” a comic but devastating Brooklyn odyssey about a sex worker who marries the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, has won the Cannes Film Festival’s top award, the Palme d’Or.

Baker accepted the prize with his movie’s star, Mikey Madison, watching in the audience at the Cannes closing ceremony Saturday. The win for “Anora” marks a new high point for Baker, the director of “The Florida Project.” It’s also, remarkably, the fifth straight Palme d’Or won by indie distributor Neon, following “Parasite,” “Titane,” “Triangle of Sadness” and last year’s winner, “Anatomy of a Fall.”

“I don’t really know what’s happening right now,” said Baker.

While “Anora” was arguably the most acclaimed film of the festival, its win was a slight surprise. Many expected either the gentle Indian drama “All We Imagine As Light” or the Iranian film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” to win. Both of those films also took home prizes.

It wasn’t the only surprise of the closing ceremony, though. Before George Lucas was given an honorary Palme d’Or, his old friend and sometimes collaborator Francis Ford Coppola appeared to present it to him, reuniting two of the most pivotal figures of the last half-century of American moviemaking.

“All We Imagine As Light,” about sisterhood in modern Mumbai, won the Grand Prix, Cannes’ second-highest honor. Payal Kapadia’s second feature was the first Indian in competition in Cannes in 30 years.

The jury awarded a special prize to Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” a drama made secretly in Iran. Days ahead of the film’s premiere, Rasoulof, facing an eight-year prison sentence, fled Iran on foot. His film, which includes real footage from the 2022-2023 demonstrations in Iran, channels