List of selected films and years
 |
1999
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amargosa | Todd Robinson | United States | Marta Becket and the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel | Not nominated | [1] |
| American Movie | Chris Smith | The making of a low budget horror movie in Wisconsin | Not nominated | ||
| Beyond the Mat | Barry W. Blaustein | World Wrestling Federation, Extreme Championship Wrestling, Mick Foley, Terry Funk and Jake Roberts | Not nominated | ||
| Buena Vista Social Club | Wim Wenders | Cuba France Germany United Kingdom United States | A group of elderly Cuban musicians | Nominated | |
| Genghis Blues | Roko Belic | United States | Paul Pena and the art of Tuvan throat singing | Nominated | |
| Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. | Errol Morris | Fred A. Leuchter Jr., capital punishment and Holocaust denial | Not nominated | ||
| On the Ropes | Brett Morgen, Nanette Burstein | Three young boxers and their coach | Nominated | ||
| One Day in September | Kevin Macdonald | United Kingdom | Terrorist attacks at the 1972 Summer Olympics | Won Academy Award | |
| Pop & Me | Chris Roe | United States | The director's travels around with his own father, interviewing fathers and sons about their own father-son relationships | Not nominated | |
| Smoke and Mirrors: A History of Denial | Torrie Rosenzweig | Tobacco in the United States | Not nominated | ||
| The Source | Chuck Workman | The Beat Generation | Not nominated | ||
| Speaking in Strings | Paola di Florio | Italian-born violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg | Nominated |
2000
2001
2002
2003
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Agronomist | Jonathan Demme | United States | Jean Dominique and Radio Haiti-Inter, the country's first independent radio station | Not nominated | [2] |
| Balseros | Carles Bosch and Josep M. Domenech | Spain, Catalonia | Balseros emigrating from Cuba during the Período especial and the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis | Nominated | |
| Bus 174 | Jose Padilha | Brazil | The June 2000 hijacking of Bus 174 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Not nominated | |
| Capturing the Friedmans | Andrew Jarecki | United States | American family with dark sexual secrets | Nominated | |
| Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin | Richard Schickel | The life and times of Golden Age of Hollywood legend Charlie Chaplin | Not nominated | ||
| The Fog of War | Errol Morris | United States | Robert McNamara and his involvement in the Vietnam War | Won Academy Award | |
| Heir to an Execution | Marc Levin | Not nominated | |||
| Inheritance: A Fisherman's Story | Peter Hegedus | Not nominated | |||
| Lost Boys of Sudan | Megan Mylan and Jou Shenk | United States | Two boys from the Dinka tribe of Sudan who emigrated to the United States, who were part of the refugee group commonly known as the Lost Boys of Sudan | Not nominated | |
| My Architect | Nathaniel Kahn | The career and familial relationships of the director's father, architect Louis Kahn | Nominated | ||
| My Flesh and Blood | Jonathan Karsh | The adopted children of Susan Tom, most of whom have significant physical disabilities | Not nominated | ||
| The Weather Underground | Sam Green and Bill Siegel | The rise and fall of the radical political group of the same name | Nominated |
2004
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born into Brothels | Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman | India United States | Children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata's red light district. | Won Academy Award | [3] [2] |
| Home of the Brave | Paola di Florio | United States | The 1965 murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo | Not nominated | |
| Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train | Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller | Historian and activist Howard Zinn | Not nominated | ||
| In the Realms of the Unreal | Jessica Yu | Outsider artist Henry Darger's magnum opus. The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion | Not nominated | ||
| Riding Giants | Stacy Peralta | Surfing, Big wave riding | Not nominated | ||
| The Ritchie Boys | Not nominated | ||||
| The Story of the Weeping Camel | Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni | Germany Mongolia | A family of nomadic shepherds in the Gobi Desert trying to save the life of a rare white bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) calf after it was rejected by its mother. | Nominated | |
| Super Size Me | Morgan Spurlock | United States | A filmmaker eating nothing but McDonald's fast food for 30 days | Nominated | |
| Tell Them Who You Are | Not nominated | ||||
| Touching the Void | Kevin Macdonald | United Kingdom | Joe Simpson and Simon Yates' near-fatal descent after making the first successful ascent of the West Face of Siula Grande in the Cordillera Huayhuash in the Peruvian Andes | Not nominated | |
| Tupac: Resurrection | Lauren Lazin | United States | Late rapper Tupac Shakur from his upbringing to his untimely death | Nominated | |
| Twist of Faith | Kirby Dick | Sexual abuse by a priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toledo, Ohio | Nominated |
2005
