Academy Award for Documentary Feature
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The Academy Award for Documentary Feature is one of the most prestigious awards for documentary films.
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[edit] Controversies
The Award for Documentary Feature is arguably the most controversial of the Academy Awards. Many of the documentaries admired today as the most influential and critically acclaimed were not even nominated: notable examples include The Thin Blue Line, Roger and Me, and Hoop Dreams. The controversy over Hoop Dreams was enough to force the Academy Awards to change their documentary voting system.[citation needed]
Whether the new rules are successful is still debated, since 2005's Grizzly Man, a documentary strong enough to appear on many critics' top 10 lists[citation needed] was not nominated, and did not even make the Academy's internally distributed top 15 list.
In addition, there is continued debate[citation needed] over the role television distribution should play in the selection process. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, at the time the highest grossing documentary film ever made, was ineligible because Moore had opted to have it played on television prior to the 2004 Election. Conversely, the 1982 winner Just Another Missing Kid, directed by John Zaritsky, was created by editing together footage he originally shot for the Canadian investigative journalism TV show The Fifth Estate.
[edit] Winners and nomineees
Following the Academy's practice, films are listed below by the "award year" (that is, the year they were released under the Academy's rules for eligibility). In practice, due to the limited nature of documentary distribution, a film may be released in different years in different venues, sometimes years after production is complete.
[edit] 1940s
In 1942, there was one Documentary category and four winners.
- 1942
- The Battle of Midway
- Kokoda Front Line
- Moscow Strikes Back
- Prelude to War
From 1943 there were two separate documentary categories (features and short films)
- 1943 - Desert Victory
- 1944 - The Fighting Lady
- 1945 - The True Glory
- 1946 - none given
- 1947 - Design for Death
- 1948 - The Secret Land
- 1949 - Daybreak in Udi
[edit] 1950s
- 1950 - The Titan: Story of Michelangelo
- 1951 - Kon-Tiki
- 1952 - The Sea Around Us
- 1953 - The Living Desert
- 1954 - The Vanishing Prairie
- 1955 - Helen Keller in Her Story
- 1956 - The Silent World
- 1957 - Albert Schweitzer
- 1958 - White Wilderness
- 1959 - Serengeti Shall Not Die
[edit] 1960s
- 1960 - The Horse with the Flying Tail
- 1961 - Sky Above and Mud Beneath
- 1962 - Black Fox: The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler
- 1963 - Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel With the World
- 1964 - Jacques-Yves Cousteau's World Without Sun
- 1965 - The Eleanor Roosevelt Story
- 1966 - The War Game
- 1967 - The Anderson Platoon
- 1968 - Journey Into Self Note: At the 41st Awards ceremony on April 14, 1969, Young Americans was announced as the winner of the Documentary Feature Oscar. On May 7, 1969, the film was declared ineligible after it was revealed that the film had played in October of 1967, therefore ineligible for a 1968 Award. The first runner-up, Journey Into Self, was awarded the statuette on May 8, 1969.
- 1969 - Arthur Rubinstein - The Love of Life
[edit] 1970s
- 1970 - Woodstock
- 1971 - The Hellstrom Chronicle
- 1972 - Marjoe, directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan
- 1973 - The Great American Cowboy by Kieth Merrill
- 1974 - Hearts and Minds
- 1975 - The Man Who Skied Down Everest
- 1976 - Harlan County, USA, directed by Barbara Kopple
- 1977 - Who Are the Debolts? And Where Did They Get Nineteen Kids?
- 1978 - Scared Straight!
- 1979 - Best Boy
[edit] 1980s
- 1980 - From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China
- 1981 - Genocide
- 1982 - Just Another Missing Kid
- 1983 - He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'
- 1984 - The Times of Harvey Milk
- 1985 - Broken Rainbow
- 1986 - (tie):
- 1987 - The Ten-Year Lunch
- 1988 - Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
- 1989 - Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt
[edit] 1990s
- 1990 - American Dream, directed by Barbara Kopple
- 1991 - In the Shadow of the Stars
- 1992 - The Panama Deception
- 1993 - I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School
- 1994 - Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision
- 1995 - Anne Frank Remembered
- 1996 - When We Were Kings
- 1997 - The Long Way Home
- 1998 - The Last Days
- 1999 - One Day in September
[edit] 2000s
- Also nominated:
- Children Underground
- LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton
- Promises
- War Photographer
- 2002 - Bowling for Columbine, directed by Michael Moore
- Also nominated:
- Daughter From Danang
- Le Peuple migrateur (Winged Migration)
- Prisoner of Paradise
- Spellbound
- 2003 - The Fog of War, directed by Errol Morris
- Also nominated:
- 2004 - Born into Brothels, directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski
- Also nominated:
- The Story of the Weeping Camel, directed by Luigi Falorni, Byambasuren Davaa
- Super Size Me, directed by Morgan Spurlock
- Tupac: Resurrection, directed by Lauren Lazin, Karolyn Ali
- Twist of Faith, directed by Kirby Dick, Eddie Schmidt
- 2005 - March of the Penguins, directed by Luc Jacquet
- Also nominated:
