At the end of December, the documentary and international Academy Award committees release their shortlists for the films that will be considered for nomination for Best Documentary and Best International Feature Film. There are also shortlists for Documentary Shorts, Makeup and Hairstyling, Original Score, Original Song, Animated Short, Live Action Short, Sound, and Visual Effects, but the most closely watched and highly anticipated shortlists belong to the Documentary and International Feature, as even a mention on the shortlist is a huge boon to the filmmaker and even the country submitting the film.
While not all of the films shortlisted are available to stream yet, many of documentaries are, and a few of the international features are available as well, so use these lists as your guide for some quality film picks, or catch up with the awards hopefuls before the ceremonies start rolling out the red carpet (the Golden Globes are on Jan. 10, while the Oscars will be held March 12).
Three of the shortlisted documentaries are currently streaming on Disney+, including the charmingly poignant love story about a pair of French vulcanologists, “Fire of Love,” directed by Sara Dosa, the searingly intimate fly-on-the-wall look at the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, “Retrograde,” directed by Matthew Heineman, and “The Territory,” a gripping thriller about the indigenous Brazilians defending the Amazon rainforest, directed by Alex Pritz.
On HBO Max, stream “Navalny,” Daniel Roher’s illuminating portrait of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and follow that up with “The Janes,” about the underground network of abortion providers that operated in a pre-Roe America, directed by Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin.
“Descendant,” streaming on Netflix, is Margaret Brown’s fascinating, bracing look at the Africatown neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama, and the community effort to locate the wreck of the ship Clotilda, the last vessel to bring kidnapped Africans to the United States to be sold into slavery.
Several shortlisted documentaries are available to rent on digital platforms, including Brett Morgen’s reveling through the career of David Bowie, in the hallucinatory “Moonage Daydream.” Legendary singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen gets the biodoc treatment through the lens of his famed song, in “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song,” directed by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, also available to rent.
Award-winning documentarian Ondi Timoner details the end of her father’s life in the intimate family portrait “Last Flight Home,” available on Paramount+ or to rent elsewhere. “Bad Axe,” about an Asian American family fighting to keep their restaurant alive in rural Michigan during the fraught days of 2020, directed by David Siev, is also available to rent, as is “Hidden Letters,” about two young Chinese women keeping alive a secret written language, directed by Violet Du Feng.
As for the shortlisted international features, many of them have just opened in theaters, like Ireland’s “The Quiet Girl,” India’s “The Last Film Show,” Denmark’s “Holy Spider” and Austria’s unconventional Empress Sisi biopic “Corsage,” starring Vicky Krieps. Several will be opening in the next few weeks, including Cambodia’s “Return to Seoul,” France’s “Saint Omer” and Belgium’s “Close.”
But you can check out some of the shortlisted international features on streaming, including South Korea’s submission, the ravishing Hitchcockian thriller “Decision to Leave,” directed by the master Park Chan-wook, streaming on Mubi or available on Prime Video and Apple. Mexico’s submission is the wild, sprawling memoir-of-sorts from Oscar-winning director Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths,” now streaming on Netflix alongside Germany’s entry, the searing war drama “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Argentina’s submission, “Argentina, 1985,” about the legal team that prosecuted the heads of the country’s military dictatorship, is now streaming on Prime Video.
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(Katie Walsh is the Tribune News Service film critic and co-host of the "Miami Nice" podcast.)
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