Screen’s guide to the 2024 documentary Oscar shortlist

This year, 14 of the 15 films making the shortlist for the documentary Academy Award are also eligible for the equivalent category at the Bafta Film Awards – the outlier being Queendom, which competed at the Baftas a year ago. Bafta voters who have opted in to vote for documentary this year could do worse than watching all the Oscar-shortlisted titles – if there are any they have yet to see.

The 15 films are the choices of Ampas’ documentary branch, which traditionally presents fairly rarefied taste, with a preference for artistically ambitious and innovative films, often made outside the US. At the 2024 Oscars, voters nominated five non-US films for best documentary: Bobi Wine: The People’s President, The Eternal Memory, Four Daughters, To Kill A Tiger and 20 Days In Mariupol. In so doing, voters gave the cold shoulder to popular-skewing films such as Still: A Michael J Fox Movie and American Symphony (about musician Jon Batiste) that had initially been considered to be front runners in the category.

In contrast, Bafta derives its documentary longlist and nominations from the votes of what in the recent past has been a large opt-in chapter, and last year both the longlist of 10 and the five nominees showed a skew towards celebrity subjects. There was little overlap between the Ampas shortlist of 15 and Bafta longlist of 10 in documentary, and again with the film academies’ sets of documentary nominees (although they both plumped for the same winner, 20 Days In Mariupol). This year, non-practitioners were discouraged from opting in to vote in the documentary category at Bafta, and a smaller voting pool may produce a different flavour of outcomes, perhaps closer aligned with Ampas judgement and taste.

One organisation that will be delighted with the Oscar documentary shortlist is the Sundance Film Festival: 10 of the 15 shortlisted films launched at the festival, with many winning prizes there. Sundance, with its separate documentary competitions for US and non-US films, can claim bragging rights as the top festival to launch a non-fiction film, at least when it comes to snagging the interest of, or aligning with the taste of, US Academy voters.

There might in fact have been 11 films from Sundance on the list, had – as was widely predicted – Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s Super/Man: A Christopher Reeve Story also made the grade. The pair’s film swept the Critics Choice Documentary Awards in November, winning in six categories including best documentary feature (tied with Will & Harper), so the Ampas snub is a surprise. A kinder fate may await the film at the Baftas.

Voting closes for round one of the Bafta Film Awards on December 30; after the documentary longlist of 10 is announced, a jury will take over to help determine the five nominated titles. For Oscar, documentary branch voters will whittle down the 15 shortlisted titles to five nominees during voting January 8-12.

The Bibi Files
Dir. Alexis Bloom
Screened as a work-in-progress at Toronto International Film Festival, and then receiving its official world premiere in November at Doc NYC, The Bibi Files – which boasts Alex Gibney among the producers – has made a late entry into awards season. The film substantially uses video footage filmed by Israeli police during their 2016-2018 interrogation of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara and associates – as part of a corruption probe into claims the pair were receiving, and perhaps even soliciting, expensive gifts from wealthy businesspeople. This is the third documentary feature from Bloom, following 2018’s Divide And Conquer: The Story Of Roger Ailes and 2023’s Catching Fire: The Story Of Anita Pallenberg. Banned in Israel due to privacy laws, the film is available to stream in the US via Jolt, and will be released by Dogwoof in the UK.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Dogwoof)  

Black Box Diaries
Dir. Shiori Ito
This Sundance premiere sees journalist Ito make her directing debut with a documentary investigating her own sexual assault and the case’s political impact in her native Japan. As Ito publishes her 2017 memoir detailing the incident, she then becomes the face of the Me Too movement in Japan, and fights to hold to account Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a powerful media figure in her country and a friend of Japan’s prime minister at the time, Shinzo Abe. MTV Documentary Films picked up US rights, with sister platform Paramount+ streaming domestically, while Dogwoof released in the UK. Honours so far include four nominations at the International Documentary Association Awards including best feature and director, winning for emerging filmmaker.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Dogwoof) 

