The Academy Narrows Documentary Feature Oscar Finalists to 15

Credit: AMPAS

We're getting closer and closer to Oscar nominations, with just over a month to go until the nominees for the 86th Academy Awards are announced. We now know which 15 documentaries remain in the race for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. One hundred forty-seven films had originally qualified in the category. Interestingly, only two of the films recently nominated by the Producers Guild in this category remain in the running for Oscar, Life According to Sam and current frontrunner Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington. The Oscar race is beginning to take shape in unpredictable fashion.

The 15 films are listed alphabetically below along with their production companies:

“The Act of Killing,” Final Cut for Real
“The Armstrong Lie,” The Kennedy/Marshall Company
“Blackfish,” Our Turn Productions
“The Crash Reel,” KP Rides Again
“Cutie and the Boxer,” Ex Lion Tamer and Cine Mosaic
“Dirty Wars,” Civic Bakery
“First Cousin Once Removed,” Experiments in Time, Light & Motion
“God Loves Uganda,” Full Credit Productions
“Life According to Sam,” Fine Films
“Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer,” Roast Beef Productions
“The Square,” Noujaim Films and Maktube Productions
“Stories We Tell,” National Film Board of Canada
“Tim’s Vermeer,” High Delft Pictures
“20 Feet from Stardom,” Gil Friesen Productions and Tremolo Productions
“Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington,” Tripoli Street

Five of these films will make the cut when Oscar nominations are announced live on Thursday, January 16, 2014, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.