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Darwin's Nightmare | Hubert Sauper | Austria Belgium France | Environmental and social effects of the fishing industry around Lake Victoria in Tanzania | Nominated | [4] |
| The Devil and Daniel Johnston | Jeff Feuerzeig | United States | Outsider music artist Daniel Johnston and his struggles with paranoid schizophrenia | Not nominated | |
| Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room | Alex Gibney | The rise and fall of the real estate corporation Enron | Nominated | ||
| Mad Hot Ballroom | Marilyn Agrelo | The ballroom dance program for fifth graders in the New York City Department of Education | Not nominated | ||
| March of the Penguins | Luc Jacquet | France | The daily lives of emperor penguins | Won Academy Award | |
| Murderball | Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro | United States | American Wheelchair rugby players facing against Canadian wheelchair rugby players at the 2004 Paralympic Games | Nominated | |
| Street Fight | Marshall Curry | The 2002 Newark mayoral election in which Newark City Councilman Cory Booker challenged incumbent mayor Sharpe James | Nominated |
2006
2007
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autism: The Musical | Tricia Regan | United States | Children on the autism spectrum performing their own stage musical | Not nominated | [5] |
| Body of War | Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue | The experiences of Iraq War veteran Tomas Young, including his paralysis from enemy gunshot wounds and his subsequent anti-war activism | Not nominated | ||
| For the Bible Tells Me So | Daniel G. Karslake | Christianity and homosexuality | Not nominated | ||
| Lake of Fire | Tony Kaye | Abortion in the United States | Not nominated | ||
| Nanking | Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman | The Nanjing Massacre | Not nominated | ||
| No End in Sight | Charles Ferguson | The Iraq War | Nominated | ||
| Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience | Richard E. Robbins | The writings of U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars | Nominated | ||
| The Price of Sugar | Bill Haney | Dominican Republic United States | Exploitation of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic involved with production of sugar, and the efforts of Spanish priest Father Christopher Hartley to ameliorate their situation | Not nominated | |
| Please Vote for Me | Weijun Chen | China | Elections for class monitor in a 3rd grade class in the Evergreen Primary School in Wuhan, China | Not nominated | |
| Sicko | Michael Moore | United States | Health insurance and Healthcare in the United States | Nominated | |
| Taxi to the Dark Side | Alex Gibney | United States | The December 2002 killing of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, who was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention and interrogated at a black site at Bagram air base | Won Academy Award | |
| War/Dance | Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine | United States | Three Acholi children living in a Ugandan refugee camp, who are preparing to compete in the National Music Competition in Kampala | Nominated | |
| White Light/Black Rain | Steven Okazaki | The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki | Not nominated |
2008
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) | Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath | United States | Nominated | [6] | |
| Encounters at the End of the World | Werner Herzog | Nominated | |||
| The Garden | Scott Hamilton Kennedy | Nominated | |||
| Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts | Scott Hicks | Classical music composer Philip Glass | Not nominated | ||
| I.O.U.S.A. | Patrick Creadon | Not nominated | |||
| Man on Wire | James Marsh | United States | Highwire artist Philippe Petit's walking between the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York | Won Academy Award | |
| Trouble the Water | Tia Lessin Carl Deal | United States | Nominated |
2009
2010
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exit Through the Gift Shop | Banksy | United Kingdom | Nominated | [7] | |
| Gasland | Josh Fox | United States | Nominated | ||
| Inside Job | Charles Ferguson | United States | Won Academy Award | ||
| Restrepo | Tim Hetherington | United States | Nominated | ||
| The Tillman Story | Amir Bar-Lev | The untimely death of former football player turned soldier Pat Tillman | Not nominated | ||
| Waiting for "Superman" | Davis Guggenheim | Not nominated | |||
| Waste Land | Lucy Walker | Brazil, United Kingdom | Nominated |
2011
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buck | Not nominated | [8] | |||
| Bill Cunningham New York | Not nominated | ||||
| Battle for Brooklyn | Not nominated | ||||
| Hell and Back Again | Nominated | ||||
| If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front - | Marshall Curry | United States | The rise and fall of radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front | Nominated | |
| Jane's Journey | Not nominated | ||||
| The Loving Story | Not nominated | ||||
| Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory | Nominated | ||||
| Pina | Wim Wenders | Germany | Nominated | ||
| Project Nim | Not nominated | ||||
