Sean Baker’s new film Anora won the coveted Palme d’Or in this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which makes for a stellar run for its distributor.
NEON, which started in 2017 and has turned into one of the most consistent independent distributors in Hollywood, will release Anora later this year.
With the film, starring Scream‘s Mikey Madison, winning the top prize at Cannes in the field of competition, it marks the fifth-straight film from NEON to take home the award.
Since 2019, NEON has pulled off a Palme d’Or clean sweep, with Parasite (2019), Titane (2021), Triangle of Sadness (2022) and Anatomy of a Fall (2023) also taking home the honor at the French film festival.
In 2020, the festival was put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning that NEON has taken the prestigious award over the last six years the festival has been in operation.
Three of those films went onto Best Picture nominations, with Titane a stretch to reach the Academy with its extreme subject matter and genre leanings. Combined with glowing reviews, that bodes well for Baker’s new film registering with the Oscars next winter.
It also proves that NEON really is the studio to beat right now on the Promenade de la Croisette.
