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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday revealed the 366 feature films that are eligible for consideration at the 93rd Oscars, which are set to air April 25 live on ABC.

The total number of films is up from last year’s 344 films in contention.

This year’s list was compiled based on tweaked eligibility rules implemented because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has pushed the ceremony to its latest date ever. For this year, feature films had to open by February 28 in a commercial motion picture theater for a seven-day qualifying run in at least one of six metro areas: Los Angeles County, New York City, the Bay Area, Chicago, Miami and Atlanta. Drive-in theaters open nightly were included as qualifying venues, as were films intended for theatrical release but because of the lockdown made available first via streaming, VOD service or other broadcast.

Today’s news comes...

Another important moment in the awards season has come our way today. Yes, the Academy has released their lists of what’s eligible in a few of the Oscar categories. In short, we now know what’s up for Academy Award nominations in the Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary Feature, and Best International Feature categories. Until we get to a shortlist, everything is up for grabs, but now we know what’s at least in the running, and that’s good… Here now are the lists: Animated Feature Film “Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus” “Bombay Rose” “Calamity” “The Croods: A New Age” “Demon Slayer -Kimetsu No Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train” “Dreambuilders” “Lane” “On-Gaku: Our Sound” “Onward” “Over the Moon” “Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs” “Ride Your Wave” “Scoob!” “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon” “Soul” “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” “Terra Willy” “Trolls World Tour...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday released its official entries for 2021 Oscars in the categories of Documentary Feature, Animated Feature and International Films. The takeaway: As expected, the eligible Documentary Feature lineup shatters the record for the most ever.

A total of 238 features are eligible for consideration in the Doc Feature category, breaking the previous record of 170 set in 2017. Last year, by contrast, 159 feature documentaries qualified. The Academy relaxed eligibility rules in light of Covid-19, so that any film that could make a claim of an intended theatrical release was deemed eligible. Earning awards from film festivals was an alternative way to qualify.

For the International Feature race, Lesotho, Sudan and Suriname are first-time entrants among the 93 eligible titles, the same total as last year. Earlier this year, the Academy’s Board of Governors boosted the number of films eligible for the shortlist from 10 to 15. Under the new rules,...

The Oscars Best Documentary Feature race, which set a new record for entries in December when it passed the previous record of 170, has now left all previous years in the dust with 240 eligible films.

An additional 25 documentary features were placed in the members-only online screening room devoted to the category on Saturday, in what the Academy told voters would be “the final batch” of this year’s entries. It was the last of seven groups of documentaries that qualified and were placed into the screening room: 25 in July, 12 in August, 16 in September, 33 in October, 36 in November, a huge group of 93 in December and now 25 in January.

Academy rules put in place because of the Covid-19 pandemic made it easier than usual for documentaries to qualify for the Oscars this year, which opened the door for a field that obliterated the previous record, which was set in 2017. Films could qualify simply...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Michael Apted by Andrew H. Walker. Filmmaker Michael Apted, best known for an eclectic filmography that includes Coal Miner's Daughter, The World is Not Enough, and the Up documentary series, has died at 79. In his obituary, Peter Bradshaw writes that the Up series, Apted's epic masterpiece, "had an incalculable effect on [...] the thinking of the British progressive left – as it asked us to ruminate on the inescapability or otherwise of class, and what narratives were possible for working people."Recommended VIEWINGAbove: John Gianvito's Her Socialist Smile (2020). John Gianvito's Her Socialist Smile, one of the best films of 2020, is now playing at the National Gallery of the Arts' website. Read our review of the film by Michael Sicinski here.To commemorate avant-garde filmmaking titan Stan Brakhage's birthday on January 14, Re:voir will be...

The Academy has added 93 more films to the members-only screening room devoted to entries in the Best Documentary Feature category, bringing the total number of eligible contenders to a record-shattering 215.

The previous record for entries was 170 in 2017. And this year’s crop of nonfiction films is expected to pass that number by an even bigger margin — at least 50 — once a final, smaller group of films is added to the screening room in January.

New eligibility rules that were passed in the wake of the Covid-19 theater closings made it easier for documentaries to qualify this year by allowing them to do so by playing at film festivals, even virtual ones, and by easing requirements for theatrical runs. In an email to members detailing the new additions, the Academy said, “The Documentary Branch Executive Committee felt it was important to be inclusive and supportive of documentary filmmakers in this unprecedented and challenging year.

