Having now been in the content producing game since 2013, Netflix has picked up their second academy award with last year’s signature documentary, Icarus. It won the award for Best Documentary Feature. Netflix famously acquired their first academy award last year in the documentary short subject category with The White Helmets.
Sports doping has been a controversial and important subject over the past few years with it creeping up in the news again today with an investigation into the British cycling team. First premiering at the Sundance Film Festival last year, Netflix later picked it up to join their Netflix Original documentary lineup. The full documentary released on Netflix on August 4th, 2017.
The documentary explores doping specifically in Russia with the help of Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Russian anti-doping effort. The documentary is directed by Bryan Fogel and produced alongside Dan Cogan, David Fialkow and Jim Swartz.
Every year since 2014, Netflix has an entry in the ‘Best Documentary Feature’ section but this was the first it won. It beat out the likes of Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Faces Places, Last Men in Aleppo and Netflix’s own Strong Island.
All of 2018’s Netflix Nominated Nominees
ICARUS, Strong Island, Heroin(e) and Mudbound were Netflix’s nominated titles. In total, they received 7 nominations (most going to Mudbound) which beats their previous record of 3 for 2017.
Mudbound was Netflix’s unlucky nomination this year having received nominations for Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Original Song, and Cinematography.
In previous years, Netflix has done well in the documentary feature section with entries since 2014. Notable titles include Virunga, The Square, Winter on Fire, 13th and What Happened Miss Simone?.
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