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The 'Academy Award for Documentary Feature' is the most prestigious awards for documentary films.

Contents

Controversies

Winners and nomineees

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

Controversies

The Award for Documentary Feature is arguably the most controversial of the Academy Awards. Many of the documentaries admired today as the most influential and critically acclaimed were not even nominated: notable examples include ''The Thin Blue Line'', ''Roger and Me'', and ''Hoop Dreams''. The controversy over ''Hoop Dreams'' was enough to force the Academy Awards to change their documentary voting system.[1]
Whether the new rules are successful is still debated, since 2005's ''Grizzly Man'', a documentary strong enough to appear on many critics' top 10 lists[2] was not nominated, and did not even make the Academy's internally distributed top 15 list. ''Grizzly Man's exclusion was actually revealed as the result of an Academy rule disqualifying documentary films that are constructed entirely out of archive footage.
In addition, there is continued debate over the role television distribution should play in the selection process. Michael Moore's ''Fahrenheit 9/11'', at the time the highest grossing documentary film ever made, was ineligible because Moore had opted to have it played on television prior to the 2004 Election. Conversely, the 1982 winner ''Just Another Missing Kid'', directed by John Zaritsky, was created by editing together footage he originally shot for the Canadian investigative journalism TV show ''The Fifth Estate''.

Winners and nomineees

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

In 1942, there was one Documentary category and four winners.

★ 1942

★
★ ''The Battle of Midway''

★
★ ''Kokoda Front Line''

★
★ ''Moscow Strikes Back''

★
★ ''Prelude to War''
From 1943 there were two separate documentary categories (features and short films)

★ 1943 - ''Desert Victory''

★ 1944 - ''The Fighting Lady''

★ 1945 - ''The True Glory''

★ 1946 - none given

★ 1947 - ''Design for Death''

★ 1948 - ''The Secret Land''

★ 1949 - ''Daybreak in Udi''

1950s

★ 1950 - ''

★ 1951 - ''Kon-Tiki''

★ 1952 - ''The Sea Around Us''

★ 1953 - ''The Living Desert''

★ 1954 - ''The Vanishing Prairie''

★ 1955 - ''Helen Keller in Her Story''

★ 1956 - ''The Silent World''

★ 1957 - ''Albert Schweitzer''

★ 1958 - ''White Wilderness''

★ 1959 - ''Serengeti Shall Not Die''

1960s

★ 1960 - ''The Horse with the Flying Tail''

★ 1961 - ''Sky Above and Mud Beneath''

★ 1962 - ''

★ 1963 - ''

★ 1964 - ''Jacques-Yves Cousteau's World Without Sun''

★ 1965 - ''The Eleanor Roosevelt Story''

★ 1966 - ''The War Game''

★ 1967 - ''The Anderson Platoon''

★ 1968 - ''Journey Into Self'' Note: At the 41st Awards ceremony on April 14, 1969,'' Young Americans'' was announced as the winner of the Documentary Feature Oscar. On May 7, 1969, the film was declared ineligible after it was revealed that the film had played in October of 1967, therefore ineligible for a 1968 Award. The first runner-up, ''Journey Into Self'', was awarded the statuette on May 8, 1969.

★ 1969 - ''Arthur Rubinstein - The Love of Life''

1970s

★ 1970 - ''Woodstock''

★ 1971 - ''The Hellstrom Chronicle''

★ 1972 - ''Marjoe'', directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan

★ 1973 - ''The Great American Cowboy'' by Kieth Merrill

★ 1974 - ''Hearts and Minds''

★ 1975 - ''The Man Who Skied Down Everest''

★ 1976 - ''Harlan County, USA'', directed by Barbara Kopple

★ 1977 - ''Who Are the DeBolts? And Where Did They Get Nineteen Kids?''

★ 1978 - ''Scared Straight!''