If you were to look at the members-only screening room where films in contention for the Academy Award for Best Picture stream for voters, you might think that documentaries are going to do very well in the Oscars top category this year.

As of Dec. 7, there were 104 films in the Academy Screening Room for the Best Picture category, 26 of which were documentaries. That’s a full 25% of the field, which seems to suggest that nonfiction filmmakers and the companies that release them are optimistic that Oscar voters will recognize docs when they vote this year. After all, it costs $12,500 to put a film in that screening room — and all 26 docs that paid the cost to be there are also in the separate screening room available to the Academy’s Documentary Branch. Spots in that screening room are free for any film that qualifies in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Common sense,...

By Glenn Dunks

Barbara Kopple’s new film is an interesting one. But not necessarily for any reason related to style or form and potentially completely by accident. Rather, it’s interesting for how well it encapsulates America’s idealised image of itself. For Desert One is a documentary that charts the various ins and outs of a top secret military mission that was, to be perfectly frank, an utter shit show. A botched rescue attempt in 1980 of American hostages in Tehran that, in retrospect, was lucky to take off in the first place.

It’s in part because of this debacle that we got Argo.

And yet…...

Lagging a few weeks behind the rest of the world (where Russell Crowe road-rage thriller “Unhinged” released in several territories late last month), the United States is slowly seeing cinemas reopen in anticipation of Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” — still optimistically dated for Sept. 3.

But that doesn’t mean film fans don’t have options, opening on drive-in screens, virtual cinemas and subscriptions services.

With more than 30 new movies releasing in the U.S. this week, Variety helps steer you to the most interesting of these choices. Take your pick of everything from hard-hitting dramas — including stirring Black history lessons “The 24th” and “Emperor” — to action movies such as “Cut Throat City” and “Train to Busan” sequel “Peninsula.” Family audiences will find “The One and Only Ivan” on Disney Plus, while those with more twisted sensibilities can choose to watch a “The Most Dangerous Game”-inspired humans-hunting-humans movie: Cambodian thriller “The Prey.

At a time when American moviegoers’ concerns are firmly focused on domestic issues, or on international players like Russia and China, it may seem odd to have two documentaries come out in the same week about events that happened decades ago in Iran. But Taghi Amirani’s “Coup 53” and Barbara Kopple’s “Desert One,” which open in select markets and in virtual cinemas on Aug. 21, have something to say about our current predicament even as they delve deeply into past collisions between the West and the Islamic world.

The films are set decades apart, Amirani’s in 1953 and Kopple’s in 1980. But they are inextricably linked, because the coup that overthrew the democratically-elected prime minister and strengthened the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, in 1953 led inexorably to the Islamic revolution that toppled the Shah in 1979 and led to Iranian college students taking U.S. diplomats...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Afterschool, Christine, and Simon Killer (Antonio Campos)

Before his star-studded gothic drama The Devil All the Time lands on Netflix in a few weeks, Antonio Campos’ first three features arrive on the streaming platform this week. Each a fascinating career study in isolation and loneliness, captured with a formally controlled eye, it’ll be curious in comparison to see how Campos tackles his first true ensemble film. For now, it’s the perfect time to revisit this trio of impressive indies. – Jordan R.

Where to Stream: Netflix

The August Virgin (Jonás Trueba)

In the new movie The August Virgin, a young woman named Eva wanders the sidewalks and watering...

Observational documentarian Barbara Kopple has a long history of making herself seem invisible, but the vérité intimacy and anti-establishment zeal of Oscar-winning classics like “Harlan County, USA,” and “American Dream” suggest that her signature work couldn’t have been made by anyone else; Kopple isn’t absent from these films so much as she’s sublimated into the air they breathe. “Desert One” is different — you couldn’t find Kopple’s fingerprints on this comprehensive but incurious account of the Iran hostage crisis if you watched the movie through a magnifying glass. Valuable for its access yet limited by its lack of perspective, “Desert One” puts a human face on one of the late 20th century’s worst debacles while framing the whole thing in the passive voice, resulting in a film that boasts the immediacy of a testament but the resonance of a textbook. It’s a documentary that...

With production backing from The History Channel, Barbara Kopple’s sweeping, objective examination of the failed 1980 rescue attempt of the U.S. hostages in Iran under the Carter administration, Desert One, is an absorbing all-sides look at one of the most infamously botched military missions in our nation’s history. Combining talking heads from both U.S. and Iranian viewpoints, in addition to animated interludes by Iranian artist Zartosht Sotani, Desert One might be too conventional in its approach, but it is nevertheless an absorbing documentary.

