Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Documentary

Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Documentary
Country	United States
Presented by	The Gotham Film & Media Institute
First award	2004
Currently held by	My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow (2025)
Website	awards.thegotham.org

The Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Documentary is one of the annual Gotham Independent Film Awards. It was first presented in 2004 with Jonathan Demme's The Agronomist being the first recipient of the award. ^[1]

Winners and nominees

2000s

Year	Film	Director(s)	Ref.
2004	The Agronomist	Jonathan Demme	[2]
	Bright Leaves	Ross McElwee
	Fahrenheit 9/11	Michael Moore
	In the Realms of the Unreal	Jessica Yu
	Tarnation	Jonathan Caouette
2005	Murderball	Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro	[3]
	Ballets Russes	Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller
	Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room	Alex Gibney
	Grizzly Man	Werner Herzog
	William Eggleston in the Real World	Michael Almereyda
2006	Iraq in Fragments	James Longley	[4]
	Deliver Us from Evil	Amy J. Berg
	Following Sean	Ralph Arlyck
	An Inconvenient Truth	Davis Guggenheim
	Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple	Stanley Nelson
2007	Sicko	Michael Moore	[5]
	The Devil Came on Horseback	Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg
	Man from Plains	Jonathan Demme
	My Kid Could Paint That	Amir Bar-Lev
	Taxi to the Dark Side	Alex Gibney
2008	Trouble the Water	Tia Lessin and Carl Deal	[6]
	Chris & Don. A Love Story	Guido Santi and Tina Mascara
	Encounters at the End of the World	Werner Herzog
	Man on Wire	James Marsh
	Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired	Marina Zenovich
2009	Food, Inc.	Robert Kenner	[7]
	Good Hair	Jeff Stilson
	My Neighbor, My Killer	Anne Aghion
	Paradise	Michael Almereyda
	Tyson	James Toback

2010s

Year	Film	Director(s)	Ref.
2010	The Oath	Laura Poitras	[8]
	12th & Delaware	Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing
	Inside Job	Charles Ferguson
	Public Speaking	Martin Scorsese
	Sweetgrass	Lucien Castaing-Taylor
2011	Better This World	Kelly Duane and Katie Galloway	[9]
	Bill Cunningham New York	Richard Press
	Hell and Back Again	Danfung Dennis
	The Interrupters	Steve James
	The Woodmans	Scott Willis
2012	How to Survive a Plague	David France	[10] [11]
	Detropia	Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing
	Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present	Matthew Akers and Jeff Dupre
	Room 237	Rodney Ascher
	The Waiting Room	Peter Nicks
2013	The Act of Killing	Joshua Oppenheimer	[12]
	The Crash Reel	Lucy Walker
	First Cousin Once Removed	Alan Berliner
	Let the Fire Burn	Jason Osder
	Our Nixon	Penny Lane
2014	Citizenfour	Laura Poitras	[13]
	Actress	Robert Greene
	Life Itself	Steve James
	Manakamana	Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez
	Point and Shoot	Marshall Curry
2015	The Look of Silence	Joshua Oppenheimer	[14]
	Approaching the Elephant	Amanda Wilder
	Cartel Land	Matthew Heineman
	Heart of a Dog	Laurie Anderson
	Listen to Me Marlon	Stevan Riley
2016	O.J.: Made in America	Ezra Edelman	[15]
	Cameraperson	Kirsten Johnson
	I Am Not Your Negro	Raoul Peck
	Tower	Keith Maitland
	Weiner	Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg
2017	Strong Island	Yance Ford	[16]
	Ex Libris: The New York Public Library	Frederick Wiseman
	Rat Film	Theo Anthony
	Whose Streets?	Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis
	The Work	Jairus McLeary and Gethin Aldous
2018	Hale County This Morning, This Evening	RaMell Ross	[17]
	Bisbee '17	Robert Greene
	Minding the Gap	Bing Liu
	Shirkers	Sandi Tan
	Won't You Be My Neighbor?	Morgan Neville
2019	American Factory	Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert	[18]
	Apollo 11	Todd Douglas Miller
	The Edge of Democracy	Petra Costa
	Midnight Traveler	Hassan Fazili
	One Child Nation	Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang

2020s

Year	Film	Director(s)	Ref.
2020	A Thousand Cuts	Ramona Diaz	[19] [20]
	Time	Garrett Bradley
	76 Days	Hao Wu, Weixi Chen and Anonymous
	City Hall	Frederick Wiseman
	Our Time Machine	Yang Sun and S. Leo Chiang
2021	Flee	Jonas Poher Rasmussen	[21] [22]
	Ascension	Jessica Kingdon
	Faya Dayi	Jessica Beshir
	President	Camilla Nielsson
	Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)	Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson
2022	All That Breathes	Shaunak Sen	[23]
	All the Beauty and the Bloodshed	Laura Poitras
	I Didn't See You There	Reid Davenport
	The Territory	Alex Pritz
	What We Leave Behind	Iliana Sosa
2023	Four Daughters	Kaouther Ben Hania	[24]
	20 Days in Mariupol	Mstyslav Chernov
	Against the Tide	Sarvnik Kaur
	Apolonia, Apolonia	Lea Glob
	Our Body	Claire Simon
2024	No Other Land	Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor	[25]
	Dahomey	Mati Diop
	Intercepted	Oksana Karpovych
	Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat	Johan Grimonprez
	Sugarcane	Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie
	Union	Brett Story and Stephen Maing
2025	My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow	Julia Loktev	[26]
	2000 Meters to Andriivka	Mstyslav Chernov
	BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions	Kahlil Joseph
	The Perfect Neighbor	Geeta Gandbhir
	Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk	Sepideh Farsi

