Submissions for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
(Redirected from Submissions for Best Documentary Feature)
These are the lists of documentary films that were shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in recent years.
List of selected films and years
edit1999
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amargosa | Todd Robinson | United States | Marta Becket and the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel | Not nominated | [1] |
| American Movie | Chris Smith | United States | The making of a low budget horror movie in Wisconsin | Not nominated | |
| Beyond the Mat | Barry W. Blaustein | United States | World Wrestling Federation, Extreme Championship Wrestling, Mick Foley, Terry Funk and Jake Roberts | Not nominated | |
| Buena Vista Social Club | Wim Wenders | Cuba France Germany United Kingdom United States |
A group of elderly Cuban musicians | Nominated | |
| Genghis Blues | Roko Belic | United States | Paul Pena and the art of Tuvan throat singing | Nominated | |
| Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. | Errol Morris | United States | Fred A. Leuchter Jr., capital punishment and Holocaust denial | Not nominated | |
| On the Ropes | Brett Morgen, Nanette Burstein | United States | Three young boxers and their coach | Nominated | |
| One Day in September | Kevin Macdonald | United Kingdom | Terrorist attacks at the 1972 Summer Olympics | Won Academy Award | |
| Pop & Me | Chris Roe | United States | The director's travels around with his own father, interviewing fathers and sons about their own father-son relationships | Not nominated | |
| Smoke and Mirrors: A History of Denial | Torrie Rosenzweig | United States | Tobacco in the United States | Not nominated | |
| The Source | Chuck Workman | United States | The Beat Generation | Not nominated | |
| Speaking in Strings | Paola di Florio | United States | Italian-born violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg | Nominated |
2000
edit2001
edit2002
edit2003
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Agronomist | Jonathan Demme | United States | Jean Dominique and Radio Haiti-Inter, the country's first independent radio station | Not nominated | [2] |
| Balseros | Carles Bosch and Josep M. Domenech | Catalonia | Balseros emigrating from Cuba during the Período especial and the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis | Nominated | |
| Bus 174 | Jose Padilha | Brazil | The June 2000 hijacking of Bus 174 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Not nominated | |
| Capturing the Friedmans | Andrew Jarecki | United States | American family with dark sexual secrets | Nominated | |
| Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin | Richard Schickel | American | The life and times of Golden Age of Hollywood legend Charlie Chaplin | Not nominated | |
| The Fog of War | Errol Morris | United States | Robert McNamara and his involvement in the Vietnam War | Won Academy Award | |
| Heir to an Execution | Marc Levin | Not nominated | |||
| Inheritance: A Fisherman's Story | Peter Hegedus | Not nominated | |||
| Lost Boys of Sudan | Megan Mylan and Jou Shenk | American | Two boys from the Dinka tribe of Sudan who emigrated to the United States, who were part of the refugee group commonly known as the Lost Boys of Sudan | Not nominated | |
| My Architect | Nathaniel Kahn | American | The career and familial relationships of the director's father, architect Louis Kahn | Nominated | |
| My Flesh and Blood | Jonathan Karsh | American | The adopted children of Susan Tom, most of whom have significant physical disabilities | Not nominated | |
| The Weather Underground | Sam Green and Bill Siegel | United States | The rise and fall of the radical political group of the same name | Nominated |
2004
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born into Brothels | Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman | India United States |
Children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata's red light district. | Won Academy Award | [3][2] |
| Home of the Brave | Paola di Florio | United States | The 1965 murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo | Not nominated | |
| Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train | Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller | United States | Historian and activist Howard Zinn | Not nominated | |
| In the Realms of the Unreal | Jessica Yu | United States | Outsider artist Henry Darger's magnum opus The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion | Not nominated | |
| Riding Giants | Stacy Peralta | United States | Surfing, Big wave riding | Not nominated | |
| The Ritchie Boys | Not nominated | ||||
| The Story of the Weeping Camel | Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni | Germany Mongolia |
