Editor's Note: "One Battle After Another" won six Academy Awards on Sunday, March 16, 2026. Sara Murphy gave part of the acceptance speech when it was named Best Picture. It also won Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Casting, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
Growing up in Crested Butte, Sara Murphy couldn’t decide on a career path. She wanted to be an astronaut or a professional tap dancer.
Being a top-tier movie producer wasn’t on her list of professions – until she met the late actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
While working as Hoffman’s jack-of-all-trades assistant for ten years, she began learning the movie business. She was on her way, rocketing to stars of another sort than those she had dreamed about in her youth.
Murphy has been producing movies and music videos for the past two decades, and her latest, “One Battle After Another,” may put her on the Oscars stage this weekend.
The movie is nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It has already racked up dozens of awards, including Best Picture at the Golden Globes and at the BAFTAs – Britain's version of the Oscars.
There is no ‘Best Producer’ category in the awards, but it is generally understood that winning Best Picture is a big win for movie producers who tend to work in the unglamorous background, overshadowed in the public eye by directors and movie stars.
Producers leave their fingerprints on every facet of a movie, from pre-production script choices to deciding which film festivals to attend and which posters will lure in moviegoers once a movie is released.
Murphy explained to Colorado Matters senior host Ryan Warner why being a producer is considered the toughest – but most rewarding - job in filmmaking.
Producers often are involved in pulling together funding before moviemaking can get off the ground. They build a budget and a schedule for shooting. They have a say in choosing actors and filming locations. They are behind sound mixing and costumes. They are instrumental in editing and marketing.
For “One Battle After Another,” Murphy attended a high school prom and visited a homeless encampment.
Murphy likened movie producing to being a general contractor.
“My job is to make it easy for the director to let his or her creative vision play out,” she said.
In “One Battle After Another,” she said she relished supporting director Paul Thomas Anderson, whom she has worked with since her days assisting Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
She learned movie production while working with Hoffman. During that time, she said she religiously read and reread producing-for-dummies types of books. She started her own small production company.
Hoffman recommended her to Anderson a year before his death. They made four music videos together and their first movie collaboration was “Licorice Pizza.” She and Anderson have been working together since, and Anderson dropped an inkling of how much he values her by giving her a shoutout at the Critics' Choice Awards when “One Battle After Another” won best picture. She couldn’t be there. She had just given birth to her first child.
Being pregnant in the whirlwind of shooting a major movie made the creation of “One Battle After Another” even more special for Murphy. She said some days would go by in such a blur that she would forget she was pregnant until she got up from her chair at the end of the day.
So, what happened to the other dreams of a Crested Butte girl? She did move to Portland to tap dance with two instructors who had come to Crested Butte for kids’ summer dance camps. And she did move to Brooklyn to try tapping on the big stage. She attended the University of Washington to study aeronautical engineering. She ultimately decided neither was going to give her life the boost she hoped for.
She landed right where she believes she is meant to be, she said. This weekend, that could be amidst a constellation of stars on the Oscars stage, holding a golden statuette.
Editor's Note: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Sara's first name in the headline.
