On Tuesday, the documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its shortlist of 15 films that will be vying for the five nominations for an Oscar. The list is distinguished by a preponderance of films with political subjects, including three (“I Am Not Your Negro,’’ “13th,’’ and “O.J.: Made in America’’) about the issue of race in America.

Here are the contenders. The five finalists will be announced on Jan. 24 with the other Oscar nominees.

‘Cameraperson’

Kirsten Johnson, who has performed the title function on such films as Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911’’ and Laura Poitras’s “Citizenfour,’’ weaves together outtakes from her work to create a poetic cinema essay about film making and the responsibilities of a filmmaker.

‘Command and Control’

Robert Kenner’s terrifying report on a near cataclysmic accident at a nuclear missile silo in Arkansas in 1980.

‘The Eagle Huntress’

Otto Bell’s visually sumptuous docu-dramatization of a young Mongolian girl who dreams of mastering a giant raptor like her family’s generations of male eagle hunters before her.

‘Fire at Sea’

Gianfranco Rosi’s subtle, ultimately devastating comparison of the desperate plight of refugees and the blithe ignorance of Westerners as acted out on the microcosmic Italian island of Lampedusa.

‘Gleason’

Steve Gleason, a football player stricken with ALS, collaborates with documentarian Clay Tweel to make this a video diary of his life for his infant son. Harrowing, inspiring, and guaranteed to draw tears.

‘Hooligan Sparrow’

Filmmaker Nanfu Wang becomes part of the story when the Chinese authorities put pressure on her as she reports on the human rights activist of the title.

‘I Am Not Your Negro’

The civil rights movement in the words of the writer James Baldwin. Raoul Peck directs.

‘The Ivory Game’

Activists try to put a stop to ivory poaching in Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani’s documentary.

‘Life, Animated’

The parents of an autistic boy discover that they can speak with him through the characters and images of Disney animated movies. Roger Ross Williams directs.

‘O.J.: Made in America’

Ezra Edelman’s magisterial, nearly eight-hour-long documentary, in five acts like an Elizabethan tragedy, tells the story of half a century of American race relations through the high-profile life and crimes of O.J. Simpson.

‘13th’

Ava DuVernay’s brilliant history lesson shows how the constitutional amendment that freed the slaves gave birth to the prison culture that enslaves African-Americans today.

‘Tower’

Through meticulous rotoscoped re-creations emphasizing mood and period detail, Keith Maitland resurrects the horror of America’s first mass shooting, in 1966 at the University of Texas.

‘Weiner’

With incredibly intimate access, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg follow the narcissistic self-destruction of a rising star of the Left, bringing about not only his own downfall but, in retrospect, perhaps that of the Democratic Party.

‘The Witness’

The brother of Kitty Genovese, the woman who was stabbed to death in 1964 in Queens as several witnesses allegedly watched and did nothing, joins documentarian James Solomon to investigate what really happened.

‘Zero Days’

The title of Alex Gibney’s film refers to the warning time that cyber security experts would have when a system has been hacked by one of the new generation of super viruses. Ironically this technology may have been unleashed when the US and Israel hacked and disrupted the Iranian nuclear program in 2009.

Peter Keough can be reached at petervkeough@gmail.com.