Final 12 months, 169 movies had been eligible for one of the best documentary characteristic Oscar. Not even essentially the most diligent members of the documentary department of the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences noticed wherever close to that many earlier than casting their ballots to find out the shortlist of 15 finalists or the 5 eventual Oscar nominees. There are simply not sufficient hours within the day.
The objective of the SCAD Savannah Movie Pageant‘s Docs to Watch Panel, which has been offered by The Hollywood Reporter and hosted by yours really since 2014, has all the time been to spotlight 10 of the 12 months’s doc options which can be really excellent and worthy of consideration. And it looks like the doc department is paying consideration: over the previous 11 years, 24 docs that had been represented on the panel went on to Oscar noms (of a potential 55), and eight went on to win (of a potential 11).
On Oct. 29, the administrators of excellent 2025 documentaries descended on the nation’s largest university-run movie competition for this 12 months’s Docs to Watch Panel, a 90-minute dialog in regards to the challenges and rewards of creating their present movies, and docs typically, which you’ll watch in its entirety proper right here:
The filmmakers who appeared on this 12 months’s panel are:
- On behalf of Nat Geo’s The Story of Silyan, which chronicles the unlikely bond of a struggling farmer and an injured White stork in North Macedonia, an Oscar nominee for 2019’s Honeyland, the director Tamara Kotevska
- On behalf of HBO’s The Alabama Resolution, an exposé in regards to the bleak circumstances in and corrupt governance of Alabama’s prisons, an Oscar nominee for 2003’s Capturing the Friedmans, the co-director, with Charlotte Kaufman, Andrew Jarecki
- On behalf of Netflix’s The Good Neighbor, which illustrates the risks of “stand your floor legal guidelines” by zeroing-in on one notably tragic case, the director Geeta Gandbhir
- On behalf of Apple’s Come See Me within the Good Mild, a portrait of Colorado’s poet laureate confronting a analysis of incurable most cancers, the director Ryan White
- On behalf of HBO’s My Mother Jayne, during which the filmmaker endeavors to study extra in regards to the film star mom she misplaced when she was simply three, the director Mariska Hargitay
- On behalf of Netflix’s Apocalypse within the Tropics, a examine of the rise of Christian Nationalism on the far proper in Brazil and the aftermath of that nation’s personal model of Jan. 6, an Oscar nominee for 2019’s The Fringe of Democracy, the director Petra Costa
- On behalf of PBS’s 2000 Meters to Andriivka, during which the filmmaker embeds with a Ukrainian platoon because it makes an attempt to liberate a Russian-occupied village, an Oscar winner for 2023’s 20 Days in Mariupol, the director Mstyslav Chernov
- On behalf of Oscilloscope’s Natchez, an exploration of a small Mississippi city’s Antebellum historical past and its reverberations within the current day, the director Suzannah Herbert
- On behalf of Kino Lorber’s Riefenstahl, for which unique entry was granted to the never-before-seen archives of Hitler’s favourite movie propagandist, the director Andres Veiel
- On behalf of Magnolia’s It’s By no means Over, Jeff Buckley, a chronicle of the extraordinary rise and untimely loss of life of a generation-defining singer-songwriter, an Oscar nominee for 2006’s Ship Us from Evil, the director Amy J. Berg
In the course of the fest, THR moderators additionally carried out post-screening Q&As with every of the docs’ director or administrators, which we will probably be posting on our web site over the approaching days, forward of the interval of voting to find out the Oscar shortlists (Dec. 8-12) and the announcement of the shortlists (Dec. 16).