Best Documentary, 1948

Awards presented March 24, 1949

And the nominees were ...
(Feature)

• The Quiet One, Janice Loeb, producer 
• The Secret Land, Orville O. Dull, producer 

(Short Subject) 

• Heart to Heart, Herbert Morgan, producer 
• Operation Vittles, United States Army Air Force 
• Toward Independence, United States Army 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Feature) 

The Secret Land, Orville O. Dull, producer. 

An account of the U.S. Navy's expedition to Antarctica in 1946-47, under the command of Adm. Richard E. Byrd. Filmed by Navy photographers, with narration by Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor and Van Heflin, all of whom served in the Navy in World War II. The music is by Bronislau Kaper. This is the sole Oscar for Dull, who had been nominated once when there was a category for assistant directors. 

(Short Subject) 

Toward Independence, United States Army. 

A scene from Toward Independence

This film about the rehabilitation of disabled veterans was directed by George L. George for the Army Signal Corps. A print is preserved in the Academy library, but the film seems to be otherwise unlocatable. 

Best Documentary, 1947

Awards presented March 20, 1948

The nominees were ... 
(Feature) 

• Design for Death, Sid Rogell, executive producer; Theron Warth and Richard O. Fleischer, producers 
• Journey Into Medicine, United States Department of State Office of Information and Educational Exchange 
• The World Is Rich, Paul Rotha, producer 

(Short Subject) 

• First Steps, United Nations Division of Films and Visual Information 
• Passport to Nowhere, Frederic Ullman Jr., producer 
• School in the Mailbox, Australian News & Information Bureau 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Feature) 
Design for Death, Sid Rogell, executive producer; Theron Warth and Richard O. Fleischer, producers.

A portrayal of Japanese culture based on an Army training film, Our Job in Japan, for troops stationed in postwar Japan. It was written by Theodor S. Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, and his wife, Helen. Rogell, an RKO producer, took on the job of turning it into a feature for postwar audiences. Editor Elmo Williams claimed that he and Geisel did all the work and that Fleischer (who would later direct the Pearl Harbor movie Tora! Tora! Tora!) and Warth, an RKO editor, made minimal contributions. The portrayal of prewar Japan as "old, backward, superstitious" and the Shinto religion as "out of date" is simplistic and offensive, but wartime animosities die hard. The film, in any case, is rarely seen today, though its source, Our Job in Japan, is available on YouTube. 

(Short Subject) 

First Steps, United Nations Division of Films and Visual Information.

A very upbeat short film about physical and occupational therapy for children with disabilities. Written by Al Wasserman, who later became a writer, director, and producer for NBC News. 

Best Documentary, 1946

Awards presented March 13, 1947

A paucity of feature-length documentaries left the Academy with only shorts that qualified as nominees. 

The nominees were ... 
(Short Film) 

• Atomic Power, The March of Time 
• Life at the Zoo, Artkino 
• Paramount News Issue #37 (Twentieth Anniversary Issue! 1927 ... 1947), Paramount 
• Seeds of Destiny, United States Department of War 
• Traffic With the Devil, Herbert Morgan, producer 

And the Oscar went to ... 

Seeds of Destiny, United States Department of War.

Effective and often harrowing portrayal of the devastating effect of World War II on civilian populations, especially children, making a sharp contrast with the comparatively unscathed United States. It was designed to encourage support for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Directed by David Miller and narrated by Ralph Bellamy.

Best Documentary, 1945

Awards presented March 7, 1946

With the war drawing to an end, the flood of documentaries from the various branches of the military slowed to a trickle. But the documentary award had established itself as an Oscar category, albeit one that would generate controversy in years to come. 

The nominees were ... 

(Feature) 

• The Last Bomb, United States Army Air Force 
• The True Glory, The Governments of Great Britain and the United States of America 

(Short Subject) 

• Hitler Lives? Gordon Hollingshead, producer 
• Library of Congress, United States Office of War Information Overseas Motion Picture Bureau 
• To the Shores of Iwo Jima, United States Marine Corps 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Feature) 

The True Glory, The Governments of Great Britain and the United States of America. 

A survey of the course of the war in Europe from D-Day to the fall of Berlin, directed by Garson Kanin and Carol Reed, with a script credited to Paddy Chayefsky, although many other writers were involved, including Peter Ustinov. The chief British narrator is Robert Harris, but various British and American speakers recount their wartime experiences. A remarkable and often stirring record of the wartime experience, though slanted toward heroism rather than realism. 

(Short Subject) 

Hitler Lives? Gordon Hollingshead, producer.

A shrill, unsettling propaganda short, that presents Germany as an ongoing threat. Directed by Don Siegel, who also directed Star in the Night, which won the two-reel short film Oscar in the same year. The hectoring narrator is Knox Manning.