Eschewing her usual vérité approach, Kopple dives headfirst into the historical context, exploring the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini after the overthrow of the Iranian Shah, long considered a puppet of American interests. Zeroing in on President Carter’s humanitarian approach to global relations, Kopple quickly jumps into the takeover of the American embassy and the forced confinement of 52 Americans by Iranian captors. In response,...

In her latest film, Academy Award-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple turns her eye on the failed attempt to end the Iran Hostage Crisis that played out during 1979 and 1980. Named after the operational staging area in Iran, Desert One tracks one of Delta Force’s earliest missions, as President Jimmy Carter ordered a rescue of the 52 American hostages within the U.S. embassy, whose initial takeover was recreated in Ben Affleck’s Argo.

As the first trailer shows, ahead of a release later this month, Kopple intermixes talking heads, archival footage, and animation to recreate the mission, contextualizing its role both in Carter’s presidency and the 1980 presidential election, as well as the larger Iranian Revolution. One of the most daring rescue attempts in US history, Operation Eagle Claw, as it was known, was an incredibly risky mission, as Carter himself claimed, “If we are not successful, it will be my defeat.

"If we are successful, it will be your achievement. If we are not successful, it will be my defeat." Greenwich Ent. has released an official trailer for the documentary film Desert One, the latest from award-winning docu filmmaker Barbara Kopple. This originally premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year, and also stopped by the Doc NYC, AFI Fest, Hamptons Doc Fest, Palm Springs, Big Sky, and Boulder Film Festivals. Using new archival sources and unprecedented access, master documentarian Barbara Kopple reveals the story behind one of the most daring rescues in modern US history: a secret mission to free hostages of the 1979 Iranian revolution. This looks incredible! With Kopple directing, this already has an edge over so many docs. She is so talented at looking back into history and telling these remarkable stories with so much detail and fervor. This is also just a gripping trailer that fully sold me on this film.

Exclusive: Greenwich Entertainment has acquired the North American theatrical and select home entertainment rights for Barbara Kopple’s documentary Desert One. Greenwich will release Desert One on a to-be-determined date followed by a broadcast on History.

The docu from the two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker, which debuted at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, revisits April 1980 when the military participated in a rescue operation known as Operation Eagle Claw, whee they rescued 52 U.S. citizens who were taken hostage by Iranian revolutionaries in Tehran. Desert One features interviews with President Jimmy Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, ABC Nightline journalist Ted Koppel, former hostages, journalists and Iranian student revolutionaries who orchestrated the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran. Animations will present never before heard satellite phone recordings of President Carter talking to his generals as the mission unfolds as it will take viewers deep into the historic operation.

More from Deadline'Hope, Through History': Historian Jon Meacham,...

A military documentary that highlights a major defeat instead of a victory, Barbara Kopple’s Desert One revisits the failed 1980 Delta Force mission — known as Operation Eagle Claw — that was supposed to rescue 52 hostages who were trapped for over a year at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. A logistical nightmare that resulted in the death of eight soldiers and, some believe, Jimmy Carter’s defeat in the presidential election, the seemingly minor event would have a significant political impact over the next decade and is still seen as a low point in late-20th century American history....

A military documentary that highlights a major defeat instead of a victory, Barbara Kopple’s Desert One revisits the failed 1980 Delta Force mission — known as Operation Eagle Claw — that was supposed to rescue 52 hostages who were trapped for over a year at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. A logistical nightmare that resulted in the death of eight soldiers and, some believe, Jimmy Carter’s defeat in the presidential election, the seemingly minor event would have a significant political impact over the next decade and is still seen as a low point in late-20th century American history....

September 11, 2001, was the day that changed our world — but really, the day that changed our world was April 24, 1980. That was when the United States, under the leadership of President Jimmy Carter, launched Operation Eagle Claw, the Delta Force mission (it was the very first Delta Force mission) that was designed to bring an immediate end to the Iran-hostage crisis by rescuing all 52 of the hostages who were being held at the U.S. Embassy and Foreign Ministry buildings in Tehran.

We all know how that worked out; it ended in disaster. The Delta Force soldiers landed in the Iranian desert in eight helicopters, only five of which were still operational. Since it had been decided during the planning stages that the mission should be aborted if less than six helicopters remained, President Carter called the mission off. It was then that the debacle happened.

As the U.S. forces were getting ready to leave,...