15 Best Movies Like Anora

After it released in 2024, writer-director Sean Baker’s film “Anora” — which stars Mikey Madison as the titular Anora “Ani” Mikheeva — became the talk of the town, and before long, it was an Oscar darling. (It also won pretty much every major awards, including a handful for Baker, one for Madison, and best picture.) So what should you watch if you loved “Anora” and are looking to beef up your queue?

First things first. As Ani — an exotic dancer who lives in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn — goes about her day to day life, she’s asked to cater to a client at the club where she works specifically because she speaks some Russian. The client in question, Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), happens to be the son of a wealthy and powerful Russian oligarch, and before long, Vanya is hiring Ani to join him at his home on a regular basis. Then, when he reveals to her that he’s going to get kicked out of the United States and forced to return to Russia, the two decide to get married in Las Vegas … and when Vanya’s parents find out and send henchmen to annul the marriage, a madcap chase begins.

“Anora” is fantastic, and there are a lot of other great movies with the same vibe (as well as other movies helmed by Baker or featuring Madison). Here’s what to watch if you love “Anora.”

Sean Baker has spent his entire career as a filmmaker highlighting the experiences of marginalized communities, and in his 2015 indie film “Tangerine” — shot entirely on three different iPhone 5s phones — he gives the spotlight to Kitana Kiki Rodriguez’s character Sin-Dee Rella, a transgender sex worker who’s finishing a short stint in jail. After her 28 days are up, Sin-Dee reunites with her friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor), another transgender sex worker, and the two decide to get revenge on Sin-Dee’s boyfriend and sex work facilitator Chester (James Ransome) for cheating on her while she was gone. Without spoiling the rest of “Tangerine,” the rest of the film takes Sin-Dee and Alexandra on a heightened, wild adventure.

Considering that both Rodriguez and Taylor are transgender themselves, “Tangerine” is a story about a community told by members who belong to that community, making Baker’s approach sing. If you’re doing a deep dive on Baker’s filmography, don’t miss “Tangerine.”

Just a few years before “Anora,” Sean Baker had a brush with potential Oscar glory with “Red Rocket,” a deeply intimate and darkly funny story about an adult video performer, Mikey “Saber” Davies (Simon Rex) who moves back to his small Texas hometown after failing to truly make it in Los Angeles. Desperate for lodging with just over $20 in his pocket, Mikey seeks solace from his still-legal wife, fellow adult performer Lexi (Bree Elrod), and her mom Lil (Brenda Deiss), and they reluctantly allow him to stay with them as long as he helps keep the household running. Along the way, though, Mikey falls in love with local 17-year-old donut shop employee Raylee (Suzanna Son), who goes by “Strawberry” — and Mikey’s relationship with Raylee ultimately derails whatever progress he’s made regarding his personal growth.

“Red Rocket” is a tough watch, but it’s anchored by Rex’s incredible central performance, and it fits into Baker’s oeuvre perfectly. In order to fully appreciate “Anora,” try “Red Rocket.”

Before Sean Baker helped Mikey Madison score Oscar gold for her role in “Anora,” he managed to snag a supporting actor nomination — but unfortunately no win — for Hollywood stalwart Willem Dafoe in 2017’s “The Florida Project.” Dafoe plays, of course, a pivotal supporting role in the story, but it really focuses on six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), who lives with her mother Halley (Bria Vinaite) in a cheap motel directly on the outskirts of Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The distinctive split between the low-income makeshift “housing” and the hyper-clean, sanitized Disney World is depicted perfectly in “The Florida Project,” which watches as Moonee and Halley desperately try to get by, even as their story ends in tragedy. As for Dafoe, he plays the motel’s manager Bobby, who constantly gets pranked by Moonee and her friends but keeps an eye out for them anyway.

“The Florida Project” was, until “Anora,” Baker’s most high-profile film, likely because of Dafoe’s nominated performance. Honestly, if you’ve ever gone to Disney World for a vacation, it might give you some perspective to watch “The Florida Project.”

