The five films nominated for Best Documentary at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards cover a variety of different topics, including everything from street art to the war in Afghanistan to the global economic crisis. The nominees for the 2011 Best Documentary Feature are Exit Through the Gift Shop, Gasland, Inside Job, Restrepo and Waste Land.http://oscar.go.com/#category_documentary-feature   These five Oscar contenders were chosen from a so-called "shortlist" of 15 eligible films.  Documentaries that made the shortlist but were not nominated included Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, The Tillman Story and Waiting for Superman.http://www.filmjunk.com/2010/11/18/2011-oscar-documentary-feature-shortlist-revealed/   

While documentaries are eligible to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, no documentary has ever garnered such a nomination.http://www.indiewire.com/article/for_your_consideration_could_a_documentary_be_nominated_for_best_picture/    

Exit Through the Gift Shop is a 2010 documentary directed by "guerrilla" street artist Banksy.  The film follows a French immigrant videographer who documents his experiences on film, including his attempts to find the elusive Banksy.  Banksy decides to "turn the tables" and make the videographer the subject of the piece.http://oscar.go.com/nominations/category/documentary-feature/synopsis/exit-through-the-gift-shop/687163  

In Gasland, director John Fox attempts to shed light on the practice of "fracking" - a specific way of drilling for natural gas in the U.S., including its "environmental repercussions."  Fox travels across the U.S. interviewing scientists, EPA whistle blowers and elected officials as he documents evidence of "serious pollution and contamination" caused by the rapidly growing natural gas drilling industry.http://oscar.go.com/nominations/category/documentary-feature/synopsis/gasland/687161 

Inside Job is a documentary that chronicles the 2008 global financial crisis.  The film, directed and co-written by Charles Ferguson and narrated by Matt Damon, examines the practices that may have contributed to the economic meltdown through interviews with government officials, "financial insiders" and others.http://oscar.go.com/nominations/category/documentary-feature/synopsis/inside-job/687149 http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inside_job_2010/   

In the documentary Restrepo, directors Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger follow the lives of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Second Platoon, in a volatile area of Afghanistan, as they battle the Taliban over a period of approximately 14 months.  The film examines the human toll that the Afghan war is taking on the soldiers and how they "struggle to find meaning in their devotion to their comrades."http://oscar.go.com/nominations/category/documentary-feature/synopsis/restrepo/687141 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1559549/  

Waste Land is a 2010 documentary that follows Brazilian artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his current home in New York to Brazil.  There, he chronicles the lives of so-called "garbage pickers" at the largest landfill in the world, the Jardim Gramacho, located just outside of Rio de Janeiro.  These "garbage pickers" scour the massive landfill for recyclable materials.http://oscar.go.com/nominations/category/documentary-feature/synopsis/waste-land/687132 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1268204/  

The first official Best Documentary Feature Academy Award was given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1943.  That year, the Oscar went to Desert Victory. More recent winners of the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award have included The Cove in 2009, Man on Wire in 2008, Taxi to the Dark Side in 2007 and An Inconvenient Truth in 2006.  Other winners over the past decade include March of the Penguins (2005), Born into Brothels (2004), The Fog of War (2003), Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001) and Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000).http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1298085282958