A family of nomadic shepherds in the Gobi Desert trying to save the life of a rare white bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) calf after it was rejected by its mother. | Nominated | |
| Super Size Me | Morgan Spurlock | United States | A filmmaker eating nothing but McDonald's fast food for 30 days | Nominated | |
| Tell Them Who You Are | Not nominated | ||||
| Touching the Void | Kevin Macdonald | United Kingdom | Joe Simpson and Simon Yates' near-fatal descent after making the first successful ascent of the West Face of Siula Grande in the Cordillera Huayhuash in the Peruvian Andes | Not nominated | |
| Tupac: Resurrection | Lauren Lazin | United States | Late rapper Tupac Shakur from his upbringing to his untimely death | Nominated | |
| Twist of Faith | Kirby Dick | United States | Sexual abuse by a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toledo, Ohio | Nominated |
2005
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Darwin's Nightmare | Hubert Sauper | Austria Belgium France |
Environmental and social effects of the fishing industry around Lake Victoria in Tanzania | Nominated | [4] |
| The Devil and Daniel Johnston | Jeff Feuerzeig | United States | Outsider music artist Daniel Johnston and his struggles with paranoid schizophrenia | Not nominated | |
| Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room | Alex Gibney | United States | The rise and fall of the real estate corporation Enron | Nominated | |
| Mad Hot Ballroom | Marilyn Agrelo | United States | The ballroom dance program for fifth graders in the New York City Department of Education | Not nominated | |
| March of the Penguins | Luc Jacquet | France | The daily lives of emperor penguins | Won Academy Award | |
| Murderball | Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro | United States | American Wheelchair rugby players facing against Canadian wheelchair rugby players at the 2004 Paralympic Games | Nominated | |
| Street Fight | Marshall Curry | United States | The 2002 Newark mayoral election in which Newark City Councilman Cory Booker challenged incumbent mayor Sharpe James | Nominated |
2006
edit2007
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autism: The Musical | Tricia Regan | United States | Children on the autism spectrum performing their own stage musical | Not nominated | [5] |
| Body of War | Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue | United States | The experiences of Iraq War veteran Tomas Young, including his paralysis from enemy gunshot wounds and his subsequent anti-war activism | Not nominated | |
| For the Bible Tells Me So | Daniel G. Karslake | United States | Christianity and homosexuality | Not nominated | |
| Lake of Fire | Tony Kaye | United States | Abortion in the United States | Not nominated | |
| Nanking | Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman | United States | The Nanjing Massacre | Not nominated | |
| No End in Sight | Charles Ferguson | United States | The Iraq War | Nominated | |
| Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience | Richard E. Robbins | United States | The writings of U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars | Nominated | |
| The Price of Sugar | Bill Haney | Dominican Republic United States |
Exploitation of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic involved with production of sugar, and the efforts of Spanish priest Father Christopher Hartley to ameliorate their situation | Not nominated | |
| Please Vote for Me | Weijun Chen | China | Elections for class monitor in a 3rd grade class in the Evergreen Primary School in Wuhan, China | Not nominated | |
| Sicko | Michael Moore | United States | Health insurance and Healthcare in the United States | Nominated | |
| Taxi to the Dark Side | Alex Gibney | United States | The December 2002 killing of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, who was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention and interrogated at a black site at Bagram air base | Won Academy Award | |
| War/Dance | Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine | United States | Three Acholi children living in a Ugandan refugee camp, who are preparing to compete in the National Music Competition in Kampala | Nominated | |
| White Light/Black Rain | Steven Okazaki | United States | The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki | Not nominated |
2008
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) | Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath | United States | [6] | ||
| Encounters at the End of the World | |||||
| The Garden | |||||
| Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts | Classical music composer Philip Glass | Not nominated | |||
| I.O.U.S.A. | |||||
| Man on Wire | United States | Won Academy Award | |||
| Trouble the Water |
2009
edit2010
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exit Through the Gift Shop | Nominated | [7] | |||
