OSCARS 2026 - DOCUMENTARY SHORTS

3/1/26 - Documentary Shorts

Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud - 8/10 [SHOULD WIN]

This felt like the most complete documentary piece of those nominated. Touching, historical, politically relavent, and strongly told - it holds little back and you feel it all.

All the Empty Rooms - 7/10 [WILL WIN]

Another “choke up” feature, examining the empty room impacts of school shooting. It packs the emotion and poitical heft, but more impressions than tight tale.

The Devil is Busy - 7/10

More heaviness as we walk through a day in the life of an abortion clinic in Atlanta. A tidy look at the issue and those on the front line dealing with this tense and traumatic daily negotiation with life & death. A rock solid doc.

Children No More: Were and Are Gone - 6

Empathetic impact saturates this look at Tel Aviv activist who hold signs of murdered children in Gaza due to Israeli attacks, but other than some heartfelt tugging on the strings of the tapestry of this war & its impacts, it lacks a dialogue. Good but lacks great.

Perfectly a Strangeness - 6/10

Our one non sad doc! Simple tale of donkeys walking up a mountain to see an old observatory. Juxtaposes the astral magnificence with the mechanical whirrings of the observatory - all vividly impressed by the gaze of these cute donkeys. Wordless whimsy with high artsy content - absolutely enchanting visuals.

DOCUMENTARY ROUNDUP 2025

07/02/25 - Secret Mall Apartment (2024) - 6/10

8/20/25 - Con Mum (2025) - 5/10

10/12/25 - Orwell: 2+2=5 (2025) - 6/10

10/21/25 - Blood & Myth (2025) - 4/10

12/13/25 - The Perfect Neighbor (2025) - 6+/7-/10

A seeming graduation from the excellent short documentary from Incident where that film was entirely through bodycams and CCTV, this uses mostly bodycams and CCTV but adds recorded police dialogue and some interview spots that help further flesh out the crime, responders, victims and perpetrator. It's strong and engrossing.

12/20/25 - 2000 Meters to Andriivka (2025) - 8-/10

Literal on the frontlines as you get a first person accounting of the death, the toll, and the grizzly nature of this war in Ukraine - both through blood and through spirit. Harrowing stuff and amazing footage & stories to capture.

12/28/25 - Predators (2025) - 6/10

12/30/25 - Cover-Up (2025) - 7/10

1/3/26 - Unknown Number: The High School Catfish (2025) - 6-/10

1/21/26 - The Alabama Solution (2025) - 8-/10

Journalistic expose told  from the prisoners living & dying their shared experience of a cancerous system and its rotten progenitors. Good storytellling with solid throughlines and highlighting the block that built this house of lies and loss. It's sad and disheartening to see the beatings, death and hardship that is endemic to this institution but at least some of these things are getting out via this film.

1/26/26 - Mr. Nobody Against Putin (2025) - 6/10

A lived in expose from preexisting footage, seeing the sliding changes of everyday Russians, in particular their school system, during the ongoing war in Ukraine and the tightened grip of Putin. Interesting and laudable, but lacking a real zest or drive.

2/8/26 - Cutting Through Rocks (2025) - 6/10

An empowering but ultimately gutting documentary about an independent woman running for office in her Iranian village. Subversive, empowering and progressive, but incurs wrath, scorn and untimely heartbreak in a picture that speaks to what could be but ultmately runs into what is. Solid and non-boundary pushing prductiton wise, but a good doc overall.

3/3/26 - Come See Me in the Good Light (2025) - 7/10

I put this one off due to the subject matter - a lesbian poet couple grapple with the impending cancer demise of one of them - which was not inviting. And though generally accurate, this general idea description could not include the magnitude of their love, the joy in their vision of life/love/the world, and the affirming nature of the glimpse into their experiences. It was moving and funny and a strong documentarian message. Not sure it’s the best in the field, of the genre, or of the nominated, but it was worth the watch.