IDA Documentary Awards Name 16 Feature Contenders and 12 Short Films
Sixteen feature documentaries are now in contention for Best Documentary at the IDA Documentary Awards. The organisation announced its feature and short film shortlists on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, and Deadline reported the lists the following day.
The feature list includes A Fox Under a Pink Moon, A Life Illuminated, Birds of War, Nuestra Tierra, Nuisance Bear, One in a Million and To Hold A Mountain. It also includes You Can See Everything, a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the blood-testing company Theranos.
Several other titles are worth knowing. My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile, directed by Julia Loktev, is on the list, as is The Eyes of Ghana, directed by Ben Proudfoot, who has won two Oscars. Rehearsals for a Revolution, directed by Pegah Ahangarani, won the L'Oeil d'or prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The shortlist also names Concrete Land (Asmahan Bkerat), Filthy (Bàrbara Mestanza and Marc Pujolar), Silver (Natalia Koniarz) and The Fabulous Time Machine (Eliza Capai).
Some well-known subjects did not make the cut. Musk, Once Upon a Time in Harlem, American Doctor and NAZA were not shortlisted.
The short film list has twelve documentaries. Among them is They're Here, directed by Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It examines the ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) occupation of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Bill Morrison's Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon is also on the list, and Morrison was Oscar-nominated for Incident. Four films from The New York Times' Op-Docs series made the cut, along with A Wolf in the Suburbs (Amélie Hardy), Sanyi Kakas (Sanyi the Rooster) (Lotte Salomons), Son (Leona Cauklija), Stalin Boys (Bianca Giaever and Ora DeKornfeld) and Free Joan Little (Yoruba Richen).
The IDA, which stands for International Documentary Association, has presented its awards since 1984. This year's ceremony is the 42nd. Members can watch every Best Feature and Best Short nominee through an online judging portal, and they vote only in those two categories. Member viewing runs from 3 to 17 November, and the nominees are due on 17 November.
The awards show itself is set for 4 December in Los Angeles. Until then, the lists give film fans a practical guide to which documentaries are being talked about on the festival and awards circuit this autumn.