| Gasland | Nominated | ||||
| Inside Job | Won Academy Award | ||||
| Restrepo | Nominated | ||||
| The Tillman Story | United States | The untimely death of former football player turned soldier Pat Tillman | Not nominated | ||
| Waiting for "Superman" | Not nominated | ||||
| Waste Land | Nominated |
2011
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buck | Not nominated | [8] | |||
| Bill Cunningham New York | Not nominated | ||||
| Battle for Brooklyn | Not nominated | ||||
| Hell and Back Again | Nominated | ||||
| If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front - | Marshall Curry | United States | The rise and fall of radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front | Nominated | |
| Jane's Journey | Not nominated | ||||
| The Loving Story | Not nominated | ||||
| Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory | Nominated | ||||
| Pina | Wim Wenders | Germany | Nominated | ||
| Project Nim | Not nominated | ||||
| Semper Fi: Always Faithful | Not nominated | ||||
| Sing Your Song | Not nominated | ||||
| Undefeated | Won Academy Award | ||||
| Under Fire: Journalists in Combat | Not nominated | ||||
| We Were Here | Not nominated |
2012
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bully | Not nominated | [9] | |||
| Chasing Ice | Best Original Song nominee | Not nominated | |||
| 5 Broken Cameras | Nominated | ||||
| The Gatekeepers | Nominated | ||||
| How to Survive a Plague | Nominated | ||||
| The Invisible War | Nominated | ||||
| Searching for Sugar Man | Won Academy Award | ||||
| This Is Not a Film | Filmmaker Jafar Panahi's exile from making cinema in Iran | Not nominated |
2013
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Act of Killing | Nominated | [10] | |||
| Blackfish | United States | Controversies surrounding the mistreatment of whales at Sea World | Not nominated | ||
| Cutie and the Boxer | Nominated | ||||
| Dirty Wars | Nominated | ||||
| God Loves Uganda | Not nominated | ||||
| The Square | Nominated | ||||
| 20 Feet from Stardom | Morgan Neville | United States | Legendary backup singers (eg.Darlene Love) | Won Academy Award |
2014
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citizen Koch | Tia Lessin and Carl Deal | United States | Not nominated | [11] | |
| Citizenfour | Laura Poitras | United States | Edward Snowden and his whistleblowing involvement on WikiLeaks | Won Academy Award | |
| Finding Vivian Maier | John Maloof and Charlie Siskel | United States | Street photographer Vivian Maier and the rediscovery of her photography | Nominated | |
| The Internet's Own Boy | Brian Knappenberger | United States | Aaron Swartz and the case of United States v. Swartz | Not nominated | |
| Jodorowsky's Dune | Cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's attempts at adapting the classic sci-fi novel Dune | Not nominated | |||
| Last Days in Vietnam | Nominated | ||||
| Life Itself | Steve James | United States | Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert | Not nominated | |
| The Salt of the Earth | Nominated | ||||
| Virunga | Nominated |
2015
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amy | Asif Kapadia | United Kingdom | The life and death of singer Amy Winehouse | Won Academy Award | [12][13] |
| Best of Enemies | Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville | United States | The televised arguments between conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr and progressive novelist Gore Vidal | Not nominated | |
| Cartel Land | Matthew Heineman | United States | Vigilante groups fighting Mexican drug cartels during Mexican drug war | Nominated | |
| Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief | Alex Gibney | United States | An exposé on the practices of the Church of Scientology | Not nominated | |
| He Named Me Malala | Davis Guggenheim | United States, United Arab Emirates | The life of young activist Malala Yousafzai | Not nominated | |
| Heart of a Dog | Laurie Anderson | United States | Composer Laurie Anderson's meditative ode to canines | Not nominated | |
| The Hunting Ground | Kirby Dick | United States | The incidence of sexual assault on college campuses in the United States and the reported failure of college administrations to deal with it adequately | Not nominated | |
| Listen to Me Marlon | Stevan Riley | United Kingdom | Archival footage examining the life of Academy Award-winning actor Marlon Brando | Not nominated | |
| The Look of Silence | Joshua Oppenheimer | Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom, United States | Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 | Nominated | |
| Meru | Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi | United States | The first ascent of the "Shark's Fin" route on Meru Peak in the Indian Himalayas | Not nominated | |
