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 are held by the Academy Film Archive.
This is a list of films by year that have received an Academy Award together with the other nominations for best documentary short film. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year. Copies of every winning film are held by the Academy Film Archive. Fifteen films are shortlisted before nominations are announced.
Thelma Schoonmaker is an American film editor, best known for her collaboration over five decades with director Martin Scorsese. She has received numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and four ACE Eddie Awards. She has been honored with the British Film Institute Fellowship in 1997, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2014, and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2019.
Passion Pictures is a British film production company established by Andrew Ruhemann in 1987. The company has studios in London, Melbourne, Paris, Toronto, and New York City.
Pathé News was a producer of newsreels and documentaries from 1910 to 1970 in the United Kingdom. Its founder, Charles Pathé, was a pioneer of moving pictures in the silent era. The Pathé News archive is known today as "British Pathé". Its collection of news film and movies is fully digitised and available online.
The 35th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1962, were held on April 8, 1963, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California, hosted by Frank Sinatra.
The True Glory (1945) is a co-production of the US Office of War Information and the British Ministry of Information, documenting the victory on the Western Front, from Normandy to the collapse of the Third Reich.
Glass is a 1958 Dutch short documentary film by director and producer Bert Haanstra. The film won the Oscar for Documentary Short Subject in 1959. The film is about the glass industry in the Netherlands. It contrasts the handmade crystal from the Royal Leerdam Glass Factory with automated bottle making machines. Short segments of artisans making various glass goods by hand are joined with those of mass production. It is often acclaimed to be the perfect short documentary.
Churchill's Island is a 1941 propaganda film chronicling the defence of Britain during the Second World War. The film was written and directed by Stuart Legg and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) for the Director of Information, Government of Canada.
Thursday's Children is a 1954 British short documentary film directed by Guy Brenton and Lindsay Anderson about The Royal School for the Deaf in Margate, Kent, UK, a residential school then teaching lip reading rather than sign language. Apart from music and narration, the film is nearly silent and focuses on the faces and gestures of the little boys and girls. It features methods and goals not now used, and notes that only one child in three will achieve true speech. Filmmakers Lindsay Anderson and Guy Brenton were unable to gain distribution for the film until it won an Oscar in 1955 for Documentary Short Subject. The Academy Film Archive preserved Thursday's Children in 2005.
Men Against the Arctic is a 1955 American short documentary film directed by Winston Hibler. It was part of Disney's People & Places series. It won an Oscar at the 28th Academy Awards in 1956 for Documentary Short Subject. It was also entered into the 6th Berlin International Film Festival.
Dylan Thomas is a 1962 British short black-and-white documentary film directed by Jack Howells about the Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas, narrated by Richard Burton. It won an Oscar at the 35th Academy Awards in 1963 for Documentary Short Subject. The Academy Film Archive preserved Dylan Thomas in 2000.
Adam Benzine is a British filmmaker and journalist. He received critical appraisal and widespread acclaim for his HBO documentary Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah, which examined the life and work of French director Claude Lanzmann. The film earned Benzine an Oscar nomination in the Best Documentary category at the 88th Academy Awards, in addition to nominations from the Grierson Awards, the Canadian Screen Awards, the IDA Documentary Awards, the Banff Rockie Awards and the Cinema Eye Honors.
The White Helmets is a 2016 British short documentary film. The film follows the daily operations of a group of volunteer rescue workers of the Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets. The film was directed by Orlando von Einsiedel and produced by Joanna Natasegara. It won the Best Documentary at the 89th Academy Awards.
Orlando von Einsiedel is a British film director. He directs mostly documentary films that investigate global social issues, and has filmed in various places around the world, including Africa, Asia, America and the Arctic. Von Einsiedel became known for his award winning film Virunga, produced with the cooperation of Virunga National Park director Prince de Merode.
Stephen Ellis is a British documentary film editor and producer. Best known for his work as an editor Fire in the Night, Syria: Children on the Frontline, The Tower: A Tale of Two Cities, Ronaldo and for producing Watani: My Homeland that earned him Academy Award for Best Documentary nomination at 89th Academy Awards, with director Marcel Mettelsiefen.
Anna Udvardy was a Hungarian film producer and production manager. Best known for her work on Sing as producer, which earned her critical appraisal and recognition including an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 89th Academy Awards in 2017. Udvardy died on 23 May 2019, at the age of 69.
Marylebone Studios was a British film studio in London. Established in the late 1930s, it had two stages in a converted church hall near the Edgware Road. The studio worked with Hammer Films on films, including the adaptations of the Dick Barton radio show. Production on additional films in the series ceased after the star was killed in a crash. Henry Halsted was the studio's owner and production supervisor. The studio eventually moved into advertisements and documentaries.
For Sama is a 2019 documentary film produced and narrated by Waad Al-Kateab, and directed by Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts. The film focuses on Waad Al-Kateab's journey as a journalist and rebel in the Syrian uprising. Her husband is Hamza al-Kateab, one of the few doctors left in Aleppo, and they raise their daughter Sama Al-Kateab during the Syrian Civil War.
Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you're a girl) is a 2019 British documentary short film directed by Carol Dysinger and produced by Elena Andreicheva. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject at the 92nd Academy Awards.
