Forget ‘Pretty Woman’ — This Oscar Winning Classic Nailed the Sex Worker Cinderella Story 68 Years Before 'Anora'

Weeks after winning Best Picture at the Oscars, with Mikey Madison winning an Oscar for playing the title role, Sean Baker's Anora is finally streaming on Hulu, which means that many more people are going to be able to discover it. Ever since the movie debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2025, comparisons have been made to Julia Roberts' 1990 romantic comedy, Pretty Woman, in which the previous Oscar winner played Vivian, a Hollywood call girl, who finds her "handsome prince" in Richard Gere's Edward, a corporate exec who begins lavishing gifts on his favorite escort. Baker's indie film probably owes more to an even older film, Federico Fellini's Oscar-winning 1957 film, Nights of Cabiria, starring his wife, Giulietta Masina, in the title of a sex worker looking for her own Prince Charming on the streets of Rome. In fact, when L.A.'s American Cinematheque recently held a retrospective of Baker's work, it included a screening of Fellini's film, and that was probably not a coincidence.

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By: Edward Douglas
Title: Forget ‘Pretty Woman’ — This Oscar Winning Classic Nailed the Sex Worker Cinderella Story 68 Years Before 'Anora'
Sourced From: collider.com/pretty-woman-oscar-winning-classic-sex-worker-cinderella-story-anora-nights-of-cabiria/
Published Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2025 19:24:12 GMT