Oscars: Shortlisted Documentary Features To Screen Nationwide

For the first time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is making the 15 documentaries that are on the shortlist from which the five nominees for the best documentary feature Academy Award will be chosen available to the moviegoing public. Under a new program, initiated by the Academy’s Future of Film Committee and carrying the umbrella title Oscars Spotlight: Documentary Feature Shortlist, the films will begin screening in movie theaters in 13 cities nationwide beginning Dec. 31 and running through Jan. 21.

The 15 films include some features that have already attracted sizable numbers of ticket buyers such as Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, RBG, Three Identical Strangers and Free Solo. The other titles on the list are Charm City; Communion; Crime + Punishment; Dark Money; The Distant Barking of Dogs; Hale County This Morning, This Evening; Minding the Gap; Fathers and Sons; On Her Shoulders; Shirkers; and The Silence of Others. 

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“The Academy is thrilled to be collaborating with exhibitors and distributors to shine a light on the best documentaries of the year,” Albert Berger, Academy governor and chair of the Future of Film Committee, said. “We want to encourage moviegoing and engage audiences across the country in our process as we move through the shortlists, nominations and towards the Oscars.”

The participating theaters include Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse Mueller; Boston’s AMC Loews Boston Common 19; Chicago’s Music Box Theatre; Dallas/Fort Worth’s Alamo Drafthouse Lake Highlands; Denver’s Alamo Drafthouse Sloans Lake; the Los Angeles area’s AMC Sunset 5, Laemmle Monica Film Center and Laemmle Playhouse 7 (Pasadena); New York’s IFC Center, Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn; the Phoenix area’s Harkins Shea 14;  Raleigh’s Alamo Drafthouse Raleigh; the San Francisco area’ s Alamo Drafthouse New Mission and Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center; Santa Barbara’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival Riviera Theatre; Seattle’s AMC Pacific Place 11; and Washington, D.C.’s Warner Bros. Theater at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards will be announced Jan. 22, and the Oscars will be held Feb. 24 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, televised live by ABC.