Nominated for Best Documentary Feature 
Alexei Navalny is a vocal opponent and opposition leader to Vladimir Putin. He has campaigned for years to improve democracy in Russia, arguing for free and fair elections, using his YouTube channel to call out corruption in government, and rallying the people of Russia to expect better from their elected officials. In 2017, on the plane back from shooting a segment in Siberia, Navalny collapsed and was rushed to a hospital. Kremlin-backed doctors and cops blocked any inquiry into his condition and refused to release him until international pressure forced their hand. A hospital in Germany determined that Navalny had been poisoned with a nerve agent. In 2020, a Belgian researcher reached out to Navalny with evidence that not only pointed directly to Putin, but to the specific government-funded assassins sent to do the job and the specific lab from which the poison originated. Navalny, who never lost his sense of humor during his ordeals, decided to use social media and put Putin on blast, coordinating an exposé through multiple international outlets, YouTube, and TikTok.
This is a breezy documentary that just skirts the line of hagiography. Navalny is charismatic, good-humored, and witty with a beautiful family, a tailor-made protagonist to Vladimir Voldemort. It's an easy story with an almost cartoonishly dumb group of villains, including a henchmen who talks too much. But the real hero here is Christo Grozev, the "nerd with a laptop" who pieced the entire plot together and presented it to Navalny on a silver platter. He's basically the entire Leverage team rolled into one guy.
Navalny is currently streaming on HBO Max.
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