Best Documentary, 1944

Awards presented March 15, 1945
The nominees were ...
(Feature) 

• The Fighting Lady, United States Navy
• Resisting Enemy Interrogation, United States Army Air Force 

(Short Subject) 

• Arturo Toscanini, United States Office of War Information Overseas Motion Picture Bureau 
• New Americans, RKO Radio  
• With the Marines at Tarawa, United States Marine Corps  

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Feature) 

The Fighting Lady, United States Navy. 

Daily life aboard an aircraft carrier, whose name is not revealed but in fact was the USS Yorktown. Narrated by Robert Taylor and directed by the photographer Edward Steichen with the uncredited help of William Wyler. 

(Short Subject) 

With the Marines at Tarawa, United States Marine Corps. 

Directed by Louis Hayward and narrated by William Lundigan, this short contained more graphic footage of death in combat than usual, and required special permission from President Franklin Roosevelt to be released and distributed. 

Best Documentary, 1943

Awards presented March 2, 1944

At the previous year's presentation ceremony, David O. Selznick had to read out twenty-nine names of the nominees for best documentary, so the Academy decided to do something about that. This was still the era of the "propagandoc," the film made to advance the war effort. So the Academy announced a "preliminary list" of documentaries eligible for the award, but then pared the list to "official nominations." It also divided the category into short films and feature-length films for the first time. There were eight films in the preliminary long-list of feature documentaries, and twenty-one in the short film division. These were reduced to five feature nominees and seven short-film nominees. 

The nominees were ... 

(Feature) 

• Baptism of Fire, United States Army 
• The Battle of Russia, United States Department of War Special Service Division 
• Desert Victory, British Ministry of Information 
• Report From the Aleutians, United States Army Pictorial Service 
• War Department Report, United States Office of Strategic Services Field Photographic Bureau 

(Short subject) 

• Children of Mars, RKO Radio 
• December 7th, United States Navy  
• Plan for Destruction, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 
• Swedes in America, United States Office of War Information Overseas Motion Picture Bureau 
• To the People of the United States, Walter Wanger, producer 
• Tomorrow We Fly, United States Navy Bureau of Aeronautics 
• Youth in Crisis, The March of Time 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Feature) 

Desert Victory, British Ministry of Information. 

The British campaign in North Africa against Field Marshall Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps, with a focus on the battle of El Alamein. The documentary, relying on footage captured from the Germans, was directed by Roy Boulting and David MacDonald, and is narrated by J.L. Hodson from his own script. 

(Short subject) 

December 7th, United States Navy. 

This dramatization of the attack on Pearl Harbor exists in several versions: The original theatrical version was thirty-four minutes long. The one submitted for the Academy Award was twenty minutes long. A "restored version" has assembled all the footage, some of it cut by the military censors because it was too sympathetic to the Japanese-Americans of Hawaii, into an eighty-two minute cut. Produced by John Ford and directed by Ford and cinematographer Gregg Toland, with a somewhat melodramatic narration, partly written by Budd Schulberg, by James K. McGuinness and Irving Pichel. The cast includes Walter Huston, Harry Davenport, and Dana Andrews. Professionally, if not a little too slickly, done, with music by Alfred Newman. Editor Robert Parrish smoothly combined newsreel and staged footage.

Best Documentary, 1942

Awards presented March 4, 1943

After introducing the documentary as a short-film category in the previous year, the Academy decided to open it up to features as well. It also decided that, in view of the tremendous increase in the number of films being made internationally to promote the war effort, it would open the nominations to foreign filmmakers as well. The result was a glut of nominees, and for the first and only time the Academy chose four winners, giving them "special awards" with citations. The documentary category has been rife with controversy, and perhaps making it an award for the most effective propaganda films was only the first instance.

The nominees were ... 

• Africa, Prelude to Victory, The March of Time 
• The Battle of Midway, United States Navy 
• Combat Report, United States Army Signal Corps   
• Conquer by the Clock, Frederick Ullman Jr., producer  
• The Grain That Built a Hemisphere, Walt Disney, producer  
• Henry Browne, Farmer, United States Department of Agriculture  
• High Over the Borders, National Film Board of Canada 
• High Stakes in the East, The Netherlands Information Bureau 
• Inside Fighting China, National Film Board of Canada 
• It's Everybody's War, United States Office of War Information 
• Kokoda Front Line! Australian News & Information Bureau 
• Listen to Britain, British Ministry of Information 
• Little Belgium, Belgian Ministry of Information 
• Little Isles of Freedom, Victor Stoloff and Edgar Loew, producers  
• Mr. Blabbermouth! United States Office of War Information 
• Mr. Gardenia Jones, United States Office of War Information 
• Moscow Strikes Back, Artkino 
• The New Spirit, Walt Disney, producer  
• Prelude to War, United States Army Special Services   
• The Price of Victory, William H. Pine, producer  
• A Ship Is Born, United States Merchant Marine   
• Twenty-One Miles, British Ministry of Information   
• We Refuse to Die, William C. Thomas, producer  
• White Eagle, Concanen Films   
• Winning Your Wings, United States Army Air Force 