★ 1979 - ''Best Boy''

1980s

★ '''1980 ''' directed by Murray Lerner

★
★ ''Agee''

★
★ ''The Day After Trinity''

★
★ ''Front Line''

★
★ ''The Yellow Star - The Persecution of the Jews in Europe 1933-45''

★ '''1981 Genocide''' directed by Arnold Schwartzman

★
★ ''

★
★ ''Brooklyn Bridge''

★
★ ''

★
★ ''

★ '''1982 Just Another Missing Kid''' directed by John Zaritsky

★
★ ''A Portrait of Giselle''

★
★ ''After the Axe''

★
★ ''Ben's Mill''

★
★ ''In Our Water''

★ '''1983 He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'''' directed by Emile Ardolino

★
★ ''Children of Darkness''

★
★ ''First Contact''

★
★ ''The Profession of Arms''

★
★ ''Seeing Red''

★ '''1984 The Times of Harvey Milk''' directed by Robert Epstein and Richard Schmiechen

★
★ ''High Schools''

★
★ ''In the Name of the People''

★
★ ''Marlene''

★
★ ''Streetwise''

★ '''1985 Broken Rainbow''' directed by Maria Florio and Victoria Mudd

★
★ ''Las Madres--The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo''

★
★ ''Soldiers in Hiding''

★
★ ''The Statue of Liberty''

★
★ ''Unfinished Business''

★ 1986 - (tie):

★
★ ''

★
★ ''Down and Out in America''

★ 1987 - ''The Ten-Year Lunch''

★ 1988 - ''

★ 1989 - ''

1990s

★ '''1990 American Dream''' directed by Barbara Kopple and Arthur Cohn

★
★ ''Berkeley in the Sixties''

★
★ ''Building Bombs''

★
★ ''

★
★ ''

★ '''1991 In the Shadow of the Stars''' directed by Allie Light and Irving Saraf

★
★ ''Death on the Job''

★
★ ''

★
★ ''The Restless Conscience''

★
★ ''Wild by Law''

★ '''1992 The Panama Deception''' directed by Barbara Trent and David Kasper

★
★ ''

★
★ ''Fires of Kuwait''

★
★ ''

★
★ ''

★ 1993 - ''

★ 1994 - ''

★ 1995 - ''Anne Frank Remembered''

★ 1996 - ''When We Were Kings''

★ 1997 - ''The Long Way Home''

★
★ ''

★
★ ''Colors Straight Up''

★
★ ''4 Little Girls''

★
★ ''

★ 1998 - ''The Last Days''

★ 1999 - ''One Day in September''

2000s

★ '''2000 ''' directed by Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer

★
★ ''Legacy''

★
★ ''Long Night's Journey into Day''

★
★ ''

★
★ ''Sound and Fury''

★ '''2001 Murder on a Sunday Morning''' directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade

★
★ ''Children Underground''

★
★ ''

★
★ ''Promises''

★
★ ''War Photographer''

★ '''2002 Bowling for Columbine''' directed by Michael Moore

★
★ ''Daughter From Danang''

★
★ ''Le Peuple migrateur (Winged Migration)''

★
★ ''Prisoner of Paradise''

★
★ ''Spellbound''

★ '''2003 The Fog of War''' directed by Errol Morris

★
★ ''Balseros''

★
★ ''Capturing the Friedmans''

★
★ ''My Architect''

★
★ ''The Weather Underground''

★ '''2004 Born into Brothels''' directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski

★
★ ''The Story of the Weeping Camel''

★
★ ''Super Size Me''

★
★ ''

★
★ ''Twist of Faith''

★ '''2005 March of the Penguins''' directed by Luc Jacquet

★
★ ''Darwin's Nightmare''

★
★ ''

★
★ ''Murderball''

★
★ ''Street Fight''

★ '''2006 An Inconvenient Truth''' directed by Davis Guggenheim

★
★ ''Deliver Us from Evil''

★
★ ''Iraq in Fragments''

★
★ ''Jesus Camp''

★
★ ''My Country, My Country''