In a 2024 interview with the publication Hammer to Nail, Sean Baker opened up about casting Mikey Madison in “Anora” — and said that he looked to her two previous high-profile movies to ensure it was a good fit. “People will ask me, ‘How did I know Mikey would be able to do this from her performances in ‘Once Upon A Time … in Hollywood’ & [‘Scream’ 2022]?” Baker recalled. “She did show a lot of range, but, when I met her, she was very reserved and shy. That gave me even more confidence because it proved she was not typecast.”

Madison is, clearly, an actress who’s tough to typecast, and in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 revisionist history film “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” she’s part of a massive ensemble cast that includes stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie. Still, you should watch Madison’s turn in this Oscar nominee, where she plays the real figure of “Sadie” (real name: Susan Atkins) who was part of the infamous Manson family, because she gets to be a big part of the movie’s grand finale. As DiCaprio’s fading Western star Rick Dalton accidentally stops the Manson family from murdering Sharon Tate (Robbie) — with Pitt’s stuntman Cliff Booth by his side — the group attacks Rick instead. So what does he do? He blows Madison’s Sadie away with a flamethrower. No wonder Baker suspected Madison would make a fun lead after that wild scene.

Based on the opera “La bohème” with the help of several pop songs, Baz Luhrmann’s fantastical 2001 jukebox musical “Moulin Rouge!” also focuses an exotic dancer who falls in love … though Mikey Madison’s Anora and Nicole Kidman’s Satine face very different fates. After the young, idealistic writer Christian (Ewan McGregor) moves to Montmartre in Paris to live a “bohemian” lifestyle — meeting a motley crew that includes John Leguizamo’s (real) artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec — he goes to a show at the famed Moulin Rouge, then a brothel, and is immediately enchanted by Satine. Known as the club’s “Sparkling Diamond,” Satine resists Christian’s advances at first, particularly because her boss Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent) has her “earmarked” for a wealthy Duke (Richard Roxburgh). Still, their love proves too strong.

If you’re familiar with “La bohème” or, frankly, “Rent,” you probably know that the story doesn’t end happily for Satine and Christian. Still, the ride is well worth it — if for no other reason than to see Broadbent and Roxburgh perform the most glorious version of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” since the original.

Paul Verhoeven’s camp classic “Showgirls” might be a punchline most of the time, but the film has seen some reappraisals in the years since it released in 1995 — and it certainly seems like “Showgirls” had some influence on Oscar winner “Anora.” When the young and inexperienced Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) arrives in Las Vegas with dreams of becoming a real showgirl, she starts working as an exotic dancer before making friends at the Stardust Resort and Casino, the home of a partially nude dance revue called “Goddess.” Under the tutelage of that show’s lead dancer Cristal (Gina Gershon), Nomi tries to make it as a showgirl, but to say things go horribly awry is a big understatement.

“Showgirls” is infamous for being campy, shocking, and salacious, but it has its place in film history for a reason, and it does feel like required viewing if you’re a fan of “Anora.” Settle in, prepare your audition, and turn on “Showgirls.”

Even though legendary rom-com director Garry Marshall’s 1990 classic “Pretty Woman” originally featured such a depressing ending that they had to change the whole thing — an ending, it should be said, is more in line with “Anora” than the new one — it’s still a movie that gets mentioned alongside “Anora” in conversation quite often. When we first meet Julia Roberts’ female lead Vivian Ward, she’s a sex worker in Los Angeles who meets businessman Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) while he’s out on the town. Edward, as it happens, needs a way to look more approachable and less cold, so he offers Vivian $3,000 to spend a week with him and attend various events with him as he prepares to purchase another company and sell it for parts. In the process, Vivian gets a full makeover … which is where we get her infamous “big mistake, huge!” speech in a Rodeo Drive boutique.

