2026 Oscar Predictions: DOCUMENTARY FEATURE and INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM (December)

The Oscar shortlists are here, giving us 15 eligible films for both Documentary Feature and International Feature Film. Packed with some shocking snubs, like the award-winning docs The Tale of Silyan and Orwell: 2+2=5 as well as docs missing from the IFF list, like Mr. Nobody Against Putin and 2000 Meters to Andriivka.

I still don’t trust the doc branch to nominate The Perfect Neighbor, a double strike of being both the Critics Choice winner (the curse is real) and, even more importantly, completely constructed from archival footage. Time and again the branch shows its disdain for archival footage films even if they’re the overwhelming critics favorite. In spite of it, actually. If it manages to get in with both of those elements against it, it would signal a significant change within the branch but not one I’m ready to say is going to happen, not this year. 

The IFF race is one of the most competitive in years and one of the big stories of the season is figuring out how many NEON films will make the final five. Three? Four? All five spots? It’s more likely than you think, especially with the huge power surge that Sirāt brought to the shortlists this week. It Was Just an Accident and Sentimental Value are givens here. So is The Secret Agent. That’s three. Sirāt now seems unlikely. That’s four. Which leaves us with No Other Choice (literally). While all four of those other films debuted at Cannes and won top prizes, the Park Chan-wook satire’s Venice debut didn’t net it any wins but it did place first in Toronto for their International Feature Film People’s Choice. But is that enough?

Here are my 2026 Oscar nomination predictions in Documentary Feature and International Feature Film for December.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

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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