With Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations we can now add the Oscar shortlists for Documentary Feature and International Feature, narrowing our selections in those categories to 15 each.
The Wild Robot and Flow have been battling it out for animated wins from critics, with 12 and 11 wins, respectively. Critics Choice and the Globes aligned 5/6, not making much room for any real outliers to spoil the top five films.
Docs have the most precursors heading into the final Oscar race (along with Song and Score) with Cinema Eye Honors, International Documentary Association, PGA and CCA. No film has hit them all, only one film on the Oscars’ cut even made PGA (Porcelain War) and we saw the Critics Choice winner curse take effect, well, halfway. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story and Will & Harper tied for the CCA award for documentary feature but only Will & Harper made the Oscar shortlist. No Other Land, which had a qualifying run for eligibility, still has no official U.S. distribution but that hasn’t stopped the Palestinian doc from a dominating critics’ run so far, with LAFCA, NYFCC among its nearly a dozen laurels so far.
Critics have anointed Payal Kapadia’s Cannes-winning All We Imagine as Light as the top International Feature Film of the year so far but you won’t see it at the Oscars as India opted not to select it as its submission. That’s going to likely make it end up between two other top Cannes winners: Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez (France) and Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany). While EP has steamrolled everyone in the nomination stage at Critics Choice and the Globes and a winning sweep at the European Film Awards, Rasalouf’s film made in secret and escape from Iran to show it at Cannes narrative could upset.
Here are my 2025 Oscar predictions in Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and International Feature Film for December 2024.
| 1. The Wild Robot (Dreamworks/Universal) | CCA, GG |
| 2. Flow (Janus Films/Sideshow) | CCA, EFA, GG |
| 3. Inside Out 2 (Walt Disney/Pixar) | CCA, GG |
| 4. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Aardman/Netflix) | CCA, GG |
| 5. Memoir of a Snail (IFC Films) | CCA, GG |
| 6. Piece by Piece (Focus Features) | |
| 7. Moana 2 (Walt Disney) | GG |
| 8. The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim (Warner Bros) | |
| 9. Spellbound (Netflix/Skydance) | |
| 10. Transformers One (Paramount Pictures) |
Other contenders: Art College 1994, Captain Avispa, Chicken for Linda! (GKids), The Colors Within (GKids), The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (Ketchup Entertainment), Despicable Me 4 (Illumination/Universal Pictures), The Garfield Movie (Sony Pictures), Ghost Cat Anzu,, The Glassworker (Geo Films), The Imaginary (Netflix), Kensuke’s Kingdom, Kung Fu Panda 4 (Dreamworks/Universal), Living Large, Look Back (GKids), Mars Express, Rocket Club: Across the Cosmos, Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds, Sultana’s Dream That Christmas (Netflix), Thelma the Unicorn,Ultraman: Rising (Netflix)
| 1. No Other Land (No U.S. distribution) | Berlinale Documentary Award – Berlin, BIFA, CEH, EFA, Gotham, IDA |
| 2. Dahomey (MUBI) | Golden Bear for Best Film – Berlin, EFA, CEH, Gotham |
| 3. Daughters (Netflix) | CCA, CEH |
| 4. Sugarcane (National Geographic Documentary Films) | CCA, IDA |
| 5. Porcelain War (Picturehouse) | CEH, PGA, Sundance |
| 6. Will & Harper (Netflix) | CCA |
| 7. Black Box Diaries (MTV Documentary Films) | CEH, IDA |
| 8. Soundtrack to a Coup d’etat (Kino Lorber) | CEH, EFA, Gotham, IDA |
| 9. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Netflix) | CCA, IDA |
| 10. The Bibi Files (Madman Entertainment) | |
| 11. Union (Level Ground) | CEH, Gotham |
| 12. Frida (Amazon MGM) | |
| 13. Queendom (Dogwoof/Greenwich) | |
| 14. Hollywoodgate (Fourth Act Film) | CEH |
| 15. Eno (First Film Co./Tigerlily Productions) |
| 1. France – Emilia Pérez (Netflix) | Jury Prize – Cannes, CCA, EFA, GG |
| 2. Germany – The Seed of the Sacred Fig (NEON) | Special Jury Prize – Cannes, BIFA, CCA, EFA, GG |
| 3. Brazil – I’m Still Here (Sony Pictures Classics) | CCA, GG |
| 4. Senegal – Dahomey (MUBI) | Golden Bear for Best Film – Berlin, EFA |
| 5. Denmark – The Girl with the Needle (MUBI) | GG |
| 6. Italy – Vermiglio (Janus Films) | EFA, GG, Gotham |
| 7. Ireland – Kneecap (Sony Pictures Classics) | CCA |
| 8. Latvia – Flow (Sideshow/Janus) | CCA, EFA |
| 9. Thailand – How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (Well Go USA) | |
| 10. Canada – Universal Language (Oscilloscope) | |
| 11. Iceland – Touch (Focus Features) | |
| 12. Palestine – From Ground Zero (Watermelon Pictures) | |
| 13. United Kingdom – Santosh (Metrograph) | |
| 14. Czechia – Waves (Bontonfilm) | |
| 15. Norway – Armand (IFC Films) |
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