This is a list of shortlisted finalists for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Documentary branch has used it as a preliminary round, before the final five nominated films are announced in mid-January.
While the Academy did not begin preparing formal "short-lists" until the 1990s, during select years in the 1980s, The Academy rewarded "Certificates of Special Merit" to documentaries that had been considered by the Academy's Documentary Screening Committee and had come close to a nomination, but failed to make it as the final five.
Starting in 1995, the Academy's Documentary reviewing committee (prior to the creation of the documentary branch) initiated a process by a semi final list of eligible documentary films would be reviewed and voted upon by bi-costal committees, prior to the selection of the final five nominees. The number of shortlisted films changed between the years, with 15 films making the shortlists in 1997, 17 in 1998, 12 in 1999, and an unknown number in 1995 and 1996. Initially, the shortlists were not publicly announced, although inclusions and snubs were reported upon.
Since 1999, the shortlists have usually been announced publicly alongside other categories shortlists in mid-December.
The movement came after several controversies in the 1980s and 90s, such as the omission of critically acclaimed and popular favorites: Shoah (1985), The Thin Blue Line (1988), Roger & Me (1989), Paris Is Burning (1990), Hoop Dreams (1994) and Crumb (1995). The process also allows more voters to participate in the nomination second phase.
Even though the shortlisting process has been well established for nearly three decades, various other acclaimed documentaries have not been nominated: Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Grizzly Man (2005), Red Army (2014), Jane (2017), They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) and Apollo 11 (2019).