2021 Oscar Predictions: DOCUMENTARY FEATURE (October)
BOYS STATE (courtesy of Sundance Institute)
Another Academy branch that makes strange and sometimes sketchy choices with their nominations is the documentary branch. They’ve changed their rules and voting procedures over the years after wild snubs happen (think 1994’s Hoop Dreams) but major snubs are still the name of the game with the group consistently overlooking the year’s most popular and widely seen docs: Jane, Won’t You Be My Neighbor and last season’s Apollo 11 all ended up on the outside looking in.
What will they go for in this caustic and vitriol-laden election year? Well, it probably will depend on the outcome of the Presidential election on November 3, but we have a handful of political docs that are at the top of the list for now. We have everything from films about a summer camp for disabled people (Crip Camp), impending death (Dick Johnson is Dead) and lauding one of the United States’ greatest civil rights leaders (John Lewis: Good Trouble). There’s music docs about Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift and the quiet and resilient life of truffle hunters in Italy that recalls last year’s Honeyland.
Although I predicted the Apollo 11 snub based on how this branch’s history has gone, this year might be tougher so it’s going to be favorites and hits until it’s not.
Here are my ranked 2021 Oscar predictions in Documentary Feature for October.
1. All In: The Fight for Democracy (Amazon Studios)
Lisa Cortes, Liz Garbus
2. John Lewis: Good Trouble (Magnolia Pictures)
Dawn Porter
3. Boys State (Apple TV+)
Amanda McBaine, Jesse Moss
4. Dick Johnson is Dead (Netflix)
Kirsten Johnson
5. The Truffle Hunters (Sony Pictures Classics)
Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
Other Contenders
76 Days (MTV Documentary Films)
Weixi Chen, Hao Wu
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
Collective (Magnolia Selects)
Alexander Nanau
Crip Camp (Netflix)
James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham
The Dissident (Briarcliff Entertainment)
Bryan Fogel
Giving Voice (Netflix)
James D. Stern, Fernando Villena
The Human Factor (Sony Pictures Classics)
Dror Moreh
I Am Greta (Hulu)
Nathan Grossman
Miss Americana (Netflix)
Lana Wilson
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
A Thousand Cuts (PBS Distribution and FRONTLINE PBS)
Ramona S. Diaz
Time (Amazon Studios)
Garrett Bradley
Totally Under Control (Neon)
Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan , Suzanne Hillinger
The Way I See It (Focus Features)
Dawn Porter
Welcome to Chechnya (HBO Documentary Films)
David France
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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