And the Oscar went to ... 
The Battle of Midway, United States Navy. "A special award to Battle of Midway for the historical value of its achievement in offering a camera record of one of the decisive battles of the world -- a record unique both for the courage of those who made it under fire, and for its magnificent portray of the gallantry of our armed forces in battle." 

A professionally made documentary, though today it seems clichéd in its narrative and musical effects. It was directed by John Ford, who also shot some of the footage. The screenplay was written by Ford, Dudley Nichols, and James Kevin McGuinness; the narrators include Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, and Donald Crisp; the score is by Alfred Newman; and it was edited by Robert Parrish. 


Kokoda Front Line! Australian News & Information Bureau. "A special award to Kokoda Front Line! for its effectiveness in portraying, simply yet forcefully, the scene of war in New Guinea and for its moving presentation of the bravery and fortitude of our Australian comrades in arms." 

Cameraman Damien Parer's footage of Australian soldiers in New Guinea is introduced by Parer and narrated by Peter Bathurst. Directed by Ken G. Hall. The footage is vivid and genuine, but the canned music track is obtrusive and sometimes inappropriate. 




Moscow Strikes Back, Artkino. "A special award to Moscow Strikes Back for its vivid presentation of the heroism of the Russian Army and of the Russian people in the defense of Moscow, and for its achievement in so doing under conditions of extreme difficulty and danger." 

The feature-length American version, released by Republic, has a narration, spoken by Edward G. Robinson and written by Albert Maltz and Elliot Paul. (Maltz was blacklisted in 1947 as one of the Hollywood Ten who were cited for contempt of Congress for their refusal to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.) The music score is by William Hodgson and Dimitri Tiomkin. The Soviet version, directed by Leonid Varlamov and Ilya Kopalin, won the Stalin Prize. 




Prelude to War, United States Army Special Services. "A special award to Prelude to War for its trenchant conception and stirring dramatization of the events which forced our nation into the war and of the ideals for which we fight."  

The first installment in the "Why We Fight" series, designed as a series of training films for American soliders and produced by Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak. It's a backgrounder on the causes of the war, thick with a propagandistic view of history and national character, but somewhat more sophisticated in its presentation than you might expect. The narrator is Walter Huston. The screenwriters include Julius and Philip Epstein, who would win Oscars the following year for Casablanca. 

Best Documentary, 1941

Awards presented February 26, 1942

It had been only two months since the attack on Pearl Harbor when the Academy announced the nominees for the 1941 Oscars, but that was enough time for it to realize the necessity for a documentary film category and for filmmakers, especially in the countries already involved in the war, to make films that qualified. In the days before television, the movies were the only source for visual information about what was going on in the world elsewhere, and the war made it clear that newsreels, traditionally part of the movie exhibition package, wouldn't be sufficient. Eventually the category would expand to features, especially with such eminent filmmakers as John Ford and William Wyler lending their talents to the efforts to document the war, but this year's documentary nominees were all short films.

The nominees were ... 
(Short) 

• Adventure in the Bronx, Film Associates 
• Bomber, United States Office for Emergency Management Film Unit 
• Christmas Under Fire, British Ministry of Information 
• Churchill's Island, National Film Board of Canada 
• Letter From Home, British Ministry of Information 
• Life of a Thoroughbred, Truman Talley, producer 
• Norway in Revolt, The March of Time 
• A Place to Live, Philadelphia Housing Association 
• Russian Soil, Amkino 
• Soldiers of the Sky, Truman Talley, producer 
• War Clouds in the Pacific, National Film Board of Canada 

And the Oscar went to ... 

Churchill's Island, National Film Board of Canada. 

Effective propaganda film about the British resistance to the Nazis, if somewhat heavy on melodramatic narration. The speaker is Lorne Greene, who was a top Canadian radio newscaster, earning the nickname "The Voice of Doom" for his wartime newsreading, before he came south in the 1950s and became a TV star. It's fitting that the NFB, established in 1939 primarily as a propaganda outlet, should be the first winner of the documentary Oscar. It went on to win eleven more Academy Awards, many of them for animated films after filmmaker Norman McLaren joined the organization in 1941, and a total -- so far -- of seventy-two nominations.