The premise of “Pretty Woman” has been re-examined quite a lot since it’s release, and the aspects of it that don’t age particularly well are, frankly, saved by Roberts and Gere’s wholly winning performances, not to mention their crackling chemistry. If “Anora” was made in 1990 by a different director, it would probably look almost exactly like “Pretty Woman.”

Before “Sentimental Value” racked up nominations at the 2026 Academy Awards, Danish-Norwegian writer-director Joachim Trier made waves with 2021’s “The Worst Person in the World” — which, like “Anora,” features a difficult but ultimately lovable female protagonist. In this story, we follow Julie (Renate Reinsve), a medical student living in the Norwegian city of Oslo who can’t quite get a handle on her career — switching from medicine to psychology before electing to pivot entirely to photography — and her personal life isn’t much better, considering that she embarks on a damaging relationship with an older man and artist named Aksel Willman (Anders Danielsen Lie) during her 20s. This all changes one night when Julie meets a new man, Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), and they strike up a relationship as well … even though Eivind has a girlfriend.

Reinsve’s central performance as Julie in “The Worst Person in the World” is absolutely stunning — this Norwegian actress is, as she’s proven since, a total powerhouse — and if you love a complex female character like Ani, definitely give this movie a try. You’ll feel like the “best” for watching something as undeniably great as “The Worst Person in the World.”

“Anora” doesn’t shy away from showing the worst moments of Ani’s job, and Lorene Scafaria’s masterful 2018 movie “Hustlers” doesn’t either … but this one is based on a true story. Adapted from Jessica Pressler’s extensively reported New York Magazine piece “The Hustlers at Scores,” the movie introduces us to Dorothy (Constance Wu), who dances at a New York City club under the name Destiny — but she’s not making a ton of money before she meets her mentor Ramona, played by Jennifer Lopez. (Not for nothing, Ramona gets one of the most iconic character entrances in recent cinematic history, performing a pole dance to Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” and looking great while doing it.) Ramona knows how to shake down clients for money, but when the 2009 financial crisis hits Wall Street, bankers no longer frequent the clubs … and the woman come up with other solutions, pretty much none of which are legal in any sense.

Wu, Lopez, and their co-stars Lili Reinhart, Keke Palmer, Julia Stiles, and Cardi B, just to name a few, are fantastic, and Scafaria’s snappy, thoughtful, and incisive direction makes “Hustlers” an absolute must-watch. If you love “Anora,” you’ll love “Hustlers.”

The second act of “Anora” sends our protagonist and those aforementioned Russian goons across New York City looking for a rogue Vanya, and that part, in particular, definitely evokes Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours.” This 1985 film — an underappreciated film from this masterful director, honestly — centers around Griffin Dunne’s Paul Hackett, a computer clerk in New York City who has one of the strangest and most unexplainable nights of his entire life. It’s honestly really hard to explain, but if we’re being oblique, it involves a bizarre and massive papier-mache sculpture, a strange “after-hours” spot called Club Berlin, and a famous song by Peggy Lee.

This trippy, dreamy, and purposefully baffling movie features a ton of great performances, including ones from Patricia Arquette, the late, great Catherine O’Hara, Teri Garr, Cheech Marin, Scorsese himself, and, of course, Dunne, who leads us through this trippy night. Whether you’re doing a full deep dive on Scorsese or are looking for something that captures the feel of act 2 of “Anora,” “After Hours” is a great pick.

Like “After Hours” and that second act of “Anora,” the Safdie brothers’ 2019 thriller “Uncut Gems” chronicles a very, very bad night … but instead of a young woman, this story centers around Adam Sandler’s sleazy jewelry store owner Howard Ratner. After borrowing a huge sum of money from his brother-in-law — who just so happens to be a loan shark — Howard uses said money to purchase a highly illegal and massive black opal, leading that brother-in-law, Arno (Eric Bogosian), to send men after Howard. What ensues is a madcap dash through New York City as an increasingly desperate Howard tries to evade those goons — in a way, you could say he’s just like the wayward Vanya in “Anora” — but as Howard keeps trying to get away from his problems, they just keep piling up, to put it mildly.

