Oscar's Documentary Feature Race Heats Up
Monday, November 2, 2020 at 8:35PM by Nathaniel R
According to the Wrap, AMPAS has 86 films currently available to CONSIDER for their Documentary branch members. The list will grow until some point in January (the list generally runs anywhere from 120-170 titles), and then the Documentary Branch will whittle it down to 15 contenders before the final nomination balloting.
If we've written about them -- but mostly if Glenn has written about them ;) -- there's a link in the list that follows. We've also indicated which are currently streaming if you'd like to watch any of them. The prestigious International Documentary Association has 30 shortlisted titles (from which they'll draw their eventual nominations) and DOC NYC festival has released their annual list of 15 must-see titles (which often coincides with Oscar tastes. We've also mentioned the 14 titles that were nominated by the Critics Choice Documentary Awards for Best Documentary Feature. Why there are so many nominees we don't know! (If 5 is good enough for Oscar)
Eligible Features (Thus Far) That Oscar's Doc Branch Is Watching...
“Acasa, My Home” - IDA SHORTLIST
“Aggie”
“All I Can Say”
“All In: The Fight for Democracy” - Streaming on Amazon
“Apocalypse ’45”
“Athlete A” - CCA NOMINEE and streaming on Netflix
Be Water
“Be Water” - Streaming on ESPN
“Becoming” - Streaming on Netflix
“Bedlam”
“Beyond the Visible: Hilma Af Klint”
“Boys State” -IDA SHORTLIST + DOC NYC SHORTLIST
“Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn” - Streaming on HBOMax
“Capital in the Twenty-First Century” - Streaming on Netflix
“Childhood 2.0” - Streaming on Amazon
“Circus of Books” -streaming on Netflix
“Coded Bias”
“Collective” -IDA SHORTLIST + DOC NYC SHORTLIST + OSCAR SUBMISSION BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
“Colombia in My Arms”
“Coronation”
“Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words”
“Crip Camp” -IDA SHORTLIST + DOC NYC SHORTLIST + CCA NOMINEE and streaming on Netflix
“Dads”
“Dave Grusin: Not Enough Time”
“David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet” -streaming on Netflix
“Descent”
“Dick Johnson Is Dead” - DOC NYC SHORTLIST + CCA NOMINEE and streaming on Netflix
“Disclosure” -IDA SHORTLIST and streaming on Netflix
“The Dog Doc”
“Elementa”
Epicentro
“Epicentro”
“Erased, ____ Ascent of the Individual”
“Fandango at the Wall”
“Father Solider Son” - Streaming on Netflix
“Feels Good Man” - CCA NOMINEE
“The Fight” - DOC NYC SHORLIST + CCA NOMINEE and streaming on Hulu
“Find Your Groove” - Streaming on Amazon
“Flannery”
“For They Know Not What They Do”
“The Ghost of Peter Sellers”
“The Go-Go’s” - CCA NOMINEE and Streaming on Hulu
“The Human Factor”
“iHuman”
“Irmi”
“The Infiltrators”
“John Lewis: Good Trouble” - Streaming on Amazon and HBOMax
“Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl”
“A Kid from Coney Island” - Streaming on Netflix
Kingdom of Silence
“Kingdom of Silence” - Streaming on Showtime
“Lance”
“The Lost Paradise”
“Mayor”
“Miss Americana” -Streaming on Netflix
“The Mole Agent” -IDA SHORTLIST
“A Most Beautiful Thing” - Streaming on Amazon
“Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado” and streaming on Netflix
“My Darling Vivian”
“My Octopus Teacher” - CCA NOMINEE and streaming on Netflix
“Oliver Sacks: His Own Life”
“Olympia”
“On the Record” - DOC NYC SHORLIST + Streaming on HBOMax
“Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band”
“Our Time Machine”
“Pahokee”
The Painter and the Thief
“The Painter and the Thief” - CCA NOMINEE and streaming on Hulu
“Planet of the Humans”
“The Pollinators” - Streaming on Kanopy
“Queen of Hearts: Audtry Flack”
“Rebuilding Paradise”
“Red Penguins”
“Rewind”
“Ringside” - Streaming on Showtime
“Rising Phoenix” - Streaming on Netflix
“River City Drumbeat”
“Slay the Dragon” - Streaming on Hulu
“The Social Dilemma” - DOC NYC SHORLIST + CCA NOMINEE and streaming on Netflix
“Songs of Repression”
“Spaceship Earth” - Streaming on Amazon
“Stars and Strife” - Streaming on Starz
A Thousand Cuts
“A Thousand Cuts” DOC NYC SHORLIST +
