By Glenn Dunks
18 of the staggering 238 hopefuls in Best Documentary Feature
Yes, you read that right. Two-hundred and thirty-eight (238!) films have qualified for this year’s Best Documentary Feature category. That’s up from the previous record number of submissions, a lowly and pathetic 170 in 2017. Pfft. From Acasă, My Home (which we reviewed here just last week) to Zappa, the full list is available on the Academy’s website.
This incredible high figure can of course be partly explained by the extended eligibility period. After all, documentaries are among the only breed of movie that doesn’t necessarily get slotted in seasons; there’s always new, great content getting released every week either through theatrical or digital platforms...
It can probably also be put down to documentary medium’s explosion and the variety of exhibition spaces for non-fiction fair that were deemed acceptable by the Academy. There’s just so many being produced and one wonders if the Academy is going to have to start making some clearer rules considering many of these titles will appear on Emmy lists next year, too.
Despite reviewing documentaries here at The Film Experience almost every week, there are still a solid number of titles I have never heard of. That probably doesn’t bode well for their Oscar chances, but that’s never stopped voters before.
Below, I have made a preliminary prediction of which 15 titles will make the cut and emerge in the first round of shortlisting to be announced soon. But as I have said for some time now: the tastes of the documentary branch voters have changes radically over the last decade. Having said that, will the craziness of 2020 mean we get a more conservative collection of titles? Or will they continue on their more auteur-focused bent which begs the question of what that could mean for the likes of genuine formal experiments like Dick Johnson is Dead or Bloody Nose Empty Pockets?
Predicted short-list titles (links go to our reviews)
three buzzy titles from Palestine, Romania, and The Philippines
- All In: The Fight for Democracy (USA; Liz Garbus, Lisa Cortés)
- Boys State (USA; Amanda McBaine, Jesse Moss)
- City Hall (USA; Frederick Wiseman)
- Collective (Romania; Alexander Nanau)
- Crip Camp (USA; Nicole Newnham, James Lebrecht)
- The Earth is Blue as an Orange (Ukraine and Lithuania; Iryna Tsilyk)
- The Fight (USA; Eli B. Despres, Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg)
- Mayor (Palestine; David Osit)
- MLK/FBI (USA; Sam Pollard)
- The Mole Agent (Chile; Maite Alberdi)
- 76 Days (China; Weixi Chen, Hao Wu)
- Slay the Dragon (USA; Chris Durrance, Barak Goodman)
- A Thousand Cuts (Philippines; Ramona S. Diaz)
- Time (USA, Garrett Bradley)
- Welcome to Chechnya (USA; David France)
Of course, I would not be surprised to see the likes of John Lewis: Good Trouble, Acasa My Home, Notturno, Dick Johnson is Dead, Gunda, The Truffle Hunters, On the Record or any number of other titles that have made a mark and created buzz and which voters could rally behind. Need I remind you: 238 eligible titles!
Let us know in the comments what you’re thinking. (Here's Nathaniel's own predictions as well)