5 Academy Award Wins – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Original), Best Editing, Best Actress

Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.

The American dream has rarely seemed so far away as in Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou's raw, vérité Take Out, an immersion in the life of an undocumented Chinese immigrant struggling to get by on the margins of post-9/11 New York City. Facing violent retaliation from a loan shark, restaurant deliveryman Ming Ding has until nightfall to pay back the money he owes, and he encounters both crushing setbacks and moments of unexpected humanity as he races against time to earn enough in tips over the course of a frantic day. From this simple setup, Baker and Tsou fashion a kind of neorealist survival thriller of the everyday, shedding compassionate light on the too often overlooked lives and labor that keep New York running.

Staking out territory on the cold winter streets of midtown Manhattan, West African immigrant Lucky (Prince Adu) uses the gift of gab and a hustler's shrewdness to peddle designer knockoffs for Lebanese store owner Levon (Karren Karagulian). One day, a long-forgotten ex named Linda (Kat Sanchez) delivers shocking news: years ago she had Lucky's baby (Aiden Noesi) and now needs him to tend the toddler for several weeks—though Lucky suspects she's using him to completely abdicate her parental responsibilities. Now Lucky must figure out how to become a father overnight without losing his girlfriend, Karina (Keyali Mayaga), or his edge in the counterfeit-merch game. Directed, photographed, edited, coproduced, and cowritten by Sean Baker, Prince of Broadway scintillates with the live-wire energy of its mostly nonprofessional cast and the authenticity of its documentarylike production, shot on location in New York City. With this marvel of shoestring-budget guerrilla filmmaking, Baker deftly combines the streetwise and the heartfelt, proving himself one of the contemporary masters of American independent cinema.

The story takes place over the course of about 12 hours, following the lives of two transgender prostitutes on Christmas Eve. Sin-dee has just been released from jail, and her best friend Alexandra lets slip that her boyfriend/pimp was unfaithful while she was away. This leads the two to get to the bottom of it through the subcultures of Los Angeles.

Warm, winning, and gloriously alive, Sean Baker's The Florida Project is a deeply moving and unforgettably poignant look at childhood. Set on a stretch of highway just outside the imagined utopia of Disney World, The Florida Project follows six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince in a stunning breakout turn) and her rebellious mother Halley (Bria Vinaite, another major discovery) over the course of a single summer. The two live week to week at “The Magic Castle,” a budget motel managed by Bobby (a career-best Willem Dafoe), whose stern exterior hides a deep reservoir of kindness and compassion. Despite her harsh surroundings, the precocious and ebullient Moonee has no trouble making each day a celebration of life, her endless afternoons overflowing with mischief and grand adventure as she and her ragtag playmates—including Jancey, a new arrival to the area who quickly becomes Moonee's best friend—fearlessly explore the utterly unique world into which they've been thrown. Unbeknownst to Moonee, however, her delicate fantasy is supported by the toil and sacrifice of Halley, who is forced to explore increasingly dangerous possibilities in order to provide for her daughter.

Mikey Saber -- charismatic con man and washed-up porn star -- plots his return to the big time from small-town Texas in this story of an American hustler and a hometown that barely tolerates him.