In nearly a century of Oscars, not a single documentary has ever been nominated for Best Picture — a record Variety argues should have been broken long ago. From “Hoop Dreams” to “Flee”, the publication has ranked the 20 documentaries that deserved a Best Picture nomination, celebrating nonfiction films that reshaped the cultural conversation and defined their eras.
Documentary filmmaking (Credits: Variety)
A documentary can win its own Oscar, change how audiences see the world and become one of the defining films of its era — yet the top category, meant to honour the year’s best filmmaking, has always excluded them. Even when the Academy expanded the Best Picture lineup from five to ten after the snub of “The Dark Knight” (2008), with press materials raising the possibility of a documentary breakthrough, it never happened.
Could You Can See Everything Finally Break the Documentary Oscar Barrier?
That assumption is finally being tested this season with “You Can See Everything”, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s nonfiction sensation about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. Acclaim and box office success are raising the possibility that a documentary could finally break one of the Academy’s longest-standing barriers — and if it earns a nomination, the achievement would be historic.
But it would also raise an uncomfortable question: why did it take this long? Variety’s list spans genres, styles and subjects, from the pursuit of an NBA dream to a high-wire walk between the World Trade Center towers, from a confrontation with Indonesia’s history of mass killing to a real-time account of Edward Snowden’s revelations.
The 20 Documentaries That Deserved Best Picture Nominations
Some of the omissions, Variety notes, can be blamed on the Academy at large; others tie directly to the Documentary Branch itself, which snubbed many of these films in its own category. The honourable mentions alone read like a hall of fame: “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006), “Senna” (2010), “The Act of Killing” (2012) and “Apollo 11” (2019).
Among the ranked films, Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s “Daughters” follows four girls preparing for a father-daughter dance inside a Washington, D.C., prison, as part of a fatherhood program Patton helped build. The filmmakers’ choice to centre the girls’ anticipation, anger and longing is, in Variety’s view, its strongest element — proof that documentary storytelling can carry as much emotional weight as any narrative feature.
If “You Can See Everything” finally breaks through, it will undoubtedly have earned its place in history. But it should not have been the first — and Variety’s list is a reminder of just how many masterpieces had to wait in line behind it.
Also Read: Nathan Fielder Negotiated a ‘Kill Switch’ on ‘You Can See Everything’ — If They Found Nothing, They Could Scrap It | New Avengers: Doomsday Trailer Puts Thor and Steve Rogers Front and Center
Source: Variety — read the full story there.
