Films like Anora prove you don’t need $200,000,000 to make an Oscar-worthy movie
Looking at you, TItanic.
The front-runners for the 2025 Oscars – and during this year’s awards season – all have something intriguing in common: mega, multi-hundred-million budgets don’t come into the mix, with indie, auteur-led filmmaking having a chance to shine.
As we’ve progressed through the various ceremonies already held, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, Sean Baker’s Anora and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance have been among the buzziest films – starting way back from their premieres at Venice and Cannes film festivals, even.
All have multiple nominations at Sunday’s Oscars (10, six and five respectively), and all have been put forward in the best picture category.
But these movies have not just garnered critical acclaim, they’ve been great financial and fan successes too, and therefore also curious in comparison to the big disappointments at the box office in the past year; ones like the bellyflop of Joker: Folie à Deux, and the ongoing struggle of Marvel to light up audiences and the box office.
So, are we over blockbusters?
Madame Web was another big failure of 2024, making only $100.5million (£79.9m) on a production budget of $80-100m (£63.6-£79.5m) – not enough to break even, with marketing costs taken into account. It was also much maligned by fans, and star Dakota Johnson distanced herself from the movie following backlash very quickly, admitting: ‘I can’t say that I don’t understand.’
Superhero flicks, like Madame Web, have continued to fare poorly, in the past year suggesting fans are less interested in blockbusters (Picture: CTMG Inc./Beth Dubber)As well as its laughably dire yet quotable script (“He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died”), definite superhero fatigue comes into play here too, something Joker: Folie à Deux clearly hoped to nimbly dodge with its unexpected theatrical and musical take on the genre.
However, it was an awkward $200m (£159m) misfire with its intended audience, as well as dashing the awards hopes Warner Bros would have had for it; the sequel limped to a worldwide total of $207.5m (£165m), with its break-even point thought to have been between $375mi (£298m) and $450m (£357.9m).
Not only was it an embarrassing flop considering its predecessor took over $1bn (£795.3m) at the box office, but Joker was also an Oscars darling too, with 11 nominations – the most of any films that year – and two wins. To make its bruising fall from grace worse, Folie à Deux was ironically the most nominated film at the Razzie Awards – where it also picked up two gongs. Ouch.
Joker: Folie à Deux’s $200m (£159m) budget didn’t help it to anything like the success of its predecessor’s booming box office and multiple Oscar wins (Picture: Warner Bros/Everett/Shutterstock)Borderlands’ failure also suggested audience antipathy with blockbusters, as the popular videogame’s movie adaptation – complete with starry cast led by Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Hart, still only managed $33m (£26.2m) on a $110-20m (£87.4m-95.4m) estimated production budget.
And even Megalopolis, the big (self-funded) budget comeback from legendary filmmaker and previous Academy Awards staple Francis Ford Coppola, bombed with just $14.3m (£11.3m), despite its $120m (£95.4m) budget. It’s not a stretch to say that Coppola and his starry cast, given past acclaim from the Oscars for the likes of Patton, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, might have been anticipating the warm embrace of Hollywood’s awards season.
Comment nowWhat’s your pick to win best picture at the 2025 Oscars?Comment NowBut what The Brutalist and Anora and The Substance at the Oscars on Sunday emphatically reminds us, is that these sizes of budgets are not a requirement for making a film acclaimed by the industry – and that maybe expensive blockbusters are falling out of favour.
Previously, some Oscar-winning films have had these giant budgets, for example Titanic, which cost a huge $200m (£159m) – at the time, the biggest budget ever – but also converted 11 out of its 14 Academy Award nominations to victories.
Titanic was the most expensive film ever made when it scooped a record-tying 11 Oscars and became the then-highest grossing film of all time – but times have changed (Picture: Paramount Pictures)It also then became the highest-grossing film ever in 1998, holding the title until filmmaker James Cameron usurped himself with Avatar in early 2010. Last year, Oppenheimer also was the runaway success from Sir Christopher Nolan, with a still-meaty budget of $100m (£79.5m).
But for 2025, we’re seeing a year of indie breakthroughs and remarkable work on the most modest of budgets.
The Brutalist’s Corbet actually told Metro at the Baftas that he wanted more money, and it was not his choice to make the 215-minute film for under $10m (£7.9m), but it’s a remarkable triumph nonetheless with its epic appeal. He also shared at the press conference later that he felt the success of his ‘completely uncompromised’ film was ‘good for the ecosystem’ of Hollywood. So far, it has made a fraction under $37m (£29.4m) at the box office.
The Brutalist is another front-runner at the Oscars for major prizes, with another small budget ($10m, £7.9m) and another auteur director in Brady Corbet (Picture: A24/Everett/Rex/Shutterstock)Sean Baker is another auteur with vision, working over the years with longtime producers, utilising street casting and even editing his projects himself too, so as to fully realise his vision. His film Anora is the smallest budgeted nominee for best picture, among other Oscars, at just $6m (£4.7m). However, it’s made $40.9m (£32.5m) as of Thursday, meaning it’s now the highest-grossing film of Baker’s career.
He has previously received acclaim for films including The Florida Project and Tangerine, but this is his first time as an Oscar nominee, after Anora had a dream premiere at Cannes Film Festival where it won the top prize of the Palme D’Or.
Then there’s The Substance too, which produced remarkably gruesome scenes on a modest budget of reportedly just $17.5m (£13.9m) but making $77m (£61.2m) at the box office to become Mubi’s biggest ever hit.
It’s the latest in writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s bloody thriller-horror canon after her 2017 debut Revenge, who this year becomes the first woman to ever be Oscar-nominated for both penning and directing a horror film.
Coralie Fargeat joins indie darlings Corbet and Baker as a filmmaker whose work is both being applauded during awards season, and making a big impact with fans (Picture: Mubi)Also, while perhaps not an auteur in the same sense as the above, Edward Berger’s Conclave is achieving remarkable success, especially after its crucial wins at the Baftas (including best film, outstanding British film and best screenplay). Berger received similar awards attention for All Quiet on the Western Front two years ago, which had the same moderate budget as Conclave – a reported $20m (£15.9m), according to Deadline.
Ahead of this weekend, it’s surpassed a major milestone at the international box office too, with $101.2m (£80.4m) so far, and Berger has already been announced as the director helming the film adaptation of the The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich’s upcoming memoir, after he spent a year imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges. There’s also previously been whispers about him directing the next James Bond movie – although that would take him firmly out of lower-budget filmmaking.
Regardless, as this year’s Oscars are finally awarded tonight, it looks like an exciting shift away from blockbuster excess is finally happening in Hollywood.
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