2022 Oscar Predictions: ANIMATED FEATURE and DOCUMENTARY FEATURE (October)

There is a very good chance that history will be made at the Oscars this season when – if – Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s thrilling and emotional film Flee is nominated for both Animated Feature and Documentary Feature.

We just saw a few years ago a film nominated for both Documentary Feature and International Feature Film (North Macedonia’s Honeyland from 2019) for the first time ever and while it lost both, history was still made. As a popular choice and a bit of a frontrunner, the doc branch could deny entry for the LGBTQ animated refugee film as they often have for frontrunners but I don’t think that’s happening this year. The timeliness of the story, the multiple quadrant appeal and of course, the push by NEON the film will get should be more than enough. As Denmark’s official selection for the International Feature Film Oscar, Flee can keep pushing the Oscar history envelope further with a nomination there, too. Once we cross all those thresholds only one more remains, the true unicorn for a documentary, a Best Picture nomination.

The Gotham Awards nominated Ascension, Faya Dayi, Flee, President and Summer of Soul while the International Documentary Association revealed their shortlist for doc features that includes all five of those films plus NEON’s Alvin Ailey doc Ailey, Hulu’s Jacinta from Jessica Earnshaw, Michael Bonfiglio’s Where Are You, Charlie Brown? from Apple TV+ and Yung Chang’s Wuhan Wuhan.

Here are my 2022 Oscar predictions in Animated Feature and Documentary Feature for October 2021.

ANIMATED FEATURE

1. Flee (NEON)
2. The Mitchells vs the Machines (Netflix)
3. Encanto (Walt Disney)
4. Raya and the Last Dragon (Walt Disney)
5. Belle (GKIDS)
6. Luca (Walt Disney/Pixar)
7. Vivo (Netflix)
8. Sing 2 (Universal Pictures)
9. Ron’s Gone Wrong (20th Century Studios)
10. The Summit of the Gods (Netflix)

Other contenders:
The Boss Baby: Family Business (Universal Pictures)
Charlotte (TBA)
Cryptozoo (Magnolia Pictures)
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (TBA)
Where is Anne Frank (TBA)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Flee (NEON)
2. The Rescue (NatGeo)
3. Ascension (MTV Documentary Films)
4. Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America (Sony Pictures Classics)
5. Attica (Showtime Documentary Films)
6. Julia (Sony Pictures Classics)
7. Procession (Netflix)
8. Francesco (Discovery+)
9. Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (Searchlight Pictures)
10. President (Greenwich Entertainment)

Other contenders:
Ailey (NEON)
Becoming Cousteau (Picturehouse)
Black Power: A British Story of Resistance (Amazon Studios)
Citizen Ashe (CNN Films/HBO Max/Magnolia Pictures)
Convergence: Courage in a Crisis (Netflix)
Jacinta (Hulu)
The First Wave (NEON/NatGeo)
In the Same Breath (HBO Documentary Films)
The Lost Leonardo (Sony Pictures Classics)
My Name is Pauli Murray (Amazon Studios)
Not Going Quietly (Greenwich Entertainment)
Pray Away (Netflix)
The Real Charlie Chaplin (Showtime Documentary Films)
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (Focus Features)
The Sparks Brothers (Focus Features)
Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street (Screen Films Media/HBO Documentary Films)
Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre (Hulu)
Val (Amazon Studios)
The Velvet Underground (Apple Original Films)