Dahomey
Dir. Mati Diop
Dahomey has the distinction of landing on the Oscar shortlist for documentary as well as international feature – submitted by Senegal for the latter. This is the first feature-length documentary for the French-Senegalese filmmaker, who directed fiction feature Atlantics (2019), and whose non-fiction works include 45-minute film A Thousand Suns (2013). Dahomey concerns the return of African royal treasures from Paris to Benin more than a century after they were looted by French colonial forces. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association awarded Dahomey best documentary runner-up status (to winner No Other Land), while the Berlinale jury awarded it the Golden Bear following its world premiere at the festival. Mubi released in North America and UK.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Mubi)

Daughters
Dirs. Natalie Rae, Angela Patton
One of three films from Netflix making the Oscar documentary shortlist this year, Daughters sees first-time feature director Rae and activist Patton follow four girls and their incarcerated fathers as they prepare for an emotional father-daughter dance staged as part of the fatherhood programme at a Washington DC jail. Netflix swooped on the film a week after its Sundance premiere, reportedly beating out several other bidders, and it went on to win both the audience award for US Documentary and the overall Festival Favorite audience prize. Daughters earned six nominations at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, winning for best new documentary filmmaker(s).
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Netflix)

Eno
Dir. Gary Hustwit
Launched at Sundance, then making festival pit stops at Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc Fest, this is the latest from Hustwit, who made his directing debut with 2007 documentary Helvetica. Eno – which draws on 30 hours of interviews with Brian Eno and 500 hours of footage from the English musician/producer’s own archive – is a generative documentary: the film is programmed to show segments in a random order, meaning no two viewings are the same. The Cinema Eye Honors nominated Eno in five categories, including for outstanding direction. In North America, Film First’s July release generated $422,000 box office.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Film First/Tigerlily Productions)

Frida
Dir. Carla Gutierrez
Gutierrez has built a strong reputation as a documentary film editor, including for the films of Julie Cohen and Betsy West (Julia, RBG – earning a Primetime Emmy nomination for her work on the latter). She makes her directing debut with this exploration of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, telling her story through her own words from diaries, letters, essays and interviews. Gutierrez – who overlays animation to bring Kahlo images to life – won the Sundance editing prize with the film’s festival launch, and Frida went on to earn two Critics Choice Documentary Awards nominations and one Independent Spirit nod. Imagine and Storyville produce for Amazon MGM Studios; and Prime Video streams worldwide.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Amazon MGM Studios)

Hollywoodgate
Dir. Ibrahim Nash’at
One of two films in this Oscar shortlist that began their festival journey in 2023 (the other is Queendom), Venice-launched Hollywoodgate is named for the complex that is claimed to be a former CIA base in Kabul. Filmed for over a year following the departure of US forces and the collapse of President Ghani’s government, the film chronicles the daily life of Taliban air force commander Mawlawi Mansour and one of his soldiers, MJ Mukhtar. Egyptian-born, Berlin-based Nash’at makes his feature debut with the film, which Fourth Act Film distributed theatrically in the US, and Jolt.Film digitally, with Curzon handling in the UK.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Curzon)  

No Other Land
Dirs. Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
No other documentary has achieved equivalent momentum this awards season: the Palestinian/Israeli team’s film has won more than 50 prizes so far, including two at Berlin where it premiered; European documentary at the European Film Awards; and best documentary from both the New York and LA critics associations. Made over the four years leading up to the current Israel-Hamas conflict, No Other Land documents a West Bank community’s struggle against displacement by Israeli forces, and centres two of the directors: Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. Despite all the awards heat, formal US distribution remains lacking.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Dogwoof)  

Porcelain War
Dirs. Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev
Launched at Sundance where it won the Grand Jury Prize for US Documentary, this debut feature from Bellomo (who has a background in visual effects) and Leontyev went on to a big festival sweep including Hot Docs and Karlovy Vary. The cinematic essay captures the outbreak of war in Ukraine and its aftermath, focusing on artisan porcelain maker Leontyev who continues to create with his artist wife Anya Stasenko, even as his focus shifts to training recruits for battle. Kudos success includes a PGA Awards nomination for outstanding documentary producer and four nods at the Cinema Eye Honors. Picturehouse gave Porcelain War a limited release in the US in late November.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Picturehouse)

