Published Updated

Sort by

The Oscar Documentary Feature Submissions of Film Year 2021 I’ve Seen, Ranked [Shortlist Completed]

This is the official list, and we seem to have a lower number of films long-listed for the 94th Academy Awards [138 films, down from last year's 238 eligible titles].

This is my ongoing personal record, and ranking, of those I've seen.

As of the last update, I've seen all shortlisted titles.

My Other Documentary Features Lists: [ 2024 ] [ 2023 ] [ 2022 ] [ 2021 ] [ 2020 ]

Read notes

There are 72 films in this list available on Amazon Video US.

  • Quiet Explosions: Healing the Brain

    95

  • The Most Beautiful Boy in the World

    83

  • Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road

    91

  • Wuhan Wuhan

    92

  • Enemies of the State

    93

  • Cusp

    87

  • A Crime on the Bayou

    88

  • Whirlybird

    90

  • All Light, Everywhere

    77

  • Jacinta

    79

  • Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It

    81

  • Citizen Ashe

    82

  • The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52

    84

  • The Phantom

    85

  • Ferguson Rises

    44

  • RUTH - Justice Ginsburg in her own Words

    46

  • The Alpinist

    48

  • Sabaya

    49

  • sco

    50

  • Moby Doc

    52

  • Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster

    53

  • Ennio

    54

  • Karen Dalton: In My Own Time

    55

  • The People vs. Agent Orange

    56

  • Missing in Brooks County

    57

  • Truth to Power

    66

  • The Sparks Brothers

    70

  • 2020: The Dumpster Fire

    72

  • Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain

    16

  • Ascension

    17

  • Attica

    18

  • No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics

    19

  • Marx Can Wait

    20

  • No Ordinary Man

    21

  • Try Harder!

    22

  • The Capote Tapes

    25

  • The Velvet Queen

    26

  • The Neutral Ground

    27

  • The Jesus Music

    28

  • Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street

    30

  • Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time

    31

  • Ailey

    33

  • The Lost Leonardo

    34

  • Writing with Fire

    35

  • Storm Lake

    42

  • Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America

    6

  • President

    7

  • The Real Charlie Chaplin

    9

  • The Meaning of Hitler

    10

  • On Broadway

    12

  • Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation

    13

  • Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker

    15

  • Flee

    1

  • Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

    2

  • Julia

    3

  • All About My Sisters

    97

  • אולסי

    99

  • Aware: Glimpses of Consciousness

    100

  • Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts

    103

  • Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters

    104

  • Finding Kendrick Johnson

    112

  • Five Years North

    114

  • Hell or High Seas

    115

  • The Jump

    117

  • Little Girl

    120

  • Los Hermanos/The Brothers

    121

  • Love It Was Not

    122

  • Man in the Field: The Life and Art of Jim Denevan

    123

  • Not Going Quietly

    127

  • Nothing But the Sun

    128

  • Qazaq

    131

  • So Late So Soon

    135