It had already felt like a weirder Oscars race than usual.

The question of what will win best picture had been asked and then answered by most with a shrug, the frontrunner changing by the day. At various points in the last few months, experienced prognosticators have offered up Conclave, Wicked, A Complete Unknown, September 5, The Brutalist or Emilia Pérez as their pick, the race shifting with the smallest shred of new intel.

Last month’s Golden Globes, which saw Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist win the major film awards and then the Oscar nominations, also led by the same two titles, seemed to firm up a clearer two-horse race. But the films were unusual Oscar bets to say the least. One a crime musical about a trans cartel boss and the other a three-hour-plus drama about architecture, both featuring languages other than English, both with smaller budgets than the Academy tends to reward. Even though we had more tea leaves to read, it felt difficult to passionately anoint either as a surefire thing.

But then the past weekend showed us why such reticence had been hard to shake as Sean Baker’s frenetic comedy Anora surprised most with a trio of major wins. First on Friday night, it took home best picture at the Critics Choice awards and then on Saturday it won the top prize at the Producers Guild awards before Baker won best director at the Directors Guild awards.

While the first is not as much of an important precursor (past winners have been similar but there are more deviations than usual from Roma to The Power of the Dog to Boyhood), PGA and DGA do tend to provide a clearer sign of where we’re heading. Since it started back in 1989, the winner of the PGA award for best theatrical motion picture has mirrored the eventual best picture Oscar winner in all but 10 ceremonies (1917, La La Land, The Big Short and Little Miss Sunshine were the four most recent occasions). Similarly, the winner of the DGA award for outstanding directing of a feature film has only clashed eight times (Argo’s Ben Affleck being the last, and most famous, example).

Before this weekend, some had started to prematurely position Anora as a potential bridesmaid of the season, having left both the Golden Globes and the Gothams without a single award (if Anora wins best picture it would be only the sixth time since 1975 that a film without a single Globe achieves this). Even at Friday’s Critics Choice awards, the film hadn’t won a single award throughout the night until it walked away with best picture at the very end. Star Mikey Madison, who plays the titular character, had been seen as a potential best actress frontrunner – the film is dominated by her brash breakout performance as a sex worker swept off her feet – but it had seemed the race was favouring comeback queen Demi Moore for The Substance or perhaps Fernanda Torres for I’m Still Here, further proof of the Academy’s increasingly international voting base. Madison might still be unable to stop either train (a woman under 30 hasn’t won the award since 2016 and her ingenue narrative is perhaps less alluring and textured than her main competition) but Anora is a film that rests entirely on the shoulders of herself and writer-director Baker, making it hard to see how at least one of them doesn’t get swept up too. Baker would be the more likely here, nominated as writer, director, producer, as well as editor, a win representing a slow embrace for an unconventional Oscar talent (pre-Anora, his movies had netted just one nomination to date – The Florida Project’s Willem Dafoe for best supporting actor).

If he or the film wins, it would further reflect how a younger, more diverse voting base are still tweaking if not exactly redefining what an Oscar movie now is (this is the post-Oppenheimer year after all). The best director nominees this year exclude many of the bigger players – Wicked’s Jon M Chu, Dune: Part Two’s Denis Villeneuve – and focus more on those who did a lot with a little (Anora’s budget was $6m, The Brutalist cost $10m and The Substance was made for $17.5m). The acting nominees also snubbed previous A-list winners such as Nicole Kidman, Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie in the place of 13 first-timers.

While, from afar, a film like Emilia Pérez might have seemed like a choice that would reflect a more progressive base – it’s quickly become one of the most reviled Oscar contenders in years. A film about a trans woman in Mexico has been rejected by many trans people and many Mexicans as well as by critics, with the film scoring the lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating out of this year’s crop. The LGBTQ+ advocacy group Glaad called it “a profoundly retrograde portrayal of a trans woman” and said it represented “a step backward” for representation, while the film has been accused of perpetuating Mexican stereotypes. Its deceptive success at the Golden Globes shows that, despite some structural improvements with who votes for the awards, the Globes are gonna keep Globesing regardless (this year also saw Pamela Anderson nominated over Marianne Jean-Baptiste).

Its fall from grace was under way long before star Karla Sofía Gascón’s unpleasant crop of bigoted tweets were unearthed, but it’s now confirmed its place as this year’s awards villain. It might not affect supporting actress nominee Zoe Saldaña, who is still favourite in her category, but it’s had an undeniable impact on the film’s overall chances, with Gascón removed from both the campaign trail and any “for your consideration” advertising. Those voters who may have seen an Emilia Pérez vote as a force for social good might now be less sure and so many have been considering where those votes might now go. There’s an argument to be made for Wicked, another musical that embraces inclusivity with a positive message, but Anora could also fill the gap in a different way. It’s another Cannes-premiering female-led film made on a shoestring budget (about $15m less than Emilia Pérez) that represents the bold vision of a film-maker who is finally getting wider recognition after a number of impressive indies. While bigger, male-led films such as Oppenheimer will always remain in the race, victory for Anora would fall in line with what’s become more of the best picture norm, a smaller film that could (Parasite’s budget was $11m, Coda’s was $10m and Nomadland’s was $5m) with a female lead (Nomadland, Coda, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Shape of Water).

With odds now dramatically slashed, Anora has become the betting favourite for best picture but with the Oscars not taking place until 2 March, we’ll have to wait and see if Sean Baker’s Cinderella story gets its happy ending.