“Time” -IDA SHORTLIST + DOC NYC SHORLIST + CCA NOMINEE and streaming on Amazon
“The Truffle Hunters” - IDA SHORTLIST + DOC NYC SHORLIST
“We Are the Radical Monarchs”
“Welcome to Chechnya” -IDA SHORTLIST + DOC NYC SHORLIST + and streaming on HBOMax
“Wild Daze”
“You Cannot Kill David Arquette”
“Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn” - Streaming on HBOMax
Widely Expected to Qualify (But Not Yet Available to the Academy Voters)
Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds
"76 Days" - IDA SHORTLIST + DOC NYC SHORLIST
"Assassins"
"City Hall" - IDA SHORTLIST
"The Dissident"
"Fireball"
"Gunda" - IDA SHORTLIST + DOC NYC SHORLIST + CCA NOMINEE
"MLK/FBI" - IDA SHORTLIST + DOC NYC SHORLIST
"Notturno" - IDA SHORTLIST
"Totally Under Control" - Streaming on Hulu
Other Possibilities (We Don't Yet Know If They'll Be on the Oscar Long List)
"Belushi" - CCA NOMINEE
"The Earth is as Blue as an Orange" - IDA SHORTLIST
"The Forbidden Reel" - IDA SHORTLIST
"I Am Greta" = DOC NYC SHORLIST
"I Walk on Water" - IDA SHORTLIST
"Me and the Cult Leader" - IDA SHORTLIST
"A Metamorfose dos Passaros" - IDA SHORTLIST
"Mr. Soul" - CCA NOMINEE
"Once Upon a Time in Venezuela" IDA SHORTLIST + OSCAR SUBMISSION INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
"The Reason I Jump" - IDA SHORTLIST
"Reunited" - IDA SHORTLIST
"A Secret Love" - CCA NOMINEE and streaming on Netflix
"Self Portrait" - IDA SHORTLIST
"Softie" - IDA SHORTLIST
"Stray" - IDA SHORTLIST
"'Til Kingdom Come" - IDA SHORTLIST
"To See You Again" - IDA SHORTLIST
"Unapologetic" - IDA SHORTLIST
"The Viewing Booth" - IDA SHORTLIST
"Wintopia" - IDA SHORTLIST
Reader Comments (9)
I wonder why CURED isn't on the list. I saw it at NewFest. It's about the journey of getting the APA to remove homosexuality under its mental illness category. It's an EXCELLENT documentary.
Ryan T -- it might still show up. They release the eligibility news in chunks (via what's screening to the academy) and the list is usually well over 120 films long so we probably have at least a few dozen more titles to be announced. OR it might even be next year. I was surprised to see "For They Know Not What They Do" on this list since I saw that at a festival in 2019.
I've seen regrettably few of these but I am thrilled to see For They Know Not What They Do, which I also saw in 2019 at a festival (Tribeca), on this list. I thought it was a superb and important film that I didn't see talked about enough. And one of its subjects will hopefully be elected to the Delaware Senate tomorrow!
The Infiltrators also played in 2019 at Sundance, but I wouldn't champion that film quite as much.
Lots to catch up on! Thanks for the update as always.
I'm gonna champion A THOUSAND CUTS as far as it could go.
While I admired the subtle exploration of the gay rights movement over the past 70 years through the detailed love story of two women in A Secret Love, it's the astonishing Crip Camp for the win!
I'm hoping the wonderful Gunda makes some shortlists. I cannot forget the last 15 minutes or so of that film. I also loved The Truffle Hunters.
I thought the CCA nominees were disappointingly pedestrian - filled with middling readily accessible titles and yet omitting one of the best documentaries on Netflix this year, Disclosure.
I consider Boys State to be a horror movie. Will genre bias affect its chances for a documentary nomination?
jules -- i feel so alone in not liking Disclosure much. I thought it did not have any tonal variations and there was kind of a weird talking head moment about incorrect perceptions that the trans community didn't have a sense of humor and yet the doc itself was free of any sense of humor about itself. I like Celluloid Closet so much more (which its often compared to)
but agreed that the CCA nods are just... whatever. It's basically a contest of 'which films landed the most eyeballs on major streaming platform" rather than a qualitative decision making
So many films, so little time...
Nominations I would be predicting at this stage:
A Thousand Cuts
Boys State
Crim Camp
MLK/FBI
Welcome to Chechnya