| 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets | Marc Silver | United States | Murder of Jordan Davis | Not nominated | |
| We Come as Friends | Hubert Sauper | Austria, France | War-ravaged South Sudan fighting for independence from North Sudan and its President Omar al-Bashir | Not nominated | |
| What Happened, Miss Simone? | Liz Garbus | United States | The life and troubled times of singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone | Nominated | |
| Where to Invade Next | Michael Moore | United States | Director Michael Moore spending time in various countries where he experiences alternative methods of dealing with social and economic ills experienced in the United States | Not nominated | |
| Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom | Evgeny Afineevsky | Ukraine, United States, United Kingdom | Ukraine's fight for freedom during the Revolution of Dignity | Nominated |
2016
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cameraperson | Kirsten Johnson | United States | A cinematographer's collection of documentary footage | Not nominated | [14] |
| Command and Control | Robert Kenner | United States | 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas between September 18–19, 1980 | Not nominated | |
| The Eagle Huntress | Otto Bell | Mongolia, United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, United States | Aisholpan Nurgaiv, a 13-year-old Kazakh girl from Mongolia, as she attempts to become the first female eagle hunter to compete in the eagle festival at Ulgii, Mongolia | Not nominated | |
| Fire at Sea | Gianfranco Rosi | Italy | Life at Lampedusa, Italy | Nominated | |
| Gleason | Clay Tweel | United States | Former football player Steve Gleason and his journey living with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) | Not nominated | |
| Hooligan Sparrow | Nanfu Wang | China, United States | A child rape case in China involving a government official and the subsequent protests led by activists | Not nominated | |
| I Am Not Your Negro | Raoul Peck | France, United States | Author James Baldwin's unfinished memoir about being black in America | Nominated | |
| The Ivory Game | Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani | United States | The poaching of elephants in Africa, related to the ivory trade in China and Hong Kong, and the repercussions of elephant poaching | Not nominated | |
| Life, Animated | Roger Ross Williams | United States | Owen Suskind, son of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, diagnosed with autism learning about life and communication through classic Disney animated movies | Nominated | |
| OJ: Made in America | Ezra Edelman | United States | The examination of racial divides in America during the O. J. Simpson saga | Won Academy Award | |
| 13th | Ava DuVernay | United States | A look at the 13th amendment and its effect on African Americans | Nominated | |
| Tower | Keith Maitland | United States | The 1966 University of Texas shooting perpetrated by Charles Whitman | Not nominated | |
| Weiner | Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg | United States | The rise and fall of politician Anthony Weiner due to his excessive sexting | Not nominated | |
| The Witness | James D. Solomon | United States | The murder of Kitty Genovese and the subsequent investigation led by her brother, Bill | Not nominated | |
| Zero Days | Alex Gibney | United States | The phenomenon surrounding the Stuxnet computer virus and the development of the malware software known as "Olympic Games." | Not nominated |
2017
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abacus: Small Enough to Jail | Steve James | United States | A family-owned community bank, Abacus Federal Savings Bank, the only financial institution to face criminal charges following the subprime mortgage crisis | Nominated | [15][16][17] |
| Chasing Coral | Jeff Orlowski | United States | A team of divers, scientists and photographers around the world who document the disappearance of coral reefs | Not nominated | |
| City of Ghosts | Matthew Heineman | United States | The Syrian media activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently after their homeland is taken over by ISIS in 2014 | Not nominated | |
| Ex Libris: The New York Public Library | Frederick Wiseman | United States | The role of the New York Public Library as an egalitarian network of exploration, exchange and learning | Not nominated | |
| Faces Places | Agnes Varda, JR | France | Varda and JR traveling around rural France, creating portraits of the people they come across | Nominated | |
| Human Flow | Ai Weiwei | Germany | The current global refugee crisis | Not nominated | |
| Icarus | Bryan Fogel | United States | Fogel's exploration of the option of doping to win an amateur cycling race and happening upon a major international doping scandal when he asks for the help of Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory | Won Academy Award | |
