Best Documentaries of 2022: The Picks from the Players. The Oscar Noms & More

What were the critics’ picks for Best Documentaries for 2022?

Caitlin Cooper surveyed Variety, Deadline, Sundance and more to provide links to their selections.

Among them are prize-winning indies such as All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Bad Axe, and All that Breathes.

Dominating the competition are Brett Morgen’s Moonage Daydream for HBO Max, and Nat Geo‘s Fire of Love for Disney+.

Read the write-ups below, updated with the Oscar and BAFTA noms announced in January:

What They Picked! Best Documentaries of 2022

Oscar Nominations

The noms for the Academy Award for best documentary feature all garnered other accolades from the industry throughout the last year:

Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes
Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Simon Lereng Wilmont’s A House Made of Splinters
Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love
Daniel Roher’s Navalny.

Noms for best documentary short are The Elephant Whisperers (directed by Kartiki Gonsalves), Haulout (Maxim Arbugaev & Evgenia Arbugaeva), How Do You Measure a Year? (Jay Rosenblatt), The Martha Mitchell Effect (Anne Alvergue) and Stranger at the Gate (Joshua Seftel).

BAFTA Noms

All That Breathes
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Fire of Love
Navalny
Moonage Daydream by Brett Morgen

$852 Million Missed Out

The obvious bias is towards American theatrical-length projects.

Television specials and series are generally not considered for these lists, even though they comprise both the backbone and flesh of the unscripted economy.

Don’t miss my post on the cruel odds operating against indies in the Sundance Documentary Economy.