This year’s shortlist for the documentary feature Oscar includes most of 2025’s high-profile topical and political films – but it also makes room for several under-the-radar projects from the past 12 months.
In whittling 201 eligible documentaries down to the 15 on the shortlist, members of the US Academy’s documentary branch have once again leaned towards weighty subject matter, picking three films set in Russia or Ukraine and two dealing with Israel-Gaza.
Seven of the 15 films, meanwhile, are self-distributed or still seeking distribution in the US, suggesting that branch members have not been overly swayed by distributor-funded campaigning.
The shortlist points to other trends too: 10 of the 15 films are directed or co-directed by women; more than half are set or were made outside the US; and nine were premiered nearly a year ago at Sundance, confirming the importance of that festival (which last year served as a launchpad for 10 shortlisted films) in the documentary world.
Celebrity producers or executive producers – Darren Aronofsky, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tig Notaro, to namedrop three – helped boost the profiles of several shortlisted projects, but documentaries about celebrities did not find much favour with the branch: missing from the list are the widely-tipped My Mom Jayne, One To One: John & Yoko, Riefenstahl and several other projects about film and music figures.
Also missing are a trio of documentaries already recognised by other groups: Orwell: 2+2=5 (winner of two Critics’ Choice awards), Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk (the National Board of Review’s Freedom of Expression prize winner) and The Tale Of Silyan (voted best feature by the International Documentary Association).
How the Oscar shortlist compares to the Bafta Film Awards’ longlist of documentary feature contenders will not be clear until the New Year. Last year, only five of the 10 titles on the Bafta list were also on the Oscar list, and this year only 10 from the Oscar list are even eligible for the Baftas (compared to 14 last year).
Last awards season’s nominations in the category showed how US and UK choices can diverge: Bafta voters (plus a jury intervention) picked Black Box Diaries, Daughters, No Other Land, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story and Will & Harper, while their Oscar counterparts went for Black Box Diaries, No Other Land, Porcelain War, Soundtrack To A Coup d’Etat and Sugarcane. The Bafta winner, Super/Man, was not on the shortlist for the Oscar (which eventually went to No Other Land).
This season, round one Bafta voting (which closes on January 5, with the longlist set to be announced on January 9) could be affected by what the UK academy has said will be a “refined” opt-in process intended to ensure that voters have “specific documentary/non-fiction experience”.
For the next stage of the Oscars, US documentary branch members who see all 15 films on the shortlist will have from January 12 to 16 to vote on the five nominees, which will be revealed on January 22.
2000 Meters To Andriivka
Dir. Mstyslav Chernov
Chernov, who won the documentary Oscar and Bafta in 2024 with 20 Days In Mariupol, is back in serious contention with this missive from a summer 2023 Ukrainian counter-offensive. The film mixes soldiers’ bodycam footage with material captured on phones and cameras to tell the story of one slow, arduous and costly liberation of a captured village. Following a directing win for Chernov at Sundance for World Cinema Documentary and a major festival tour, the film became Ukraine’s submission to the international feature Oscar, though it did not make the shortlist of 15 in that category. It has been nominated for five Cinema Eye Honors awards, including best feature.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Dogwoof)
The Alabama Solution
Dirs. Andrew Jarecki, Charlotte Kaufman
Jarecki (a past Oscar nominee for Capturing The Friedmans) and Kaufman mix their own footage with video shot on prisoners’ contraband cell phones to expose a suspicious death in an Alabama prison and the inmates’ campaign against a brutal prison system. A Sundance premiere, the HBO Documentary Films production had a limited US theatrical run in November before streaming on HBO Max. It won the Critics’ Choice award for best political documentary and is nominated for the Producers Guild of America and Cinema Eye awards.
Apocalypse In The Tropics
Dir. Petra Costa
Brazilian filmmaker Costa, whose The Edge Of Democracy was nominated for the feature documentary Oscar in 2020, examines a decade of spiritual and political upheaval in her country, with access to current and former presidents and an influential televangelist. After its 2024 Venice festival premiere, the film – winner of International Documentary Association awards for production and writing and nominated in two Cinema Eye categories – was acquired by Netflix and given a limited US cinema release this July, a few days before its global streaming debut.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Netflix)
Coexistence, My Ass!
Dir. Amber Fares
This winner of Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression focuses on Noam Shuster Eliassi, an Israeli activist-comedian raised in a Jewish-Palestinian village. Fares, who previously directed Palestine-set documentary Speed Sisters, follows Eliassi over five years as she pivots from peace activism to stand-up, attracting attention across the Middle East as the political situation in the region deteriorates. Self-distributed in the US, the film is nominated for two Cinema Eye awards.