| An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power | Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk | United States | Former United States Vice President Al Gore's continuing mission to battle climate change | Not nominated | |
| Jane | Brett Morgen | United States | Iconic anthropologist Jane Goodall | Not nominated | |
| Jim and Andy | Chris Smith | United States | The making of the 1999 biopic Man on the Moon starring Jim Carrey in his Golden Globe-winning portrayal of the controversial stand-up comedian Andy Kaufman | Not nominated | |
| LA 92 | Daniel Lindsay, T. J. Martin | United States | Archival coverage of the 1992 Rodney King riots | Not nominated | |
| Last Men in Aleppo | Feras Fayyad | Denmark Syria | The lives of three White Helmets founders, Khaled Omar Harrah, Subhi Alhussen and Mahmoud as they grapple the dilemma to flee their country or stay and fight for it | Nominated | |
| Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992 | John Ridley | United States | Prior events leading up to the Rodney King riots | Not nominated | |
| Long Strange Trip | Amir Bar-Lev | United States | The career of the rock band the Grateful Dead | Not nominated | |
| One of Us | Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady | United States | The lives of three ex-Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn | Not nominated | |
| Strong Island | Yance Ford | United States | The April 1992 murder of William Ford, the director's brother | Nominated | |
| Unrest | Jennifer Brea | United States | Brea faced chronic fatigue syndrome that struck just before she married her husband Omar Wasow | Not nominated |
2018
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charm City | Marilyn Ness | United States | A community in Baltimore, Maryland, over the span of three years of high violence | Not nominated | [18] |
| Communion | Anna Zamecka | Poland | Ola, a 14-year-old girl who takes care of her dysfunctional, alcoholic father, autistic brother, mother who lives separately, and her preparation of family celebration of her brother's Holy Communion sacrament | Not nominated | |
| Crime + Punishment | Stephen T. Maing | United States | A group of black and Latino whistleblower cops and a private investigator who risk everything to expose illegal quota practices and their impact on young minorities | Not nominated | |
| Dark Money | Kimberly Reed | United States | The effects of corporate money and influence in the American political system | Not nominated | |
| The Distant Barking of Dogs | Simon Lereng Wilmont | Ukraine Denmark Finland Sweden | The life of 10-year-old Ukrainian boy Oleg throughout a year during the war in Donbas | Not nominated | |
| Free Solo | Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin | United States | Alex Honnold as he attempts to become the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite National Park's 3,000 foot high El Capitan wall | Won Academy Award | |
| Hale County This Morning, This Evening | RaMell Ross | United States | The lives of black people in Hale County, Alabama | Nominated | |
| Minding the Gap | Bing Liu | United States | The lives and friendships of three young men growing up in Rockford, Illinois, united by their love of skateboarding | Nominated | |
| Of Fathers and Sons | Talal Derki | Germany Lebanon Netherlands Qatar Syria | Radical jihadism and terrorist training in Syria | Nominated | |
| On Her Shoulders | Alexandria Bombach | United States | Human rights activist Nadia Murad, as she met with politicians and journalists to alert the world to the massacres and kidnapping happening in Iraq | Not nominated | |
| RBG | Betsy West, Julie Cohen | United States | The life, legacy and career of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Ruth Bader Ginsburg | Nominated | |
| Shirkers | Sandi Tan | Singapore United Kingdom United States | The making of an independent thriller featuring a teenage assassin set in Singapore | Not nominated | |
| The Silence of Others | Almudena Carracedo, Robert Bahar | United States Spain | The silenced fight of the victims from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco | Not nominated | |
| Three Identical Strangers | Tim Wardle | United States United Kingdom | The lives of Edward Galland, David Kellman, and Robert Shafran, a set of identical triplet brothers adopted as infants by separate families | Not nominated | |
| Won't You Be My Neighbor? | Morgan Neville | United States | The life, legacy and guiding philosophy of children's television host Fred Rogers | Not nominated |
2019
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advocate | Rachel Leah Jones, Philippe Bellaïche | Israel | Human rights lawyer Leah Tsemel as she navigates through the Israeli judicial system in defense of Palestinians accused of terrorism | Not nominated | [19][20] |
