Oscar's Docs: The First Twenty Years of Academy Award-Winning Documentaries - 1941-1960 | Academy Events Calendar

This comprehensive screening series of every short subject and feature to win the Oscar for documentary filmmaking, from the inception of the category in 1941 through 1960, will continue on Monday evenings through December 5th. Offering a unique opportunity to observe the historical impact and development of the theatrical documentary, the retrospective features the best available prints of these films, many of which are newly struck or restored editions from the documentary collection of the Academy Film Archive. Program handouts feature comprehensive notes on the making of the films with original still reproductions from the shorts and full-color reproductions of the original feature poster art.

The Academy's Documentary Categories did not begin until the 14th Awards in 1941. But the Academy did recognize non-fiction films (many by notable filmmakers) prior to that, in the Short Subject categories. A 1935 winner, Ivor Montagu’s WINGS OVER MT. EVEREST, showed the first airplane flight over the world’s tallest peak. Fred Zinnemann’s THAT MOTHER MIGHT LIVE, a winner in 1938, dramatized the medical advances made by a noted Hungarian physician. But these films weren’t considered by many to be “documentaries,” a term which then connoted more serious accounts of contemporary issues and events. Read the complete essay.

Benjy (1951) - 20 min. - Henry Fonda narrated this dramatization about a crippled boy, written by Stewart Stern and directed by Fred Zinnemann, which was made as a fundraiser for the Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital.

Kon-Tiki (1951) - 75 min. - This feature covers the 4,000-mile sea voyage from Peru to Polynesia led by explorer/archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl in a home-made raft.

Neighbours (1952) - 7 min. - Groundbreaking filmmaker Norman McLaren used “pixilation” - animation using living people - to create this allegory about war.

The Sea around Us (1952) 61 min. - Blockbuster filmmaker Irwin Allen wrote, produced and directed this adaptation of famed environmentalist Rachel Carson's book about the world's oceans.

The Alaskan Eskimo (1953) - 27 min. - This short documentary about an Eskimo village was the first of Disney's 17 “People and Places” featurettes, and the first live-action short to win an Oscar® for the studio.

The Living Desert (1953) - 69 min. - The first Oscar®-winning Documentary Feature from Disney used groundbreaking photographic techniques to depict animal life in the Sonoran desert.

Thursday's Children (1954) - 20 min. - Lindsay Anderson co-directed this sensitive look at the young students at the Royal School for the Deaf in Margate, England.

The Vanishing Prairie (1954) - 71 min. - The second of Disney's feature length True-Life Adventures focuses on the fight for survival of America's wildlife.

Men against the Arctic (1955) - 30 min. - This documentary short following the mission of a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker was the second of Disney's “People and Places” featurettes to win an Oscar.

Helen Keller in Her Story (1955) - 53 min. - Katherine Cornell narrated this feature, also screened as The Unconquered, which looks at Keller's life and her amazing achievement in transcending her disabilities.

The True Story of the Civil War (1956) - 33 min. - Raymond Massey narrated this documentary short which made groundbreaking use of photographs and other authentic images from the war to tell its story, and featured a score by Oscar winner Ernest Gold (Exodus).

The Silent World (1956) - 86 min. - Pioneeering oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and acclaimed director Louis Malle collaborated on this look at the undersea world, which also won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Albert Schweitzer (1957) - 80 min. Filmmakers Jerome Hill and Erica Anderson spent six years making this biography of the noted humanitarian with the cooperation of Schweitzer himself, and featuring narration by Frederic March and Burgess Meredith.

Ama Girls (1958) - 28 min. - This Disney “People and Places” featurette, filmed in CinemaScope, looked at the women of a Japanese fishing village.

White Wilderness (1958) - 72 min. - Disney’s True-Life Adventure spotlighting the wildlife of the Arctic also earned an Oscar® nomination for Oliver Wallace's original score.