Come See Me In The Good Light
Dir. Ryan White
A triple Emmy nominee for The Case Against 8, Pamela: A Love Story and doc series The Keepers, White focuses his camera on poet lovers Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley as they navigate the former’s terminal ovarian cancer. Winner of the Festival Favorite award at Sundance, the film has been nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award and in five Cinema Eye Honors categories, including best feature. It was acquired by Apple TV in April and began streaming in mid-November. Producers include Tig Notaro, who appears.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Apple Original Films)
Cover-Up
Dirs. Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh and the institutional violence he has uncovered are the subject of the latest from Poitras – an Oscar and Bafta winner for Citizenfour and nominee for All The Beauty And The Bloodshed – here directing with Emmy winner Obenhaus. Premiered at this year’s Venice, bought by Netflix and now nominated for the Producers Guild of America documentary award and five Cinema Eye honours, including best feature, Cover-Up got a limited US theatrical release on December 5 and is set for its global streaming launch on December 26.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Netflix)
Cutting Through Rocks
Dirs. Sara Khaki, Mohammadreza Eyni
Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, the latest collaboration between Khaki and Eyni – who were among the co-directors of Emmy-nominated documentary Convergence: Courage In A Crisis – centres on a divorced, motorcycle-riding former midwife who becomes an unlikely leader in her conservative Iranian village. With Sheila Nevins among its executive producers, the film, which also won the audience award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, is self-distributed in the US and nominated for two Cinema Eye prizes.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Gandom Films)
Folktales
Dirs. Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady
Previously Oscar-nominated in 2007 for Jesus Camp, American documentarians Ewing and Grady here follow three teenagers on the cusp of adulthood as they leave home to enroll in a ‘folk high school’ in northern Norway, relying only on themselves and a pack of loyal sled dogs. Premiered at Sundance and nominated for four Cinema Eye awards, the film was released by Magnolia in the US and Dogwoof in the UK.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Dogwoof)
Holding Liat
Dir. Brandon Kramer
After an Israeli-American teacher and her husband are kidnapped from their kibbutz by Hamas forces on October 7, 2023, US filmmaker Kramer, a relative, tracks the conflicting views, emotions and strategies of the family trying to secure the couple’s release. Premiered at Berlin, where it won the Berlinale Documentary Award and the Ecumenical Jury’s Forum prize, the self-distributed Holding Liat, whose producers include Darren Aronofsky, is set for its US theatrical launch in January.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Met Film)
Mr Nobody Against Putin
Dir. David Borenstein
In this Sundance premiere, Denmark-based US filmmaker Borenstein follows the efforts of Russian teacher Pavel Talankin (credited as co-director) to secretly document his school’s transformation into a military recruitment centre during the invasion of Ukraine. After winning a World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award at Sundance, the film was picked as Denmark’s submission for the international feature Oscar but did not make that category’s shortlist of 15. Now nominated for the Producers Guild of America documentary award and three Cinema Eye honours, it is still seeking a US distributor.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Made In Copenhagen)
Mistress Dispeller
Dir. Elizabeth Lo
An unfolding love triangle and the new Chinese industry of helping couples stay married in the face of infidelity get intimately documented in this Venice 2024 Horizons selection, winner of two of the festival’s parallel awards and currently nominated for three Cinema Eye prizes. Oscilloscope Laboratories picked up the Mandarin-language film – Lo’s follow-up to her Hot Docs prize-winning first feature Stray – for North America and gave it a limited US theatrical release in October.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (The Party)
My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air In Moscow
Dir. Julia Loktev
Picked as the year’s best documentary by critics groups in Los Angeles and New York, this five-and-a-half-hour epic from Russian-born American director Loktev is set in 2021 at an independent Moscow TV channel, where young journalists branded as foreign agents ply their trade while dealing with government propaganda and personal endangerment. Self-distributed in the US, the film is nominated for Film Independent’s documentary Spirit Award and in two Cinema Eye categories.
The Perfect Neighbor
Dir. Geeta Gandbhir
A tough and timely watch, this documentary, assembled largely from police bodycam footage, explores a neighbourhood dispute in Ocala, Florida that escalated with tragic consequences. A former editor, Gandbhir has previously won two Primetime Emmys, including one in 2007 for editing Spike Lee’s When The Levees Broke. The Perfect Neighbor premiered at Sundance, where Gandbhir won the directing award in the US Documentary section, and was acquired by Netflix, enjoying a spell as the streamer’s most-watched film in the US before going on to win five Critics’ Choice documentary awards, including best feature. It is also nominated for four Cinema Eye honours, including best feature, and a Producers Guild of America award.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Netflix)
Seeds
Dir. Brittany Shyne
In her feature directing debut, cinematographer Shyne (whose camera credits include Oscar winner American Factory) looks into the lives of Black generational farmers in the American South, revealing the fragility of legacy and the significance of owning land. Seeds won the Grand Jury Prize for US documentary when it premiered at Sundance, took the Grierson Award at the BFI London Film Festival and is up for five Cinema Eye awards, including best feature. Shyne recently won the International Documentary Association’s best director award for her work on the film, which is still seeking a US distributor.
Yanuni
Dir. Richard Ladkani
Known for such features as Sundance prize-winner Sea Of Shadows, Austrian filmmaker Ladkani here portrays Juma Xipaia, an Indigenous chief from a remote village in the Amazon who rises to the frontlines of climate justice as Brazil’s first Secretary of Indigenous Rights. Premiered on the closing night of the Tribeca Film Festival and counting Leonardo DiCaprio among its producers,Yanuni is another of this year’s contenders that has yet to secure US distribution.
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