To call “Uncut Gems” incredibly stressful is also an understatement, but it’s a masterclass in tension from Josh and Benny Safdie … and it’s one of Sandler’s all-time best performances. If you’re wondering what Vanya might do if he was a bit older, watch “Uncut Gems.”

“Anora” is, above all, a character study of Ani herself … and if you’re looking for something in that vein, you should definitely check out the frankly underseen film “American Honey.” Andrea Arnold’s 2016 movie stars Sarah Lane as Star, a young woman stuck in rural Oklahoma in a deeply troubling marriage and raising two kids as a sort of makeshift stepmother — and who ends up hitchhiking one evening and meeting Jake (Shia LaBeouf). The two strike up an illicit relationship despite Star’s continued ties to Nathan (Johnny Pierce II), and in the process, Star runs away to Kansas City with Jake and Krystal (Riley Keough) to try to work with a group of magazine salespeople.

We won’t spoil the dramatic and often harrowing specifics of “American Honey” here, but like in “Anora,” we follow a young woman looking to change her life and her situation who ends up in peril as a result. “American Honey” is a phenomenal film from a truly underappreciated American director, and it pairs perfectly with “Anora.”

“Y’all wanna hear a story about how me and this b*tch fell out? It’s kinda long, but full of suspense.” This was a now-deleted post on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter (via Buzzfeed), that infamously inspired the A24 movie “Zola” about a strange, honestly doomed road trip gone horribly awry (again, not dissimilar to Anora’s act 2 shenanigans). Directed by Janicza Bravo and written by actor and playwright Jeremy O. Harris (known for “Stage Play”), “Zola” introduces us to the titular A’Ziah “Zola” King (Taylour Paige), a part-time exotic dancer who crosses paths with the outgoing, bombastic Stefani (Riley Keough). Right away, Stefani makes Zola an offer: if Zola goes with her on a road trip to Tampa, they can dance at a club together and make a lot of money. Unfortunately for Zola, Stefani may or may not be telling the entire truth, and as they drive from Detroit to Tampa, their circumstances become more dire … and, somehow, more ridiculous.

Paige, Keough, and their co-stars Nicholas Braun, Colman Domingo, and Ari’el Stachel completely sell this heightened, silly, and sometimes serious story, and Bravo’s direction ensures that you’re pulling for Zola to get out of this messy situation unscathed. Fans of “Anora” who haven’t seen “Zola” are seriously missing out on a story … specifically, one that’s “kinda long, but full of suspense.”

How does Federico Fellini’s 1957 film “Nights of Cabiria” connect to 2024’s “Anora?” Well, there is a pretty direct link, but there’s also some narrative overlap. “Nights of Cabiria” focuses on the titular sex worker Cabiria, played by Giulietta Masina, as she makes her way through Rome one night and tries to find both work and connection, even as she encounters strange situations and meets a man named Oscar (François Périer) who seems ready to sweep her off her feet. When it comes to the true overlap, though, we have to talk about the endings of these two films.

In that same aforementioned Hammer to Nail interview, Sean Baker said “Nights of Cabiria” directly inspired the ending of “Anora.” As he put it:

“At the end, Julietta has one single tear that comes down her face. I’m in the backseat of the car with a monitor just praying this scene comes together. The camera starts to push in, Mikey starts to cry and I look up over the seat to see that she does a single tear. I thought, ‘Oh my god! We just had an unintentional hat tip to the film that inspired this movie!’ It was a serendipitous moment and that was when I knew we had it!”

That’s how “Anora” ends too, so if you want to fully understand that movie, check out “Nights in Cabiria.” “Anora” is streaming on Hulu now.