Critics' Choice Documentary Award for Best Director

The Critics' Choice Documentary Award for Best Director is one of the awards presented annually by Critics Choice Association since the awards debuted in 2016.

Winners and nominees

Table key

indicates the winner

‡ Indicates the winner of Best Documentary Feature

2010s

Ezra Edelman won the award at the inaugural ceremony for the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary O.J.: Made in America

Morgan Neville won for directing Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Peter Jackson won for They Shall Not Grow Old in 2019

Year	Director(s)	Film	Ref.
2016 (1st)	Ezra Edelman	O.J.: Made in America ‡	[1] [2]
	Ron Howard	The Beatles: Eight Days a Week
	Kirsten Johnson	Cameraperson
	Keith Maitland	Tower
	Clay Tweel	Gleason
	Roger Ross Williams	Life, Animated
2017 (2nd)	Evgeny Afineevsky	Cries from Syria	[3]
	Frederick Wiseman	Ex Libris: The New York Public Library
	Amir Bar-Lev	Long Strange Trip
	Matthew Heineman	City of Ghosts
	Bill Morrison	Dawson City: Frozen Time
	Doug Nichol	California Typewriter
	Jeff Orlowski	Chasing Coral
	Irene Taylor Brodsky	Beware the Slenderman
	Ceyda Torun	Kedi
	Agnès Varda and JR	Faces Places
2018 (3rd)	Morgan Neville	Won't You Be My Neighbor? ‡	[4] [5]
	Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi	Free Solo
	Bing Liu	Minding the Gap
	Kimberly Reed	Dark Money
	Rudiger Suchsland	Hitler's Hollywood
	Tim Wardle	Three Identical Strangers
2019 (4th)	Peter Jackson	They Shall Not Grow Old	[6] [7]
	Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert	American Factory
	Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts	For Sama
	John Chester	The Biggest Little Farm
	Feras Fayyad	The Cave
	Todd Douglas Miller	Apollo 11 ‡
	Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang	One Child Nation

2020s

Kirsten Johnson won once from two nominations for Dick Johnson Is Dead in 2020

Questlove won in 2021 for the Harlem Cultural Festival documentary Summer of Soul

Year	Director(s)	Film	Ref.
2020 (5th)	Kirsten Johnson	Dick Johnson Is Dead ‡	[8] [9]
	Garrett Bradley	Time
	Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk	Athlete A
	Victor Kossakovsky	Gunda
	James Lebrecht and Nicole Newnham	Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
	Dawn Porter	John Lewis: Good Trouble
	Benjamin Ree	The Painter and the Thief
2021 (6th)	Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin	The Rescue	[10]
	Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson	Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) ‡
	Liz Garbus	Becoming Cousteau
	Jessica Kingdon	Ascension
	Stanley Nelson Jr. and Traci A. Curry	Attica
	Jonas Poher Rasmussen	Flee
	Edgar Wright	The Sparks Brothers
2022 (7th)	Ryan White	Good Night Oppy ‡	[11]
	Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio	George Carlin's American Dream
	Margaret Brown	Descendant
	Sara Dosa	Fire of Love
	Reginald Hudlin	Sidney
	Brett Morgen	Moonage Daydream
	Laura Poitras	All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
	Daniel Roher	Navalny
2023 (8th)	Davis Guggenheim	Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie ‡	[12]
	Maite Alberdi	The Eternal Memory
	Madeleine Gavin	Beyond Utopia
	Matthew Heineman	American Symphony
	Amanda McBaine	The Mission
	Steve McQueen	Occupied City
2024 (9th)	Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui	Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story ‡	[13] [14]
	Josh Greenbaum	Will & Harper
	Ron Howard	Jim Henson Idea Man
	Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie	Sugarcane
	Natalie Rae and Angela Patton	Daughters
	Benjamin Ree	The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
2025 (10th)	Mstyslav Chernov	2000 Meters to Andriivka	[15]
	Petra Costa	Apocalypse in the Tropics
	Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim	Deaf President Now!
	Geeta Gandbhir	The Perfect Neighbor
	Andrew Jarecki & Charlotte Kaufman	The Alabama Solution
	Raoul Peck	Orwell: 2+2=5

Multiple nominations

Nominations	Director
2	Jimmy Chin
	David Guggenheim
	Ron Howard
	Kirsten Johnson
	Benjamin Ree
	Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

References

1. Hammond, Pete (October 10, 2016). "'13th,' 'O.J.: Made In America' & 'Gleason' Lead Nominations For First Critics' Choice Documentary Awards". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved October 21, 2021.
2. Tapley, Kristopher (November 3, 2016). "'O.J.: Made in America,' '13th' Top First Annual Critics' Choice Documentary Awards". Variety . Retrieved October 21, 2021.
3. Chuba, Kirsten (October 11, 2017). "Critics' Choice Documentary Awards: 'Kedi' Leads Nominations". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved October 21, 2021.
4. Erbland, Kate (October 15, 2018). "Critics' Choice Documentary Awards Nominees Announced: 'Free Solo,' 'Minding the Gap,' and 'Wild Wild Country' Lead Nods". IndieWire . Retrieved October 21, 2021.
5. Lewis, Hilary (November 10, 2018). "Mr. Rogers Film 'Won't You Be My Neighbor?' Tops Critics' Choice Documentary Awards". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
6. Gray, Tim (October 14, 2019). "'Biggest Little Farm' Nabs Seven Critics' Choice Documentary Awards Nominations". Variety. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
7. Nordyke, Kimberly; Howard, Annie (November 10, 2019). "Critics' Choice Documentary Awards: 'Apollo 11' Tops Winners List". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
8. Hammond, Pete (October 26, 2020). "Critics' Choice Documentary Awards Nominations: 'Mr. Soul', 'Gunda', 'Crip Camp' And 'Totally Under Control' Top List". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
9. Moreau, Jordan (November 16, 2020). "'Dick Johnson Is Dead' Wins Best Feature at Critics Choice Documentary Awards". Variety. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
10. Feinberg, Scott (October 18, 2021). "Critics Choice Documentary Awards: 'Summer of Soul' and 'Ascension' Lead With 6 Nominations Each". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved October 21, 2021.
11. Nordyke, Kimberly (November 13, 2022). "'Good Night Oppy' Wins Top Prize at Critics Choice Documentary Awards". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved November 13, 2022.
12. Zilko, Christian (November 12, 2023). "'Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie' Sweeps the Critics Choice Documentary Awards (Complete Winners List)". IndieWire . Retrieved November 13, 2023.
13. Lewis, Hilary (October 14, 2024). "'Sugarcane' Leads Critics Choice Documentary Awards Nominations". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on October 21, 2024. Retrieved November 1, 2024.
14. Lewis, Hilary (November 10, 2024). "Critics Choice Documentary Awards: 'Super/Man' and 'Will & Harper' Tie for Best Feature". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on March 3, 2025. Retrieved November 11, 2024.
15. Davis, Clayton (2025-10-14). "'Orwell: 2+2=5' and 'The Perfect Neighbor' Lead Critics Choice Documentary Awards Nominations". Variety. Retrieved 2025-10-20.

External links

• Official website