Chart Updates: Best Animated & Documentary Features

by Nathaniel R

"All the Beauty and the Bloodshed" won Venice, but nothing is ever locked for the Documentary nominations as they pass over many frontrunners.

Happy weekend, Oscar fantastics. Figured it was time to finally put up the Documentary Feature chart now that we know several of the potential biggies. How do we suddenly know them given that documentaries arrive each and every week with little indication of whether they'll be Emmy or Oscar fodder? The answer is three key buzz-boosting factors...

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Which Oscar contenders are streaming *right now*

Need something to watch this weekend at home? There are so many options. And consider this...

The Academy is voting right now (through December 15th) on the nine categories that have "finalist" lists before the actual nomination round. That's all three SHORTS categories, plus MAKEUP, VISUAL EFFECTS, SCORE, SONG, DOCUMENTARY, and INTERNATIONAL FEATURE. So dozens to hundreds of films will be eliminated on December 21st when those finalists lists are announced. But here are some key films that could theoretically make the finals in one or more of those categories that are free to stream right now -- free if you have that subscription of course. So these are some options if you're looking to catch up with buzzy or not-buzzy-but-of-interest possibilities...

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FYC: "Flee" for Best Picture

by Matt St Clair

Flee, now playing in limited release, is transcendent. The animated memoir could break records by competing in three Feature categories: Animated Feature, Documentary Feature, and, because it’s the Danish submission, Best International Feature. Both Collective and Honeyland recently made history recently by competing in the latter two categories simultaneously, but no film has found itself in contention for all three. Flee might accomplish this historic feat, but it should go even further by also being nominated for Best Picture.

A nomination would allow the glass ceiling for documentaries to finally break. In the ceremony’s soon-to-be 94-year history, no documentary has ever competed in the top category...

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93rd Academy Awards: Doc, Doc, who's there? A deep dive into the feature nominees

by Josh Bierman

I’m sure I’m not the only contributor/reader on this site who upon Oscar nomination morning wakes to find they’ve already seen just about every above the line nominee. Or if they haven’t, they come to terms with having to sit through Hillbilly Elegy after managing to avoid it for months. 

This season, like in so many past ones, it’s those below the line nominees that I spent time getting to know after the nomination announcement. I didn't expect to be so far behind on Best Documentary Feature ahead of nomination morning...

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Where are the docs in the technical categories?

by Juan Carlos Ojano

Almost two weeks after the Oscar nominations and one snub still stings: Welcome to Chechnya in Visual Effects. After making it in the shortlist, hopes were high that its life-saving use of facial replacements could catapult it to Oscar history as the first documentary to be nominated in this category, one largely dominated by Hollywood blockbusters (which were mostly missing last year) Only a year like 2020 could have brought a documentary film close to this category and it still did not happen. 

This begs the question: why are documentaries routinely ignored in categories outside of Documentary Feature? 

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