2024 Oscar Shortlists Reward ‘Will & Harper’, snub Christopher Reeve Doc

Will & Harper, the Netflix documentary about comedic actor Will Ferrell and his friendship with SNL pal Harper Steele who came out as trans, earned a spot on the coveted Oscar documentary feature shortlist today.

It wasn’t the only shortlist honor for the film directed by Josh Greenbaum. The tune from the closing credits – “Will and Harper Go West,” written by SNL alum Kristen Wiig and Sean Douglas and performed by Wiig – got shortlisted for Best Original Song (Douglas is the son of actor Michael Keaton).

But another high-profile documentary in the running for the shortlist didn’t make the cut: Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, about the late actor who was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident. That film, directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, recently won Best Documentary Feature at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, and last week earned a nomination for the Producers Guild of America Award. [Scroll for full list of shortlisted features and short documentaries]

Aside from Will & Harper, feature documentaries with a celebrity element did not fare particularly well in shortlist voting (the list is determined by the Academy’s Documentary Branch, which will also choose the eventual five Oscar nominees in the category). Also snubbed were I Am: Celine Dion about the French Canadian chanteuse; Elton John: Never Too Late; Martha, about lifestyle doyenne Martha Stewart; Luther: Never Too Much, about the late singer-songwriter Luther Vandross; Music by John Williams, about the Oscar-winning composer; and Piece by Piece, Oscar winner Morgan Neville’s film on music producer, singer and songwriter Pharrell Williams, done entirely with LEGO animation.

However, the Pharrell doc and the Elton John film did earn places on the Original Song shortlist. John, already an EGOT winner, wrote “Never Too Late” with his longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin, along with singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, and Andrew Watt; Williams wrote and performs “Piece by Piece,” the title track to his doc.

A celebrity, albeit of the art world, did claim a place on the doc shortlist: Frida, the Carla Gutiérrez film about the great Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

Another surprise omission was Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, the award-winning film directed by two-time Oscar nominee Lucy Walker that was nominated for a PGA Award last week. Two previous Oscar winners got snubbed: Errol Morris for his documentary Separated, and Asif Kapadia for 2073. (Coincidentally or not, both of those films incorporate fictionalized elements into their narratives).

The doc feature shortlist of 15 was culled from 169 qualifiers this year. One of the biggest surprises to make the shortlist: The Bibi Files, directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Oscar winner Alex Gibney. The documentary, a blistering portrait of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that foregrounds a longstanding corruption investigation against him, made the cut despite having no major distributor or streamer. The film recently joined Jolt, a new streaming platform.

At least two other films without U.S. distribution also made the shortlist: Union, the Brett Story, Stephen Maing directed film about the first Amazon facility to be successfully unionized, and Hollywoodate, director Ibrahim Nash’at’s harrowing examination of the Taliban’s transition from insurgent group to governing force after the exit of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan.

As expected, some of the most acclaimed documentaries of the year secured their places on the feature shortlist, including No Other Land, the film set in the occupied West Bank that’s directed by a collective of two Israeli and two Palestinian filmmakers. Despite having no U.S. distribution, the film has won about four dozen awards around the world.

It joins other top Oscar contenders on the shortlist: Black Box Diaries, the MTV Documentary Films title directed by Shiori Ito; Sugarcane, the National Geographic film directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, Netflix’s , directed by Benjmain Ree; another Netflix title — Daughters, directed by Natalie Rae and Angela Patton, and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, the Kino Lorber film directed by Johan Grimonprez.