Last year, 169 films were eligible for the best documentary feature Oscar. Not even the most diligent members of the documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences saw anywhere near that many before casting their ballots to determine the shortlist of 15 finalists or the five eventual Oscar nominees. There are just not enough hours in the day.
The goal of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival‘s Docs to Watch Panel, which has been presented by The Hollywood Reporter and hosted by yours truly since 2014, has always been to highlight 10 of the year’s doc features that are truly outstanding and worthy of attention. And it seems like the doc branch is paying attention: over the past 11 years, 24 docs that were represented on the panel went on to Oscar noms (of a possible 55), and eight went on to win (of a possible 11).
On Oct. 29, the directors of outstanding 2025 documentaries descended on the nation’s largest university-run film festival for this year’s Docs to Watch Panel, a 90-minute conversation about the challenges and rewards of making their current films, and docs in general, which you can watch in its entirety right here:
The filmmakers who appeared on this year’s panel are:
- On behalf of Nat Geo’s The Tale 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 Solution, an exposé about the bleak conditions 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 Perfect Neighbor, which illustrates the dangers of “stand your ground laws” by zeroing-in on one particularly tragic case, the director Geeta Gandbhir
- On behalf of Apple’s Come See Me in the Good Light, a portrait of Colorado’s poet laureate confronting a diagnosis of incurable cancer, the director Ryan White
- On behalf of HBO’s My Mom Jayne, in which the filmmaker endeavors to learn more about the movie star mother she lost when she was just three, the director Mariska Hargitay
- On behalf of Netflix’s Apocalypse in the Tropics, a study of the rise of Christian Nationalism on the far right in Brazil and the aftermath of that nation’s own version of Jan. 6, an Oscar nominee for 2019’s The Edge of Democracy, the director Petra Costa
- On behalf of PBS’s 2000 Meters to Andriivka, in which the filmmaker embeds with a Ukrainian platoon as it attempts 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 town’s Antebellum history and its reverberations in the present day, the director Suzannah Herbert
- On behalf of Kino Lorber’s Riefenstahl, for which exclusive access was granted to the never-before-seen archives of Hitler’s favorite film propagandist, the director Andres Veiel
- On behalf of Magnolia’s It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, a chronicle of the extraordinary rise and premature death of a generation-defining singer-songwriter, an Oscar nominee for 2006’s Deliver Us from Evil, the director Amy J. Berg
During the fest, THR moderators also conducted post-screening Q&As with each of the docs’ director or directors, which we will be posting on our website over the coming days, ahead of the period of voting to determine the Oscar shortlists (Dec. 8-12) and the announcement of the shortlists (Dec. 16).