Queendom
Dir. Agniia Galdanova
Among the 15 titles on this Oscar shortlist, none began its festival journey earlier than Queendom, which launched at SXSW in March 2023, going on to festival pit stops at the likes of CPH DOX, Zurich and BFI London. This second feature from St Petersburg-born Galdanova (following 2017’s Out Of Place) follows Gena, a young queer artist from a small town in Russia, who navigates conflicted family life back home and political protest against the invasion of Ukraine in Moscow, while also trying to make a living as a drag performer. Queendom was nominated in three categories at the 2024 International Documentary Association Awards, winning best cinematography.
Competed at the 2024 Bafta Film Awards (Dogwoof)

The Remarkable Life Of Ibelin
Dir. Benjamin Ree
Ree follows The Painter And The Thief (2020) with this portrait of a Norwegian family whose assessment of their seemingly lonely, isolated son Mats changed radically after his degenerative muscular disease killed him at the age of 25. After messages pour in from fellow World Of Warcraft online gamers, Mats is revealed to be a young man who achieved profound connection, and even romance, with his community. Netflix swooped on the film at Sundance – where it won both the audience and directing awards for the World Cinema Documentary category – and began streaming in October. Five Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards nominations did not convert into wins.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Netflix)  

Soundtrack To A Coup D’Etat
Dir. Johan Grimonprez
Belgian multimedia artist and documentary maker Grimonprez (whose 2017 documentary about the arms trade, Shadow World, picked up a few festival prizes) intertwines jazz and politics to examine colonial power dynamics in Africa and the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. With a soundtrack including music from Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone and Duke Ellington, the film premiered at Sundance and won the festival’s Special Jury Award for cinematic innovation. Kino Lorber released in the US in early November, grossing $134,000, while Modern Films has achieved a healthy £88,000 ($111,000) to date in the UK and Ireland.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Modern Films)

Sugarcane
Dirs. Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie
First-time director NoiseCat and journalist-filmmaker Kassie won the directing award for US Documentary when their film premiered at Sundance this year, helping Sugarcane secure a worldwide sale to National Geographic. With NoiseCat’s own father Ed Archie at its centre, the film looks at the abuse of children at residential schools run by the Catholic Church of Canada and its effect on Indigenous communities. Awards recognition includes nominations at the Gothams and Independent Spirits, plus in five categories at the International Documentary Association Awards. The US cinema release grossed $112,000 for National Geographic Documentary Films, and Sugarcane is now streaming on sister platforms Disney+ and Hulu.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (National Geographic Documentary Films) 

Union
Dirs. Stephen Maing, Brett Story
The two directors have separately made films with a political/social edge – such as Crime + Punishment (about whistleblowing NYPD officers) from Maing, and Land Of Destiny (about the role of workers in the modern economy) from Story. With Union, they jointly chronicle efforts by workers at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York City to introduce a union to the workforce. The Sundance-launched film was released by Level Ground Productions in North America, and earned a best documentary feature nomination at the Gothams (losing to No Other Land).
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Level Ground Productions)

Will & Harper
Dir. Josh Greenbaum
Arguably the most commercially accessible of the 15 films making Oscar’s documentary shortlist this year, this buddy road movie launched at Sundance and was bought by Netflix. Will & Harper follows comedy star Will Ferrell and former Saturday Night Live writer Harper Steele as they renew their friendship on an American heartland road trip following the latter’s decision to live her truth as a trans woman. Greenbaum directs after working with Ferrell on feature comedies Strays and Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar. The film tied with Super/Man: A Christopher Reeve Story for best documentary feature at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. Netflix began streaming in September.
Eligible for Bafta Film Awards (Netflix)

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