Oscar Predictions: Best Documentary

This year, Oscar nominations will be announced on Thursday, January 10th. I’ll be offering detailed predictions in most of the major categories, saving some of the biggest categories for last.

Last year’s nominees: Hell and Back Again, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Pina, Undefeated

This year’s contenders: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Bully, Chasing Ice, Detropia, Ethel, 5 Broken Cameras, The Gatekeepers, The House I Live In, How to Survive a Plague, The Imposter, The Invisible War, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, Searching for Sugar Man, This Is Not a Film, The Waiting Room

The rundown: This category has been winnowed down to fifteen finalists already. Last year, I wasn’t able to see any of the final five or of the original fifteen, and while I’m spotty this year too, I’m ahead with three films screened thus far. The Invisible War, which tackles sexual assault in the military, and This Is Not a Film, a stream-of-consciousness dialogue with an Iranian filmmaker, both seem like strong contenders, while the reenacted mistaken identity story The Imposter absolutely doesn’t. I’m guessing on the rest, and I’ll do my best to find all five of the eventual nominees to offer a more helpful analysis of this race.

One possible crazy scenario: There’s no frontrunner to be snubbed this year – that was “The Central Park Five,” which didn’t even make the final fifteen.

Forecasted winner: No clue. Searching for Sugar Man?