‘Anora’ Director Sean Baker Reveals His Favorite Scene to Edit: “An Homage to Romantic Comedies”

The filmmaker scored a rare feat with the 2025 Oscar nominations: he received nods in four categories, namely director, picture, original screenplay and editing.

Sean Baker’s work on his Oscar-nominated film Anora stands out for many reasons. With the 2025 Oscar nominations, the filmmaker joined a small cohort of auteurs nominated in four categories in one year: director, picture, original screenplay and editing.

Baker’s editing allowed Anora to reach its full potential in terms of storytelling. The Mikey Madison-fronted film goes from scenes filled to the brim with frenetic energy, framed in a romantic light, to near thriller-esque pacing as Madison’s Ani aims to escape a bad situation.

While both tones in the same film make it feel singular, Baker notes thatone proved to be a bit more memorable for him. “I had a lot of fun with the marital-bliss montage,” he said to THR on the morning of Oscar nominations, referring to scenes of the film’s couple as they embark on a whirlwind Las Vegas extravaganza before harsher realities set in. The montage kicks off with Ani and Mark Eydelshteyn’s Ivan, her onscreen beau, in bed after Ivan has suddenly proposed.

“I rarely get to use music, and I was able to use a lot here. It really was an homage to romantic comedies,” Baker says, referencing one of the film’s most effective needle drops — a Calum Scott and Robin Schulz remix of Take That’s “Greatest Day.”

The film’s leading lady pops up from her pillow as the song begins, showing her unadorned ring finger to Ivan and saying: “Three carats.” What follows is a chaotic and, in a way, romantic sequence of the couple eloping in a chapel before running through Vegas in their marital bliss — for the moment, anyway, because as fans of Anora know, it doesn’t last long. Baker uses short moments and quick cuts to make the audience feel as though they’re along for the ride on Ani and Ivan’s wild night.

The filmmaker is up against Juliette Welfling (Emilia Pérez), Nick Emerson (Conclave), Myron Kerstein (Wicked) and Dávid Jancsó (The Brutalist) in the editing category. Baker has edited all eight of his films.

“I consider editing to be just as important as writing and directing — it’s literally a third of the process,” he says. He pauses and laughs. “I hope it doesn’t come across as me being a control freak. It’s just my process.”