| American Factory | Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert | United States | Chinese company Fuyao's factory in Moraine that occupies Moraine Assembly, a shuttered General Motors plant | Won Academy Award | |
| The Apollo | Roger Ross Williams | United States | The history of Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York City | Not nominated | |
| Apollo 11 | Todd Douglas Miller | United States | The 1969 Apollo 11 mission | Not nominated | |
| Aquarela | Viktor Kossakovsky | Germany United Kingdom United States | Climate change depicted by water and ice around the world | Not nominated | |
| The Biggest Little Farm | John Chester | United States | John Chester and his wife Molly as they acquire and establish themselves on Apricot Lane Farms in Moorpark, California | Not nominated | |
| The Cave | Feras Fayyad | Syria Denmark | Dr. Amani Ballour, a physician in Ghouta who is operating a makeshift hospital nicknamed "the Cave" during the Syrian Civil War | Nominated | |
| The Edge of Democracy | Petra Costa | Brazil | Political past of Costa in a personal way, in context with the first term of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the events leading to impeachment of Dilma Rousseff | Nominated | |
| For Sama | Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts | Syria United Kingdom United States | Al-Kateab's journey as a journalist and rebel in the Syrian civil war uprising as she and her husband raise their daughter Sama | Nominated | |
| The Great Hack | Jehane Noujaim, Karim Amer | United States | The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal | Not nominated | |
| Honeyland | Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov | North Macedonia | The life of Hatidže Muratova, a loner beekeeper of wild bees who lives in the remote mountain village of Bekirloja, North Macedonia | Nominated | |
| Knock Down the House | Rachel Lears | United States | Four female democrats who run for Congress in the 2018 United States elections: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush and Paula Jean Swearengin | Not nominated | |
| Maiden | Alex Holmes | United Kingdom | Tracy Edwards and the crew of the Maiden as they compete as the first all-woman crew in the 1989–1990 Whitbread Round the World Race | Not nominated | |
| Midnight Family | Luke Lorentzen | Mexico | Ochoa family who run a private ambulance business | Not nominated | |
| One Child Nation | Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang | United States | The fallout of China's one-child policy that lasted from 1980 to 2015 | Not nominated |
2020
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All In: The Fight for Democracy | Liz Garbus, Lisa Cortés | United States | Voter suppression and the perspective and expertise of Stacey Abrams, the former Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives | Not nominated | [21][22] |
| Boys State | Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine | United States | A thousand teenage boys attending Boys State in Texas, coming to build a representative government from the ground up | Not nominated | |
| Collective | Alexander Nanau | Romania | The 2016 public health scandal following the Colectiv nightclub fire | Nominated | |
| Crip Camp | Nicole Newnham, James Lebrecht | United States | Camp Jened campers who turned themselves into activists for the disability rights movement in the 1970s and follows their fight for accessibility legislation | Nominated | |
| Dick Johnson Is Dead | Kirsten Johnson | United States | Johnson's father Richard "Dick", who suffers from dementia, portraying different ways in which he could ultimately die | Not nominated | |
| Gunda | Viktor Kossakovsky | United States, Norway, Spain | The daily life of a pig, two cows, and a one-legged chicken | Not nominated | |
| MLK/FBI | Sam Pollard | United States | The investigation and harassment of activist Martin Luther King Jr. by J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation | Not nominated | |
| The Mole Agent | Maite Alberdi | Chile, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, United States | A private investigator, Rómulo, hires Sergio, an elderly man to go undercover in a nursing home in Chile | Nominated | |
| My Octopus Teacher | Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed | South Africa, United Kingdom | A year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with wild common octopus in a South African kelp forest | Won Academy Award | |
| Notturno | Gianfranco Rosi | Italy, Germany, France | Different people from areas near war zones in the Middle East who are trying to start over again with their everyday lives | Not nominated | |
