The nominations for Documentary Feature Films 2026 are:The Alabama Solution – Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman. I saw this on my laptop this past week. “Inside one of the nation’s deadliest prison systems, incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up.” During an annual event, where inmates at Alabama’s prisons were, uncharacteristically, given edible food.
This led to prisoners recording contraband cell phone footage taken by incarcerated men at facilities across the state. Jarecki tells Jimmy Fallon how he was able to make the film.
From Sundance: “The Alabama Solution exposes the inhumane conditions, systemic injustice, and brutal treatment of those behind bars in the Alabama prison system, told through their own voices and their own stories. The film expertly weaves the pressing issues of prison privatization, inmate slave labor, abuse of power, government corruption, and extreme violence together to help audiences on the outside get a real sense of the abhorrent conditions of our fellow human beings.”
It is remarkable that it got made at all, very important, and frankly, depressing as hell. One inmate killed by a sadistic guard became a narrative about his family seeking, if not justice, then at least real answers.
For whatever reason, I could not view it on my Roku, yet I could see it online HERE.
Andrea Gibson
Come See Me in the Good Light – Ryan White, Jessica Hargrave, Tig Notaro, and Stef Willen
The Colorado poet laureate, Andrea Gibson, was a rock star. Their live presentations were so popular that they were selling out venues. They met poet Megan Falley on the spoken-word poetry circuit, and Gibson and Falley became a couple.
When the film crew is invited into the home, Andrea had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2021. Surgery and treatments worked for a time, but the aggressive cancer kept returning. Eventually, the doctors declared Gibson incurable.
Yet the couple is occasionally hysterically funny together. Andrea claims she only knows “five words” while Megan edits Andrea’s work, which Andrea “hates” because Megan is usually correct. And sometimes bawdy, as the producers explain in this later interview with Stephen Colbert.
Still, the pair knows Andrea has lived past the time the doctors gave them. It sounds like a cliché, but you believe that Gibson and Falley are aware that every day is a gift and that nothing is a guarantee. Gibson knows every moment is much sweeter. They celebrate after good medical news, but when reading brutal test results, Andrea, in particular, notes. “When I accept it, all of the sweetness trickles in.”
Gibson really wants to perform one more show, but doesn’t want to book it and then have to bail.
This was ultimately a joyous celebration of life and its vagaries. I loved this film, which I saw on Apple TV.
Also
I have not seen the other three films yet.
Cutting Through Rocks – Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni. “First female councilor in her Iranian village, Sara Shahverdi challenges tradition by teaching girls to ride motorcycles and fighting child marriage, while facing doubts about her motives.” I can’t find it streaming.
Mr. Nobody against Putin – David Borenstein, Pavel Talankin, Helle Faber, and Alžběta Karásková. “Before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine…, Pavel “Pasha” Talankin was just a school videographer and events coordinator. But when the war started, everything changed.” The documentary “charts how Pasha became a one-man resistance movement simply by turning his camera on. He turned his state-mandated footage into an eye-opening exposé on pro-war propaganda at the school level, making Karabash a window into Putin’s insidious militarization tactics.” You can get a 7-day free trial from Kino.
The Perfect Neighbor – Geeta Gandbhir, Alisa Payne, Nikon Kwantu, and Sam Bisbee. “Ajike ‘AJ’ Owens was a beloved mother of four who was raising her children in a tight-knit community in Ocala, Florida. Owens was fatally shot by her neighbor, Susan Lorincz, over a seemingly minor dispute gone wrong, one rooted in Lorincz’s frustration with children playing in a field outside her home.” It is available on Netflix.