A total of 144 feature documentaries are being made available to voters in the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, according to emails send to branch members by the Academy.
Almost all of the films have been put on the members-only streaming platform devoted to the category, with five final films listed as “coming shortly.” While the Academy’s official list of qualifying films in the category will likely not be released until December, a recent email to doc-branch members said that the 27 films added in November and the five due to be added shortly would be the “final release” of eligible documentaries.
If all 144 films meet the requirements, the field will be six films larger than last year’s 138 qualifying films. The record was set in 2020, when the COVID- era relaxation of eligibility requirements led to 238 films qualifying in the doc-feature category.
The list of films includes almost all of the major contenders that have been awarded or nominated by other groups, including “All That Breathes,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “Fire of Love,” “Navalny” and “Good Night Oppy.” A few late-breaking films, including Werner Herzog’s “Theater of Thought,” the Cinema Eye Honors nominee “A Night of Knowing Nothing” and the IDA Documentary Award nominees “No Simple Way Home” and “The Pawnshop,” are not on the list.
The films were made available to Academy members at seven different times, beginning on August 18 and running through early November. Fifteen features were placed in the screening room in August, followed by batches of 13, 6, 29, 29 and 20 films in September and October, and then the final group of 32.
At the same time, 98 short documentaries were made available.
Members of the Documentary Branch will receive lists of assigned films to ensure that every qualifying film is viewed by a representative number of voters. First-round voting will take place from Dec. 12-15, with a 15-film shortlist announced on Dec. 21.
Here is this year’s list of documentary features:
“Aftershock”
“All That Breathes”
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”
“America Boxed In”
“Anonymous Club”
“Art & Krimes by Krimes”
“At Home Walking”
“The Automat”
“Bad Axe”
“The Balcony Movie”
“Battleground”
“Beba”
“The Bengali”
“Bitterbrush”
“Black Ice”
“Black Notebooks – Ronit”
“Blue Island”
“The Book Keepers”
“Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power”
“Breaking Bread”
“Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche”
“Calendar Girls”
“The Camera of Doctor Morris”
“Cat Daddies”
“The Cathedral”
“Children of the Mist”
“Civil”
“Claydream”
“The Corridors of Power”
“Cow”
“The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s American Pie
“Deep in the Heart: A Texas Wildlife Story”
“Descendant”
“Disturbed Earth”
“Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel”
“EAMI”
“The Eclipse”
“Eternal Spring”
“The Exiles”
“Exposure”
“Fanny: The Right to Rock”
“Father”
“Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen”
“Fire of Love”
“Four Winters”
“Framing Agnes”
“Free Choi Soo Lee”
“Free Puppies!”
“Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom”
“From the Hood to the Holler”
“Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down”
“Gamestop: Rise of the Players”
“Girl, Taken”
“Good Night Oppy”
“Gratitude Revealed”
“Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song”
“Hello, Bookstore”
“Hidden Letters”
“Hold Your Fire”
“A House Made of Splinters”
“How to Survive a Pandemic”
“The Human Trial”
“I Am Here”
“I Didn’t See You There”
“I’m Wanita”
“In Her Hands”
“Invisible Demons”
“Is That Black Enough for You?!?”
“The Janes”
“Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story”
“Katrina Babies”
“Keep Stepping”
“Killing Me Softly With His Songs”
“Las Hostilidades”
“Last Flight Home”
“The Last of the Winthrops”
“Leave No Trace”
“Let Me Be Me”
“Let the Little Light Shine”
“Life & Life”
“Little Palestine, Diary of a Siege”
“Look at Me: Xxxtentacion”
“Loudmouth”
“Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues”
“Loving Highsmith”
“Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power”
“Master of Light”
“Midwives”
“Mija”
“Moonage Daydream”
“Motherland”
“Mr. Landsbergis”
“My Old School”
“Myanmar Diaries”
“Navalny”
“Nelly & Nadine”
“The New Abolitionists”
“Nothing Compares”
“Nothing Lasts Forever”
“Oleg”
“Only In Theaters”
“Our American Family”
“Out of Breath”
“The Princess”
“Project Iceman”
“Punch 9 for Harold Washington”
“The Quiet Epidemic”
“Retrograde”
“The Return of Tanya Tucker – Featuring Brandi Carlile”
“Riotsville, USA”
“Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams”
“Sansón and Me”
“2nd Chance”
“Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me”
“Send Me”
“752 Is Not a Number”
“Sextortion: The Hidden Pandemic”
“Sidney”
“The Silence of the Mole”
“Sirens”
“Souls in Transit”
“Sr.”
“A Star Without a Star”
“The Story Won’t Die”
“Stutz”
“Surviving Sex Trafficking”
“Tantura”
“The Territory”
“Three Minutes – A Lengthening”
“Tiger 24”
“To the End”
“Trenches”
“Turn Every Page – The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb”
“The Unredacted (Jihad Rehab)”
“Users”
“Viva Maestro!”
“The Voice of Dust and Ash”
“The Volcano: Rescue From Whakaari”
“We Are Art Through the Eyes of Annalaura”
“What We Leave Behind”
“Wildcat”
“The Will to See”
“The Wind Blows the Border”
“Young Plato”