| The Painter and the Thief | Benjamin Ree | Norway, United States | Barbora Kysilkova, an artist, forming a friendship with Karl-Bertil Nordland, a man who stole her artwork | Not nominated | |
| 76 Days | Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, anonymous third | China, United States | The struggles of patients and frontline medical professionals battling the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan | Not nominated | |
| Time | Garrett Bradley | United States | Sibil Fox Richardson, fighting for the release of her husband, Rob, who is serving a 60-year prison sentence for engaging in an armed bank robbery | Nominated | |
| The Truffle Hunters | Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw | United States, Italy, Greece | A group of aging men hunt in the woods in Northern Italy, for a prized quarry, the Alba truffle | Not nominated | |
| Welcome to Chechnya | David France | United States | LGBT Chechen refugees as they made their way out of anti-gay purges in Chechnya of the late 2010s | Not nominated |
2021
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ascension | Jessica Kingdon | United States | The pursuit of the Chinese Dream | Nominated | [23] |
| Attica | Stanley Nelson Jr., Traci Curry | United States | The infamous 1971 Attica Prison riot | Nominated | |
| Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry | R. J. Cutler | United States | The career and creative process of singer-songwriter Billie Eilish | Not nominated | |
| Faya Dayi | Jessica Beshir | United States, Ethiopia, Qatar | The rituals of khat, a psychoactive plant that plays an important role in Ethiopia's economy and culture | Not nominated | |
| The First Wave | Matthew Heineman | United States | A hospital in New York City, as it battles the COVID-19 pandemic | Not nominated | |
| Flee | Jonas Poher Rasmussen | Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden, United States | Amin Nawabi, who shares his hidden past of fleeing his home country of Afghanistan to Denmark for the first time | Nominated | |
| In the Same Breath | Nanfu Wang | United States | The response of the Chinese and American governments to the COVID-19 pandemic | Not nominated | |
| Julia | Julie Cohen, Betsy West | United States | The life of cooking teacher and television personality Julia Child | Not nominated | |
| President | Camilla Nielsson | Denmark, Norway, United States, Zimbabwe | The career of Nelson Chamisa who takes on the corrupt ruling party in Zimbabwe | Not nominated | |
| Procession | Robert Greene | United States | The six men, who suffered abuse by priests, looking for peace | Not nominated | |
| The Rescue | Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin | United States, United Kingdom | The 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue | Not nominated | |
| Simple as Water | Megan Mylan | United States | The Syrian families across five countries, revealing the impact of war, separation, and displacement | Not nominated | |
| Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) | Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson | United States | The 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival | Won Academy Award | |
| The Velvet Underground | Todd Haynes | United States | The life and times of influential rock band The Velvet Underground | Not nominated | |
| Writing with Fire | Sushmit Ghosh, Rintu Thomas | India | The journalists running the Dalit women-led newspaper Khabar Lahariya, as they shift from 14 years of print to digital journalism using smartphones | Nominated |
2022
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A House Made of Splinters | Simon Lereng Wilmont | Denmark Ukraine Sweden |
The care of the staff of an institution for children who have been removed from their homes. | Nominated | [24] |
| All That Breathes | Shaunak Sen | India United States United Kingdom |
Two brothers devote their lives to protect one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the black kite | Nominated | |
| All the Beauty and the Bloodshed | Laura Poitras | United States | The life of artist Nan Goldin and the downfall of the Sackler family | Nominated | |
| Bad Axe | David Siev | United States | David Siev's Asian-American family struggles to keep their local restaurant afloat amidst racial tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic | Not nominated | |
| Children of the Mist | Ha Le Diem | Vietnam | The Di Hmong teenager faces challenges growing up. In traditional Di culture, girls are married at the age of 14. But at school he learns that there are alternatives. | Not nominated | |
| Descendant | Margaret Brown | United States | The community of Africatown and the descendants of some of the last known enslaved Africans that were brought to the United States | Not nominated | |
| Fire of Love | Sara Dosa | United States Canada |
