Box Office: Indie offerings Anora and The Brutalist defy odds, surpass Christopher Nolan's last independent venture Memento after Oscars glory

Following their Oscar wins, Anora and The Brutalist saw a massive box office boost, surpassing Christopher Nolan’s Memento in global earnings despite months in digital release.

Written by Seema Sinha , Entertainment Journalist

Published on Mar 07, 2025 | 03:15 PM IST | 49.2K

Picture Courtesy: Neon, Pathé, A24

After Anora director Sean Baker clinched the top honor of the night at the 97th Academy Awards—the Best Picture accolade for the Mikey Madison starrer—he made a bold statement in favor of independent films. Little did he know at that moment that his own title, alongside another Best Picture-nominated film, The Brutalist, would go on to find a second life at the box office following their respective Oscars glory. The two films have surpassed Christopher Nolan’s feature film debut, Memento, courtesy of their renewed theatrical runs following Sunday.

On Monday, Anora registered a 400% hike in ticket sales globally, which slightly dipped to 350% on Tuesday. Nevertheless, the indie offering managed to post a global total of USD 42 million. The Brutalist, for its part, followed a similar pattern, earning USD 41.1 million worldwide. Both entries, for the record, have been available on digital platforms for several months.

Both films were made on relatively small budgets, estimated between USD 6 million and USD 9 million. This puts them in the same league as Nolan’s 2000 endeavor, Memento, an indie thriller that scored the director and his brother, Jonathan Nolan, their first Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The movie grossed USD 26 million domestically and USD 40 million worldwide, making it a direct comparison to this year’s indie success stories.

While Anora and The Brutalist prove that independent films can still be major box office draws, their earnings are nowhere near last year’s Best Picture winner, Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic raked in USD 976 million, making it the third highest-grossing Oscar-winning film of all time, behind Titanic (USD 1.8 billion) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (USD 1.1 billion). Oppenheimer’s commercial performance is even more impressive considering it achieved the numbers while directly competing against Barbie, which grossed USD 1.45 billion worldwide.

Despite the disparity, both Anora and The Brutalist, which secured Adrien Brody his second Oscar for Best Actor, reinforce the power of independent cinema. While they may not sit in the billion-dollar club, their critical acclaim and box office staying power prove that there’s still a place for original storytelling in a showbiz landscape inundated with sequels, remakes, and franchise films. The challenge remains in securing widespread theatrical distribution, but as Baker declared in his Oscars night speech, independent cinema is far from fading away.