Best Picture is the most important Academy Award.

But what’s second and third?

Conventional wisdom would probably say Best Director and the lead acting awards, but the correct answers are International and Documentary.

Like Best Picture, they’re awards predicated on evaluating the entire (feature-length) movie, and not solely an individual component.

And, unlike with Animation, there’s actually ample competition. 

Based on the shortlists, here’s what my ballots would’ve looked like (with apologies to Thailand’s How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies and the Czech Republic’s Waves for not having seen them yet; blame their lack of theatrical screenings in NYC):

INTERNATIONAL

• I’m Still Here
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig
• Emilia Pérez
• Flow
• Armand

DOCUMENTARY

• Eno
• Dahomey
• Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
• No Other Land
• Queendom

And here are some of my other favorite documentaries released in the last year:

• Last Things
• Theater of Thought
• Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
• Turn in the Wound 
• Intercepted 
• Merchant Ivory
• It’s Not Me 

• Frank Capra: Mr. America
• Chasing Chasing Amy
• No Other Land 
• Martha
• My Name is Alfred Hitchcock 
• A New Kind of Wilderness
• Luther: Never Too Much 
• Music by John Williams
• Zurawski v Texas
• Daytime Revolution
• Will & Harper 
• Look Into My Eyes
• FLY: The IMAX Experience 
• My First Film 
• Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story 
• War Game 
• How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer 
• The Grab 
• Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes
• ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!
• Gasoline Rainbow
• High & Low – John Galliano
• Kim’s Video
• Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play.