Haven’t seen any of these. However, one documentary in particular has gained serious award buzz. Well, I’m obliged by my own stupid logic to look at one category a day, so let’s have a gander at Best Documentary Feature

The first nominee is 5 Broken Cameras, directed by Emad Burnat. This is his film debut, and the critics say that it’s a pretty darn good piece of work. However, the film has not been nominated for any of the guild awards, and it seems unlikely to include a foreign-language documentary like this in a range of Oscar winners.

The next nominee is The Gatekeepers. (That’s all fine and good, but where are the Keymasters?) The film was directed by Dror Moreh, who from what I can gather was a European cinematographer before moving on to directing documentaries. It’s a solid bet, but, from what I can gather, the film mostly focuses on interviews as a pose to actually showing the action.

Then there’s How To Survive A Plague, from the makers of How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and How To Train Your Dragon. Okay, In all seriousness, the film is directed by David France, who won a lot of early awards for his film. But, I don’t think that it’s likely to best this year’s frontrunner.

Our next nominee is The Invisible War, which seems like a good dark horse to consider. The film is directed by Kirby Dick, who is the only nominee with a previous Oscar nomination, for Twist Of Faith. From what I can gather, the film is a very emotional piece of drama that did manage to snag a few awards. So definitely consider it a possibility.

But the clear winner here is Searching For Sugar Man. Since day one, director Malik Bendjelloul has collected awards for telling the tale of Rodriguez, a musical artist who unknowingly produced a worldwide phenomenon. It’s clear that the film is the frontrunner with the top critics all praising the film as the best documentary of the year.

Will Win: Searching For Sugar Man
Runner’s Up: The Invisible War
Should Win