The life and career of the daring French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who were ultimately killed in the 1991 eruption of Mount Unzen | Nominated | |
| Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song | Daniel Geller & Dayna Goldfine | United States Canada |
The story of Leonard Cohen, and his song "Hallelujah" | Not nominated | |
| Hidden Letters | Violet Du Feng & Qing Zhao | China | The story of two Chinese women trying to balance their lives as independent women in modern China while confronting the traditional identity that defines but also oppresses them. | Not nominated | |
| The Janes | Tia Lessin & Emma Pildes | United States | The story of a clandestine service for women seeking safe, affordable, and illegal abortions, calling themselves JANE | Not nominated | |
| Last Flight Home | Ondi Timoner | United States | In his final days, we discover Eli Timoner and an extraordinary life of wild achievements, tragic loss and most of all, enduring love | Not nominated | |
| Moonage Daydream | Brett Morgen | Germany United States |
David Bowie's creative, spiritual and musical journey | Not nominated | |
| Navalny | Daniel Roher | United States | The poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny | Won Academy Award | |
| Retrograde | Matthew Heineman | United States | The events that took place during the last nine months of the United States' 20-year war in Afghanistan | Not nominated | |
| The Territory | Alex Pritz | United States United Kingdom Brazil Denmark |
The attempts of a young indigenous leader of the Uru-eu-wau-wau, an Amazonian tribe contacted by the Brazilian government only in 1980 | Not nominated |
2023
edit| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Symphony | Matthew Heineman | United States | A year in the life of musician Jon Batiste chronicling his career in music and his marriage with Suleika Jaouad as they deal with her leukemia. | Not nominated | [25] |
| Apolonia, Apolonia | Lea Glob | Denmark Poland France |
The coming-of-age story of Apolonia Sokol as she finds her place in the art world, told through 13 years. | Not nominated | |
| Beyond Utopia | Madeleine Gavin | United States | The work of Pastor Sungeun Kim, a South Korean human rights activist who has helped rescuing North Korean defectors. | Not nominated | |
| Bobi Wine: The People's President | Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp | United Kingdom Uganda United States |
The campaign trail of Ugandan politician, singer, and actor Bobi Wine leading to the 2021 Ugandan general election. | Nominated | |
| Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy | Nancy Buirski | United States | The journey of making and producing John Schlesinger's 1969 film Midnight Cowboy. | Not nominated | |
| The Eternal Memory | Maite Alberdi | Chile | The relationship between actress Paulina Urrutia and journalist Augusto Góngora as they struggle with Gongora's Alzheimer's disease diagnosis. | Nominated | |
| Four Daughters | Kaouther Ben Hania | Tunisia Germany France Saudi Arabia |
After two daughters of a Tunisian woman disappeared, the filmmaker invites professional actresses to compensate for the loss. | Nominated | |
| Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project | Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson | United States | The life of American poet Nikki Giovanni and the historical periods she lived through from civil rights movement and Black Arts Movement to Black Lives Matter. | Not nominated | |
| In the Rearview | Maciek Hamela | Ukraine Poland France |
Following the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Polish van travels through Ukraine's streets serving as a refuge for citizens. | Not nominated | |
| Stamped from the Beginning | Roger Ross Williams | United States | A hybrid documentary based on Ibram X. Kendi's 2016 non-fiction book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas. | Not nominated | |
| Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie | Davis Guggenheim | United States | The life of American actor Michael J. Fox and his struggle with Parkinson's disease. | Not nominated | |
| A Still Small Voice | Luke Lorentzen | United Kingdom | A chaplain completing a year-long hospital residency facing the challenges and spiritual questions that come from her experiences with her patients. | Not nominated | |
| 32 Sounds | Sam Green | United States | Sound and its effects on human's perception of time and the world. | Not nominated | |
| To Kill a Tiger | Nisha Pahuja | Canada | A family in Jharkhand, India campaigning for justice for the teenage daughter, who has brutally raped. | Nominated | |
| 20 Days in Mariupol | Mstyslav Chernov | Ukraine | The twenty days spent by the filmmaker and his colleagues in besieged Mariupol after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. | Won Academy Award |
See also
editReferences
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