Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film facts for kids

The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film is an award for documentary films. In 1941, the first awards for feature-length documentaries were bestowed as Special Awards to Kukan and Target for Tonight. They have since been bestowed competitively each year, with the exception of 1946. Copies of every winning film (along with copies of most nominees) are held by the Academy Film Archive.

Winners and nominees

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.

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Shortlisted finalists

Finalists for Best Documentary Feature are selected by the Documentary Branch based on a preliminary ballot. A second preferential ballot determines the five nominees. Prior to the 78th Academy Awards, there were twelve films shortlisted.

Superlatives

For this Academy Award category, the following superlatives emerge:

• Most awards:

Arthur Cohn – 3 awards (resulting from 4 nominations); Simon Chinn – 2 awards; Jacques-Yves Cousteau – 2 awards; Walt Disney – 2 awards (resulting from 7 nominations; Disney has an additional 2 wins in the Documentary Short Subject category); Rob Epstein – 2 awards; Marvin Hier – 2 awards; Barbara Kopple – 2 awards Mark Jonathan Harris – 2 awards

Documentaries with wins or nominations in other categories

Though Academy rules do not expressly preclude documentaries from being nominated in other competitive categories, documentaries are typically considered ineligible for nominations in categories that presume the work is fictitious, including Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, and acting. To date, no documentaries have been nominated for Best Picture, or Best Director. The Quiet One was nominated for Best Story and Screenplay.

No documentary feature has yet been nominated for Best Picture, although Chang was nominated in the "Unique and Artistic Production" category at the 1927/28 awards.

At the 3rd Academy Awards, prior to the introduction of a documentary category, With Byrd at the South Pole won the award for Best Cinematography, becoming the first documentary both to be nominated for and win an Oscar. 1952's Navajo would become the first film nominated for both Best Documentary and Best Cinematography.

Woodstock was the first documentary to be nominated for Best Film Editing while Hoop Dreams was the second (although it was, controversially, not nominated for Best Documentary Feature). Woodstock is also the only documentary to receive a nomination for Best Sound.

Honeyland became the first documentary to be nominated for both Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature. The following year, Collective would accomplish the same double nomination. Prior to this, Waltz with Bashir became the first documentary and first animated film nominated for Best International Feature Film, although it was not nominated for Best Documentary Feature. The Danish-language animated documentary Flee was later nominated for Best International Feature, Best Documentary Feature, and Best Animated Feature, the first film to accomplish this feat.

Nine documentaries have received nominations for Best Original Song: Mondo Cane (for Riz Ortolani and Nino Oliviero's "More"), An Inconvenient Truth (for Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up", the only nominee from a documentary to win), Chasing Ice (for J. Ralph's "Before My Time"), Racing Extinction (for Ralph and Anhoni's "Manta Ray"), Jim: The James Foley Story (for Ralph and Sting's "The Empty Chair"), Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me (for Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond's "I'm Not Gonna Miss You"), The Hunting Ground (for Lady Gaga and Diane Warren's "Til It Happens To You"), RBG (for Warren's "I'll Fight") and American Symphony (for Batiste's "It Never Went Away").

Documentaries nominated for their scores include This is Cinerama, White Wilderness (which also won for Documentary Feature), Let It Be, and Birds Do It, Bees Do It.

Five documentary filmmakers have received honorary Oscars: Pete Smith, William L. Hendricks, D. A. Pennebaker, Frederick Wiseman, and Agnès Varda.

See also

• Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject)
• BAFTA Award for Best Documentary
• Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature
• Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Documentary
• Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Documentary Feature
• Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film
• List of Academy Award–nominated films
• Chris Rock–Will Smith slapping incident