2021 Oscar Predictions: DOCUMENTARY FEATURE (January)

With wins from LAFCA, NBR, NSFC and NYFCC, Garrett Bradley’s Time is the default frontrunner in the Documentary Feature category but, is that a mixed blessing?

We’ve seen all too many times recently when the critics’ favorite (like Apollo 11, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and Jane) gets snubbed by the doc branch, who often like to subvert populist choices in favor of more ‘important’ works. What separates Time from those films though is that its subject is important. The story of a Black woman, Fox Rich, as she fights for the release of her husband, Rob, who is serving a 60-year sentence in prison, would speak to voters in any given year but this one maybe even more. The one caveat is that, like Apollo 11, Time is largely constructed of existing footage, something the branch doesn’t look too kindly on, but should have enough new content to satisfy the most strict of voters.

The freshness of the Georgia runoff victories and presidential election may give All In: The Fight for Democracy and edge in this race. But this year, maybe more than any in recent memory, is packed with political docs like Collective, Boys State, The Dissident and John Lewis: Good Trouble, any of which could get lost in the shuffle.

Here are my ranked 2021 Oscar predictions in Documentary Feature for January.

Green – moves up; Red – moves down; Blue – new entry this month

1. Time (Amazon Studios)
Garrett Bradley

2. Collective (Magnolia Selects)
Alexander Nanau

3. Boys State (Apple TV+)
Amanda McBaine, Jesse Moss

4. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (Netflix)
James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham

5. The Truffle Hunters (Sony Pictures Classics)
Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw

6. The Dissident (Briarcliff Entertainment)
Bryan Fogel

7. 76 Days (MTV Documentary Films)
Weixi Chen, Hao Wu

8. All In: The Fight for Democracy (Amazon Studios)
Lisa Cortes, Liz Garbus

9. Dick Johnson is Dead (Netflix)
Kirsten Johnson

10. Welcome to Chechnya (HBO Documentary Films)
David France

Other Contenders (alphabetical by film)

Assassins (Greenwich Entertainment)
Ryan White

Belushi (Showtime Documentary Films)
R.J. Cutler

Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry (Apple TV+)
R.J. Cutler

Giving Voice (Netflix)
James D. Stern, Fernando Villena

Gunda (Neon)
Victor Kossakovsky, Anita Rehoff Larsen

The Human Factor (Sony Pictures Classics)
Dror Moreh

I Am Greta (Hulu)
Nathan Grossman

John Lewis: Good Trouble (Magnolia Pictures)
Dawn Porter

Miss Americana (Netflix)
Lana Wilson

My Octopus Teacher (Netflix)
Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed

MLK/FBI (IFC Films)
Sam Pollard

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life (Zeitgeist Films)
Ric Burns

On the Record (HBO Max)
Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering

Rebuilding Paradise (National Geographic Documentary Films)
Ron Howard

The Social Dilemma (Netflix)
Jeff Orlowski

Totally Under Control (Neon)
Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, Suzanne Hillinger

A Thousand Cuts (PBS Distribution and FRONTLINE PBS)
Ramona S. Diaz

The Way I See It (Focus Features)
Dawn Porter