United Kingdom, March 3 -- Sean Baker delivered a "battle cry" to save cinemas as he picked up the Best Director prize at the Academy Awards on Sunday (02.03.25).

The 54-year-old filmmaker picked up his third prize of the night for 'Anora', after wins for Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing, to take the statuette ahead of Brady Corbet ('The Brutalist'), James Mangold ('A Complete Unknown'), Jacques Audiard ('Emilia Perez') and Coralie Fargeat ('The Substance') and used his speech to call for the protection of the movie-going experience.

Accepting the award from Quentin Tarantino at Los Angeles' Dolby Theater, he said: "Wow, OK, Quentin if you didn't cast Mikey Madison in 'Once Upon a Time...' there would be no 'Anora'. thank you s...