Academy Award-Winners Anora & The Brutalist Overtake This Classic Christopher Nolan Indie Thriller At Box Office

As Anora director Sean Baker wrapped the 97th Academy Awards ceremony, seizing his record fourth statuette of the night, he roared, “Long live independent cinema” — a mantra that couldn’t have resounded better outside a ceremony exalting indie films over studio juggernauts and streaming titans.

Anora clinched five wins, The Brutalist nabbed three, and A Real Pain, Flow, and others—all original films without the tag of sequel, remake, biography, or adaptation attached to them—galvanized the evening with one award each. Their victories now incite a box office rush, unlike anything the majors could muster.

Even months after its digital release, Anora and The Brutalist saw theater admissions soar post-Oscar night. Anora’s Monday take vaulted over 400% from the prior week, Tuesday’s surge past 350%, pushing its domestic haul to $16.3 million and overseas to $25.3 million — a worldwide sum of $41.6 million. The Brutalist echoed this climb, uncannily matching those figures: $15.7 million in the U.S. and Canada, $25.6 million abroad, totaling $41.4 million.

The Mikey Madison film and the Adrien Brody film, both of whom took home lead acting trophies, were forged on budgets akin to a young Christopher Nolan’s — $6-9 million — yet they’ve outstripped his own indie breakout, Memento. That 2000 thriller, Nolan’s feature-length directorial debut and, to date, his last independent venture, propelled him to fame with its labyrinthine script, a work that garnered the Nolan brothers their first Academy Award nomination — Best Original Screenplay.

Memento had pulled $26 million domestic and $40 million worldwide, a sum not too distant from these 2025 victors, whose phosphorescent hauls signal indie cinema’s enduring propensity to defy modest origins. These movies’ successes spotlight indie cinema’s propensity to thrive without blockbuster bloat.

The reception of Anora and The Brutalist is bound to commandeer attention, trailing the 2023 season, where Nolan’s own Oppenheimer emerged victorious. That World War II epic, now relishing a limited IMAX re-release in theaters alongside this year’s winners, accrued $976 million in ticket sales, cementing its rank as the third highest-grossing Oscar victor, behind only Titanic ($1.8 billion before re-releases) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1.1 billion).

Even Dune: Part Two, at $714 million, towers over 2025’s Best Picture nominees — numbers that dwarf prominent winners and every other contender this year. Yet for indie filmmakers, snagging distributors and theater slots remains a relentless quest, a gulf that spotlights the chasm between blockbuster hauls and scrappy triumphs

Note: Box office records are attributed to trade analysts across various sources and are not independently verified by Koimoi.

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