The best documentaries of 2024 can be found at this Chicago film festival

Cue the popcorn. This weekend’s Doc10 festival tends to be an early predictor of the Oscar shortlist.

The organizers of Chicago’s Doc10 Film Festival have a strong track record of curating documentaries eventually recognized by the Oscars. Among the films on the 2024 lineup are (clockwise from top left) ‘Devo,’ ‘Union,’ ‘ApoloniaAPOLONIA’ and ‘Super/Man.’
The organizers of Chicago's Doc10 Film Festival have a strong track record of curating documentaries eventually recognized by the Oscars. Among the films on the 2024 lineup are (clockwise from top left) 'Devo,' 'Union,' 'Apolonia Apolonia' and 'Super/Man.' Courtesy of Doc10
The organizers of Chicago’s Doc10 Film Festival have a strong track record of curating documentaries eventually recognized by the Oscars. Among the films on the 2024 lineup are (clockwise from top left) ‘Devo,’ ‘Union,’ ‘ApoloniaAPOLONIA’ and ‘Super/Man.’
The organizers of Chicago's Doc10 Film Festival have a strong track record of curating documentaries eventually recognized by the Oscars. Among the films on the 2024 lineup are (clockwise from top left) 'Devo,' 'Union,' 'Apolonia Apolonia' and 'Super/Man.' Courtesy of Doc10

The best documentaries of 2024 can be found at this Chicago film festival

Cue the popcorn. This weekend’s Doc10 festival tends to be an early predictor of the Oscar shortlist.

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Oscar prognostication, a popular end-of-year pastime for film buffs, is always educated guessing. But in the case of the coveted Best Documentary Feature, you might lean a little harder on the “guessing” half.

Anthony Kaufman, the senior programmer for the Chicago documentary film festival Doc10, says the top doc Oscar category has been particularly unpredictable lately. Last year, for example, all five nominees focused on subjects outside the United States, seemingly suddenly.

“The documentary branch is a fickle bunch,” he says.

Described as a jazz-meets-history lesson, the documentary 'Soundtrack to a Coup D'Etat' by filmmaker Johan Grimonprez is a sweeping, cinematic portrait of imperialism in West Africa, including the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.
Described as a jazz-meets-history lesson, the documentary ‘Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat’ by filmmaker Johan Grimonprez is a sweeping, cinematic portrait of imperialism in West Africa, including the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. Courtesy of Doc10

Those searching for some tea leaves can slog through tracking down reviews from the Sundance Film Festival this past January, scouring the trade publications for acquisition and distribution deals, or — more simply — check out the lineup at Doc10, opening Thursday and running through Sunday.

Chicago’s Doc10 Film Festival, co-founded eight years ago by Steve Cohen and Paula Froehle, is a compact documentary film festival that screens 10 outstanding documentaries over a long weekend. Most of the screenings have the director or other principals of the film in attendance for post-screening Q&A, and many of them mark the only opportunity to watch the doc in a movie theater in Chicago.

Because the festival restricts itself to only 10 documentaries, selected by people with good taste and extensive knowledge of the genre, the selections tend to overlap with those of the similarly populated committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the group that awards the Oscars. Doc10 happens every spring, while the Academy announces its selections the following winter.

Doc10’s lineup had a three-year streak of including the eventual Best Documentary Feature Oscar winner in 2020 (American Factory), 2021 (Summer of Soul) and 2022 (Navalny).

The film 'War Game,' by filmmakers Jesse Moss (Boys State and Girls State) and Tony Gerber, is one of the highlights of the 2024 Doc10 festival.
A documentary or suspense thriller? The film ‘War Game,’ by filmmakers Jesse Moss (‘Boys State’ and ‘Girls State’) and Tony Gerber, is one of the highlights of the 2024 Doc10 festival. Courtesy of Doc10

This year, a few films stand out even further from the festival’s already standout lineup as potential Oscar material:

  • Daughters, Froehle says, thrums the heartstrings. Directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae construct the story of a program to connect incarcerated men to their daughters, culminating in a father-daughter dance. “We love docs like that, that take very close-up personal stories, but have embedded in them these larger issues, like justice reform,” Froehle says. On the awards front, Daughters has a couple things going for it. First, it has already won a few awards, including two at Sundance. Second, it has a distributor: Netflix. 5:45 p.m., May 5, Gene Siskel Film Center.

  • Cohen points to War Game. Filmmakers Jesse Moss (Boys State and Girls State) and Tony Gerber follow a simulation of a future insurrection on Jan. 6, 2025, gamed out by political and military experts, including General Wesley Clark, former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. “If you didn’t know it was a documentary, you’d think it’s a suspense thriller,” Cohen says. The last two Oscar winners focused on political conflict: Navalny, about the Russian dissident, and 2023’s 20 Days in Mariupol, a portrait of a war-torn city in Ukraine. 7 p.m., May 5, Davis Theater.

    'Super/Man,' about iconic actor Christopher Reeve includes never-before-seen home footage and focuses on his life as an activist after a paralyzing accident.
    ‘Super/Man,’ about iconic actor Christopher Reeve includes never-before-seen home footage and focuses on his life as an activist after a paralyzing accident. Courtesy of Doc10
  • Super/Man paints a portrait of actor Christopher Reeve, from his acting career — prominently in the Superman movies — through his role as a disability-rights advocate after a horseback-riding accident left him paralyzed. “I think it’s another example of where documentaries can fill in so many of the personal details behind the headlines,” Froehle says. Warner Bros., the studio that produced Reeve’s Superman movies, acquired the worldwide rights to the film earlier this year, beefing up its chances. Plus, Hollywood always loves films about itself. 8 p.m., May 3, Davis Theater.

It’s very early, of course, with the main Oscar-buzz season taking place in the fall, and who knows what might change in the world or the minds of the Academy voters before then.

“There’s the famous phrase in Hollywood, right? ‘No one knows anything,’ ” Kaufman says.

The one thing you can be sure of is that the 10 docs in Doc10 are, for Cohen, Froehle and Kaufman, a well-informed top-10 list. That’s an honor all on its own.

If you go: Doc10 runs May 2 to May 5 at the Davis Theater and the Gene Siskel Film Center. Tickets $12.80-$16. 

Graham Meyer is a Chicago-based arts journalist.


Want to dive deeper?

Doc10’s heads may have a strong track record picking the same documentaries eventually recognized by the Oscars, but some Oscar snubs still puzzle them.

  • Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the 2018 documentary about Mr. Rogers, made the Oscars shortlist but ultimately wasn’t nominated. “It was a bit of a shock,” Kaufman says. “It was a crowd-pleaser, it was about a beloved figure and it was by a filmmaker — Morgan Neville — who is well liked. But maybe that was too conventional?”
  • Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie hit many of the same buttons as this year’s Super/Man, but also failed to make it past the shortlist. “It’s such a beautiful film about his disability,” Froehle says. “It just felt perfect, but, you know, didn’t make it.”
  • The Janes, about an underground network of abortion-rights supporters in 1968 Chicago, opened Doc10’s 2022 festival, while the U.S. Supreme Court deliberated on the Dobbs decision that would overrule Roe v. Wade a month later. It, too, didn’t make it off the shortlist. Cohen says Oscar-voting coverage has discussed a game-theory phenomenon where voters skip obvious choices on their ballots to increase the chances for their down-the-card pet favorites. If too many people do this, a front-runner doesn’t make it. “I think so many people thought it was going to be nominated that it slipped through the cracks,” he says.