2025’s Best Picture Oscar Winner Is Taking Over Hulu’s Top Charts

2024 was the year that Sean Baker and his stories of America’s overlooked and underprivileged finally got the spotlight they deserved. The director has consistently crafted empathetic and strikingly naturalistic movies based on the lives of marginalized figures ever since his first film, “Four Letter Words,” was released in 2000. Mainstream success somewhat eluded him in the two decades that followed, but each of his projects helped raise his profile, with 2015’s “Tangerine” in particular gaining notoriety for being shot entirely on an iPhone 5S. 2017’s “The Florida Project” was an American neorealist masterpiece, while 2021’s “Red Rocket” was yet another critical success, even if it didn’t quite propel Baker into the mainstream consciousness.

But “Anora,” Baker’s high-stress screwball comedy, was easily one of the best movies of 2024 and it seems the Academy agreed, with the film winning Best Picture at the 2025 Oscars. Star Mikey Madison also gave the 2025 Oscars its most shocking upset by winning Best Actresswhile Baker himself also won Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing, cementing the film as a major turning point for them both and signaling the filmmaker’s arrival as a real force in Hollywood.

The film follows Madison’s Ani, an erotic dancer and sex worker who, while working at her New York City club, meets Ivan Zakharovthe (Mark Eydelshteyn), the wealthy son of Russian billionaires. The two then proceed to embark on what might be called a whirlwind romance if Ivan wasn’t paying Ani for her company the entire time. Soon, however, the pair marry, and it seems Ani has developed real feelings for her new husband and is destined to be catapulted into the kind of privileged life she’s always coveted. It’s then that things take a sharp turn, as Ivan’s oligarch parents send their goons to put a swift end to the marriage by forcing the duo into an annulment. Ani is determined to hang onto her new life, though, and after Ivan vanishes into the city, the rest of the film plays out like a frenetic Safdie brothers escapade.

Overall, “Anora” makes for one of the most unique films of Baker’s career, and is bolstered by standout performances from its cast. As such, it’s nice to see streaming audiences giving this one the attention it so clearly deserves, with “Anora” currently rising through the Hulu charts.

“Anora” was clearly a hit before its streaming debut. Aside from the widespread critical praise and Academy Award wins, the film made $52 million at the box office against a $6 million budget after opening theatrically in October 2024, giving distributor NEON a nice little win in the same year that saw the studio score one of the most impressive indie box office openings of the century with “Longlegs.” The movie premiered on digital a couple of months after that and has now finally made its streaming debut, where it looks set to continue its impressive run.

“Anora” arrived on Hulu in the U.S. on Monday, March 17, 2025, and has immediately become a success for the platform. Streaming viewership tracker FlixPatrol shows the film debuting on Hulu’s charts at number four a day after it first reached the streamer, and the movie will almost certainly continue to rise through the ranks as the rest of the week plays out. Prior to that, “Anora” had also been topping the iTunes chart in both the U.S. and several other countries, suggesting that interest in Baker’s movie is far from waning.

In order to top the Hulu charts, “Anora” will have to dethrone Bill Burr’s new standup special, “Drop Dead Years,” as well as something called “Force of Nature: The Dry 2,” which shouldn’t be too tough a job for the Best Picture winner. On the overall Hulu chart, “Anora” is currently sitting at number 11, but will surely continue to climb as the week plays out. It’s yet more confirmation that Baker has ascended to the heights he’s always deserved to be at — and while he didn’t exactly need this streaming win to certify his newfound success, it’ll only help to build momentum for his next project, which couldn’t be more highly-anticipated at this point.