Oscar Volley: Best Documentary Feature captures the real world

Team Experience is teaming up to discuss each Oscar category. Here's Glenn Dunks and Baby Clyde...

GLENN: Hi Baby Clyde, are you ready to talk documentaries? I just published my best documentaries of the year feature here at The Film Experience so I am ready to tie this year's world on non-fiction in a bow.

Will Laura Poitras win a second Oscar to go with her Golden Lion?

First things first, what do you think of this year's batch of nominees for Best Documentary Feature? As is pretty common for this category as of late, I don't think there's a bad film in the bunch, with a good coverage of American and international fare. It's a line-up that even has the added bonus of featuring the best documentary of the year in its ranks (that would be Laura Poitras' All the Beauty and the Bloodshed). Last time that happened was just two years back with Collective so the category, for me, continues to remain strong and getting stronger as the number of contenders rises and rises...

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Doc Corner: The Best Documentaries of 2022

By Glenn Dunks

There’s only so much one can watch! A recurring refrain inside my brain as I attempt to cram as many more films into my watch pile in order to offer myself, and you dear readers, the best chance at a definitive list of the best documentaries of 2022. It’s always doomed to failure of course. There are many films that I was unable to watch that I wanted to before hitting publish. Some were simply too long to fit in (Mr. Bachmann and His Class) and others were unavailable in my location (Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power), while others make it difficult to even know if they should be eligible. Again, there’s only so much one can watch. I’m already falling behind on 2023!

But here today are my top 15 documentaries of 2022. And because I watched a lot of stuff, a few little extras up top. Are you ready?

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Streaming Diaries: "1899", "Friend of the Family" and more

by Nathaniel R

I didn't see you there.

I had a short-lived second round with COVID over Thanksgiving week (all better now, "negative", and out and about). While sick the hot ginger tea was flowing and the streaming entertainment was constant. The great f***-over moment of the timing of all this (first world problem incoming!) was that the FYC screeners went to my old address and the new Apple TV that could download the studio FYC streaming apps didn't arrive until after the holiday. This means I did not have access to Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio so naturally that's the movie I felt like watching at every moment. But you should know (if you don't already from social media) that Netflix is really pouring money into that Oscar campaign; they sent a massive box of stuff!

Okay, we'll do a few of these streaming diaries posts to catch up and they'll be very random as to what's discussed from Oscar bait to trashy TV...

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16th Annual Cinema Eye Honors nominations

by Nathaniel R

"The Territory" led the Cinema Eye Honors nominations

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article now contains ★ to represent the winners, announced on January 12th. The rest of the text is from the original article.

The Oscar race for Best Documentary Feature didn't use to have so many 'precursors' to consider but interest in and awards for documentaries have grown considerably in the 21st century. The Cinema Eye Honors, which began in 2007, were the first awards organization to recognize documentaries above and beyond "Best Documentary" by honoring them for several craft achievements too in multiple categories. They've just announced their nominees for their 16th annual NonFiction Film Awards. The nomination leaders are the box office hit Fire of Love and critical darling The Territory...

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'Fire of Love' and 'Good Night, Oppy' lead the Critics Choice Documentary Nominations

by Nathaniel R

Seven years ago documentaries got their own division of Critics Choice Awards with multiple categories and thus departed the main show where they were restricted to just one. For the seventh anniversary edition the box office hit Fire of Love (read Glenn's review) about married volcanologists and the space exploration doc Good Night Oppy (for which we just led a Q&A at Middleburg) lead the nominations in 17 categories. The ceremony will be held on November 13th at the Edison Ballroom in Manhattan.

UPDATED 11/14/22 What follows is the full list of nominees AND WINNERS with links going to reviews if we've done them. Thanks to Glenn's expert "Doc Corner" column and various festival peeks, we've reviewed quite a few of them...

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