See also

• Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
• BAFTA Award for Best Documentary
• Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
• Cinema Eye Honors
• IDA Documentary Awards
• National Board of Review Award for Best Documentary Film
• Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature
• Producers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Motion Picture
• Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Documentaries

References

1. "Past Recipients". IFP Gotham Awards. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
2. "2004 Winners and nominees". Gotham Independent Film Awards. Archived from the original on February 19, 2017. Retrieved January 1, 2018.
3. "2005 Winners and nominees". Gotham Independent Film Awards. Archived from the original on February 19, 2017. Retrieved January 1, 2018.
4. "2006 Winners and nominees". Gotham Independent Film Awards. Archived from the original on February 19, 2017. Retrieved January 1, 2018.
5. "2007 Winners and nominees". Gotham Independent Film Awards. Archived from the original on August 2, 2016. Retrieved January 1, 2018.
6. "2008 Winners and nominees". Gotham Independent Film Awards. Archived from the original on February 19, 2017. Retrieved January 1, 2018.
7. "2009 Winners and nominees". Gotham Independent Film Awards. Archived from the original on May 5, 2016. Retrieved January 1, 2018.
8. "2010 Winners and nominees". Gotham Independent Film Awards. Archived from the original on February 19, 2017. Retrieved January 1, 2018.
9. "2011 Winners and nominees". Gotham Independent Film Awards. Archived from the original on March 25, 2016. Retrieved January 1, 2018.
10. Zakarin, Jordan (November 26, 2012). "Gotham Awards: Moonrise Kingdom Wins Best Feature". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved January 1, 2018.
11. Knegt, Peter (October 18, 2012). "Gotham Awards Announce 2012 Nominations". IndieWire . Retrieved January 1, 2018.
12. "Inside Llewyn Davis Tops Gotham Awards". The Hollywood Reporter . December 2, 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2018.
13. "2014 Gotham Awards: Complete Winners List". The Hollywood Reporter . December 1, 2014. Retrieved January 1, 2018.
14. Cox, Gordon (November 30, 2015). "Spotlight Wins Big at 2015 Gotham Awards (Full List)". Variety . Retrieved January 1, 2018.
15. Erbland, Kate (November 28, 2016). "Gotham Awards 2016: Complete Winners List". IndieWire . Retrieved January 1, 2018.
16. Erbland, Kate (November 27, 2017). "Gotham Awards 2017: Complete Winners List". IndieWire . Retrieved January 1, 2018.
17. Wagmeister, Elizabeth (November 26, 2018). "Gotham Awards: A24 Sweeps with Five Wins, Including First Reformed, Eighth Grade (Full Winners List)". Variety . Retrieved November 27, 2018.
18. "Marriage Story Sweeps Gotham Awards; Full Winners List". The Hollywood Reporter. December 2, 2019. Retrieved December 3, 2019.
19. Lewis, Hilary (January 11, 2021). "Gotham Awards: Nomadland Wins Best Feature, Audience Award". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 11, 2021.
20. "Nominations Announced for 30th IFP Gotham Awards". Independent Filmmaker Project. November 12, 2020. Archived from the original on December 8, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
21. Lattanzio, Ryan (November 30, 2021). "Gotham Awards: The Lost Daughter Wins Top Prize — See the Full List of Winners". IndieWire. Retrieved November 30, 2021.
22. Lewis, Hilary (October 21, 2021). "Gotham Awards: The Lost Daughter, Passing Lead Nominations". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
23. Zilko, Christian (November 28, 2022). "Everything Everywhere All at Once Takes Best Feature at the 2022 Gotham Awards (Complete Winners List)". IndieWire. Retrieved November 29, 2022.
24. Lewis, Hilary; Chuba, Kirsten (November 27, 2023). "2023 Gotham Awards: Past Lives Wins Best Feature". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 29, 2023.
25. Lewis, Hilary; Chuba, Kirsten (December 2, 2024). "2024 Gotham Awards: A Different Man Wins Best Feature as Nickel Boys, Sing Sing Each Take Two". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved December 3, 2024.
26. Goldsmith, Jill (October 28, 2025). "Gotham Awards Film Nominations: One Battle After Another Leads Pack; Multiple Noms for If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, It Was Just An Accident, No Other Choice". Deadline . Retrieved October 28, 2025.