On the eve of the release of the documentary shortlist, the Academy’s list of semi-finalists for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar nomination, AJ Schnack does the math to rank the 30 best reviewed documentaries of the year. His findings might surprise you. Although the race’s obvious heavyweights (particularly Michael Moore’s Sicko, and the two Iraq docs produced by Alex Gibney No End in Sight and Taxi to the Dark Side), do make the cut, data provided by Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic reveals that the most critically beloved documentary of the year is none other than The King of Kong, directed by Seth Gordon, who we interviewed back in August.

Gordon’s video game rivalry doc certainly has come a long way since opening at Slamdance, where it competed for the attention of Park City with Chasing Ghosts, a Sundance entry covering some of the same ground and featuring some of the arcade all-stars. But Kong’s eventual dominance over that film by way of critical reception (99% on Rotten Tomatoes) and relative box office success ($678,000 so far, making it the eighth highest grossing doc of the year and one of the Top 100 docs of all time) may just have to be victory enough. With so many semi-high-profile non fiction films out this year about serious global crises, AJ implies that AMPAS might decide that Kong is too fluffy to make the shortlist.

This might be the perfect example to reveal the growing chasm between film critics and the Academy.

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