Sean Baker’s Anora was the big winner at the 2025 Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards on Tuesday night, as it picked up the best picture prize.
Baker’s screwball comedy about a young sex worker’s romantic entanglement with the son of a Russian oligarch also earned a best female actor crown for Mikey Madison, who is nominated for a best Oscar actress trophy as well.
Anora picked up major awards in best picture competitions at the Feb. 12 Critics Choice Awards and the Feb. 8 Producers Guild Awards well after nabbing the top prize, the Palme d’Or, in Cannes.
In other prize giving in Vancouver, Jesse Eisenberg picked up the best screenplay honor for A Real Pain, which also earned Kieran Culkin the best supporting male actor award.
That left Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist shut out of the prizegiving by Vancouver film critics, despite having earned nominations for best picture, best screenplay and best male actor for Adrien Brody. Elsewhere, Denis Villeneuve was handed the best director prize for Dune: Part Two, and the best male actor honor went to Timothée Chalamet for his star turn in the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.
Vancouver critics also bestowed the best supporting female actor honor to Margaret Qualley for The Substance. No Other Land, about Palestinian activists fighting off Israeli soldiers, won the best feature documentary award.
And the best international film in a non-English language category went to Flow, an animated feature from director Gints Zilbalodis. In the Canadian film categories, My Old Ass, the coming-of-age comedy drama written and directed by Megan Park won for best picture, best screenplay and a best female actor prize for Maisy Stella.
The other multiple winner was Can I Get a Witness?, which earned the best director crown for Ann Marie Fleming, the best supporting female actor for Sandra Oh and a One to Watch award for Keira Jang.