Every year at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg hosts the Docs to Watch panel where he selects 10 of the best documentaries of the year and chats with the directors in a 90-minute event. It’s one of the things I most look forward to at the festival, especially since in the 10 years he’s been doing this, 8 of the films have gone on to win Best Documentary at the Oscars.
This year’s Docs to Watch include:
- Black Box Diaries
- Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid
- Daughters
- Hollywoodgate
- Piece by Piece
- Porcelain War
- Sugarcane
- Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
- Union
- Will & Harper
While the Oscar Documentary shortlist has yet to be released, there’s a good chance that one of these movies will not only be nominated but also win. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. After all, last year’s frontrunner coming out of the summer and fall festivals (and also featured in 2023’s Docs to Watch), American Symphony, failed to get a nomination in the end.
Top Oscar Contenders for 2025 Best Documentary Feature
As soon as I saw last year’s winner 20 Days in Mariupol, I knew it was winning the Oscar. There was no film nor news piece that captured the devastation of the War in Ukraine like that doc from Mstyslav Chernov.
20 Days in Mariupol continued a similar thread from the previous year when Daniel Roher’s Navalny won, which followed Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, and Vladimir Putin’s attempts to poison him.
Porcelain War: Contender for Best Documentary Feature
This year’s best documentary contender Porcelain War offers another glimpse of Russian opposition and the War in Ukraine, only this time from the artists-turned-fighters who dropped their paintbrushes for guns and drones. Even though it follows a familiar theme as the previous winners, its view of the war feels sadly fresh, reminding us of the destruction and horror still going on every day. I could 100% see this film getting in and winning.
Will & Harper: Contender for Best Documentary Feature
On the other hand, if the Academy is looking at a film that’s also politically relevant, then Will & Harper is a top contender. Josh Greenbaum’s road trip doc tracking Will Ferrell and former SNL head writer Harper Steele as they travel across the United States is more than a film about coming out as transgender (Harper is formerly Andrew Steele): It’s about the American experience and how divided we are as a country. It’s not just being LGBTQIA that prevents you from going into a bar — it’s being unsure about this current political climate.
Black Box Diaries: Contender for Best Documentary Feature
I saw Black Box Diaries at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and was blown away by the film. Director Shiori Ito tells her own story of being drugged and raped by Noriyuki Yamaguchi, friend of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and the attempt to silence her because there was no proof other than her word. Except there was proof in the form of surveillance footage, and Ito spends 99 minutes proving authorities wrong. It’s a powerful doc that will resonate with the Academy, the same way last year’s To Kill a Tiger did, about one Indian family’s crusade to find justice for their teenage daughter who was raped.
Who Will Get the Space Reserved for the Best Documentary about a Figure?
Over the past several Oscars, there have been one or two nominated docs in the category focusing on a significant figure’s life, like Bobi Wine: The People’s President, Navalny, All the Beauty and Bloodshed, RBG, Amy, and What Happened, Miss Simone?
Last year, everyone thought that Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie would get in, but it didn’t (it ended up winning 4 Emmys). One would think it would be a slam dunk since Fox is a movie and TV icon, but for some reason, some “celebrity” docs don’t seem to translate to Oscar nominations (see also: 2021’s Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry and Julia).
Based on this theory, I wonder if docs like Piece by Piece, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, Jim Henson: Idea Man, I Am Celine Dion, and Elton John: Never Too Late can break through for nominations. The Academy tends to highlight more obscure famous portraits (which is why last year’s omission of The Disappearance of Shere Hite felt so odd!).
I see docs like Frida and Ernest Cole: Lost and Found being in contention (especially the latter since director Raoul Peck was nominated in 2017 for I Am Not Your Negro).
Other 2025 Best Documentary Contenders to Consider
Under-the-Radar 2025 Best Documentary Contender: Skywalkers: A Love Story
Shhh. Don’t tell Scott, but just because it’s not on his Docs to Watch list, doesn’t mean it’s not Oscar-worthy. One clear omission is Skywalkers: A Love Story. To quote SNL’s Stefan, this doc has everything. . influencers attempting to take an epic photo from atop the tallest building in the world. . .COVID affecting their livelihood as social media stars. . .the War in Ukraine. . .and of course at the center of it, two death-defying twentysomethings who love each other and are worried that the other is going to fall to their death. I absolutely loved this film, and while the Academy might be turned off by the influencer element, it’s 100% worth watching (I like to think of it as Free Solo x The Cutting Edge)
Under-the-Radar 2025 Best Documentary Contender: No Other Land
And then of course there’s No Other Land detailing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — quite possibly the most controversial documentary of the year that still doesn’t have a distributor, even though it won two major awards at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year and also screenings at TIFF and Telluride. Vulture writes, “The picture, which also includes lots of archival material dating back well over a decade, wrapped shooting last October, just as bloodshed in the region escalated to new levels.” Many Oscar experts still have it getting in, so we’ll see what happens.
Under-the-Radar 2025 Best Documentary Contender: Blink
The Academy loves a tearjerker in this category, like last year’s The Eternal Memory, and Blink could fill that space. From directors Edmund Stenson and Daniel Roher, this doc chronicles a family road trip — only the family is soaking up the beauties of the world before their children lose their vision to a rare genetic disorder. If that logline isn’t enough to make you cry already, right?
2025 Best Documentary Feature predictions as of right now:
- Porcelain War
- Will & Harper
- No Other Land
- Black Box Diaries
- Ernest Cole: Lost and Found
- Sugarcane
- Blink
- Daughters
- Frida
- Skywalkers: A Love Story
