Oscar Narrows the Documentary Feature Field
Friday, December 8, 2017 at 8:00AM 
Chris here, with more Oscar bake off lists. Today we have the 15 films advancing in the Documentary Feature race, many of which we have covered here at The Film Experience in Glenn's column Doc Corner. The eventual lineup could include two recent Honorary Oscar winners: Frederick Wiseman (Ex Libris: New York Public Library) and Agnès Varda (Faces Places, with JR), neither of who had ever been nominated in the category. Al Gore could be returning to the Oscars, as the follow-up to winning climate change doc An Inconvenient Truth has also advanced. Take a look at the rest of the list:
- Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
- Chasing Coral
- City of Ghosts
- Ex Libris: New York Public Library
- Faces Places
- Human Flow
- Icarus
- An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power
- Jane
- LA 92
- Last Man in Aleppo
- Long Strage Trip
- One of Us
- Strong Island
- Unrest
Some beloved players that missed the lineup include Kedi, Whose Streets?, Dawson City: Frozen Time, and Casting JonBenet to just name a few. Jane, featuring recently rediscovered footage from Jane Goodall's study of apes, might be the early frontrunner thanks to a few wins with NBR and Critics Choice. Oscar Chart here!
Reader Comments (6)
Hope Faces Places advances. It would be great to see Varda and JR win a competitive Oscar. It would be a great lineup had Bill Morrison's Dawson City: Frozen Time made it to the lineup as well. Varda's and Morrison's docs are both hypnotic.
Really loved Kedi (the Back Door Sluts Part 6 of cute kitty-cat porn) and I'm sorry it didn't make the cut, but Faces Places will do just fine.
I was disappointed in the lack of Kedi, too. It was so wonderfully filmed - Ceyda Torun got such amazing close-up shots of cats without disturbing them! I would've thought they'd appreciate that.
Oh dear, did no-one actually watch the excruciating AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL and just nominated it on the basis of it's predecessor? Everything that missed the cutoff should be annoyed that they lost a spot to the Al Gore puff piece.
Happy for ABACUS though, and here's hoping Agnes Varda is starting a long trek to a competitive Oscar.
Travis, I did see it (and reviewed it for The Film Experience). I'd be less perplexed by its inclusion had CHASING CORAL not also made the list. How do you see those two films and think they are at all comparable in quality? Yikes.
For what it's worth, my five predicted titles (as of a few weeks ago) all made the longlist:
Abacus
City of Ghosts
Jane
Last Men in Aleppo
Strong Island
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