The Awardist

RBG, Whitney Houston, Mister Rogers documentaries among 166 submitted for Oscars

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Published on November 8, 2018 03:38PM EST

Where can you find Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Fred Rogers squaring off against Whitney Houston, Jane Fonda, and rapper M.I.A.? In the upcoming Oscar race, of course, as films about each of the aforementioned celebrities have been submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for awards consideration.

Today the Academy announced a full list of 166 titles contending for nominations in this year’s documentary feature category, including Kevin Macdonald’s Whitney, Morgan Neville’s Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Susan Lacy’s Jane Fonda in Five Acts, Steve Loveridge’s Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., and the Betsy West and Julie Cohen collaboration RBG.

Also vying for nominations are buzzy nonfiction titles like the festival stunner Free Solo, about rock climber Alex Honnold as he becomes the first person to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan without safety equipment, the twisty Sundance hit Three Identical Strangers, the controversial Rachel Dolezal documentary The Rachel Divide, and Shirkers, which follows a group of women on a quest to stitch together their creative history after a colleague stole all the footage they shot for an independent film in 1992.

doc — Courtesy of The Estate of Whitney E. Houston; Lynn Johnson/Focus Features; CNN Films/Sundance

Many films on the list have yet to have their qualifying screenings in New York and Los Angeles. This year, for the first time, “films that have won a qualifying award at a competitive film festival or have been submitted in the Foreign Language Film category as their country’s official selection” are also eligible for nominations, per an Academy press release.

A shortlist of 15 advancing films will be announced Dec. 17, with final nominations coming in the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 22.

ABC will broadcast the 91st Oscars ceremony live from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday, Feb. 24. Read on for the full list of films submitted for consideration in the documentary feature category.

Above and Beyond: NASA’S Journey to Tomorrow
Active Measures
Amazing Grace
American Chaos
Andy Irons: Kissed by God
Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco
Avicii: True Stories
Bali: Beats of Paradise
Bathtubs over Broadway
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
Believer
Better Angels
Bill Coors: The Will to Live
Bisbee ’17
The Bleeding Edge
Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat
Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine
Call Her Ganda
Charm City
Chef Flynn
The China Hustle
Christian Audigier The Vif
The Cleaners
Communion
Crime + Punishment
Dark Money
Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
The Dawn Wall
The Distant Barking of Dogs
Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes
Drug$
Eating Animals
Eldorado
Fahrenheit 11/9
Fail State
Family in Transition
Far from the Tree
Filmworker
The First Patient
Foreign Land
40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie
Free Solo
Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable
Generation Wealth
Ghost Hunting