The awards season rages on with the New York Critics Circle handing Zero Dark Thirty top honors today, but now it’s time to shift to documentaries. AMPAS decided on fifteen films that will advance to the next stage of voting, which will pare things down to five. Included on the list is Jafar Pahani‘s excellent This is Not a Film, as well as other praised docs including How to Survive a Plague, The Imposter and The House I Live In. Two surprising exclusions were Queen of Versailles and Jiro Dreams of Sushi, but sadly, they can’t all make the cut. Check out the press release below.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 85th Academy Awards®. One hundred twenty-six pictures had originally qualified in the category.

The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:

“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” Never Sorry LLC
“Bully,” The Bully Project LLC
“Chasing Ice,” Exposure
“Detropia,” Loki Films
“Ethel,” Moxie Firecracker Films
“5 Broken Cameras,” Guy DVD Films
“The Gatekeepers,” Les Films du Poisson, Dror Moreh Productions, Cinephil
“The House I Live In,” Charlotte Street Films, LLC
“How to Survive a Plague,” How to Survive a Plague LLC
“The Imposter,” Imposter Pictures Ltd.
“The Invisible War,” Chain Camera Pictures
“Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God,” Jigsaw Productions in association with Wider Film Projects and Below the Radar Films
“Searching for Sugar Man,” Red Box Films
“This Is Not a Film,” Wide Management
“The Waiting Room,” Open’hood, Inc.

The Documentary Branch viewed the eligible documentaries for the preliminary round of voting. Documentary Branch members will now select the five nominees from among the 15 titles on the shortlist. The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Who do you hope takes home the Oscar?