Last week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the 15 semi-finalists for the Oscar as best documentary feature. They include two movies that screened at the just-concluded St. Louis International Film Festival: “Fuel,” about alternative-energy sources, and “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” about women’s rights in Liberia. The latter film opens at the  Tivoli on December 12.

Other semi-finalists include the national-debt doc “I.O.U.S.A.,” which played locally this fall; Werner Herzog’s Antartica film “Encounters at the End of the World”; Erroll Morris’ Abu Ghraib expose “Standard Operating Procedure”; and two of my favorite films of the year: “Man on Wire,” about the high-wire artist who walked between the twin towers of the World Trade Center; and “Trouble the Water,” an up-close account of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

Conspicuously absent from the list are Bill Maher’s very profitable “Religulous”; Alex Gibney’s “Gonzo”; and the poignant “Dear Zachary,” which played at the St. Louis film festival but is ineligible for an Oscar because it is going to play on TV (MSNBC) in early December.

The complete list:

“At the Death House Door”
“The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)”
“Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh”
“Encounters at the End of the World”
“Fuel”
“The Garden”
“Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts”
“I.O.U.S.A.”
“In a Dream”
“Made in America”
“Man on Wire”
“Pray the Devil Back to Hell”
“Standard Operating Procedure”
“They Killed Sister Dorothy”
“Trouble the Water”