THB #59: The New Shortlists Are Here!

Shortlist Day is always a compelling one for people in the Oscar Industrial Complex. Most people, including Academy voters, have heard a lot about all the films that want to be in the Best Picture race. But this is the day for people who have been working their asses off for months to get attention of the narrow Academy groups that vote for nominations in each of these 10 categories… which make up 10 of the 23 total Oscars given out on Oscar night. So it’s a major footprint… but it’s a dainty one.

The most competitive categories going into this day are Documentary Feature and International Feature.

This year’s list of Documentary Features is intriguing for the spread of distributors. Last year, Netflix, which won with My Octopus Teacher, garnered 4 of the 15 short list slots and 2 of the 5 finalists. They also won with American Factory the year before with 2 of the 5 Oscar nominees.

This year, no distributor has more than 2 nominations, with NatGeo, HBO, and Apple TV+ so represented.…