| Semper Fi: Always Faithful | Not nominated | ||||
| Sing Your Song | Not nominated | ||||
| Undefeated | Won Academy Award | ||||
| Under Fire: Journalists in Combat | Not nominated | ||||
| We Were Here | Not nominated |
2012
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bully | Not nominated | [9] | |||
| Chasing Ice | Best Original Song nominee | Not nominated | |||
| 5 Broken Cameras | Nominated | ||||
| The Gatekeepers | Nominated | ||||
| How to Survive a Plague | David France | United States | The beginnings of ACT UP and TAG during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s | Nominated | |
| The Invisible War | Nominated | ||||
| Searching for Sugar Man | Won Academy Award | ||||
| This Is Not a Film | Filmmaker Jafar Panahi's exile from making cinema in Iran | Not nominated |
2013
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Act of Killing | Nominated | [10] | |||
| Blackfish | United States | Controversies surrounding the mistreatment of whales at Sea World | Not nominated | ||
| Cutie and the Boxer | Nominated | ||||
| Dirty Wars | Nominated | ||||
| God Loves Uganda | Not nominated | ||||
| The Square | Nominated | ||||
| 20 Feet from Stardom | Morgan Neville | United States | Legendary backup singers (eg.Darlene Love) | Won Academy Award |
2014
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citizen Koch | Tia Lessin and Carl Deal | United States | Not nominated | [11] | |
| Citizenfour | Laura Poitras | United States | Edward Snowden and his whistleblowing involvement on WikiLeaks | Won Academy Award | |
| Finding Vivian Maier | John Maloof and Charlie Siskel | United States | Street photographer Vivian Maier and the rediscovery of her photography | Nominated | |
| The Internet's Own Boy | Brian Knappenberger | Aaron Swartz and the case of United States v. Swartz | Not nominated | ||
| Jodorowsky's Dune | Cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's attempts at adapting the classic sci-fi novel Dune | Not nominated | |||
| Last Days in Vietnam | Nominated | ||||
| Life Itself | Steve James | United States | Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert | Not nominated | |
| The Salt of the Earth | Nominated | ||||
| Virunga | Nominated |
2015
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amy | Asif Kapadia | United Kingdom | The life and death of singer Amy Winehouse | Won Academy Award | [12] [13] |
| Best of Enemies | Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville | United States | The televised arguments between conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr and progressive novelist Gore Vidal | Not nominated | |
| Cartel Land | Matthew Heineman | Vigilante groups fighting Mexican drug cartels during Mexican drug war | Nominated | ||
| Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief | Alex Gibney | An exposé on the practices of the Church of Scientology | Not nominated | ||
| He Named Me Malala | Davis Guggenheim | United States, United Arab Emirates | The life of young activist Malala Yousafzai | Not nominated | |
| Heart of a Dog | Laurie Anderson | United States | Composer Laurie Anderson's meditative ode to canines | Not nominated | |
| The Hunting Ground | Kirby Dick | The incidence of sexual assault on college campuses in the United States and the reported failure of college administrations to deal with it adequately | Not nominated | ||
| Listen to Me Marlon | Stevan Riley | United Kingdom | Archival footage examining the life of Academy Award-winning actor Marlon Brando | Not nominated | |
| The Look of Silence | Joshua Oppenheimer | Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom, United States | Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 | Nominated | |
| Meru | Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi | United States | The first ascent of the "Shark's Fin" route on Meru Peak in the Indian Himalayas | Not nominated | |
| 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets | Marc Silver | Murder of Jordan Davis | Not nominated | ||
| We Come as Friends | Hubert Sauper | Austria, France | War-ravaged South Sudan fighting for independence from North Sudan and its President Omar al-Bashir | Not nominated | |
| What Happened, Miss Simone? | Liz Garbus | United States | The life and troubled times of singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone | Nominated | |
| Where to Invade Next | Michael Moore | Director Michael Moore spending time in various countries where he experiences alternative methods of dealing with social and economic ills experienced in the United States | Not nominated | ||
| Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom | Evgeny Afineevsky | Ukraine, United States, United Kingdom | Ukraine's fight for freedom during the Revolution of Dignity | Nominated |
2016
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cameraperson | Kirsten Johnson | United States | A cinematographer's collection of documentary footage | Not nominated | [14] |
| Command and Control | Robert Kenner | 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas between September 18–19, 1980 | Not nominated | ||
| The Eagle Huntress | Otto Bell | Mongolia, United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, United States | Aisholpan Nurgaiv, a 13-year-old Kazakh girl from Mongolia, as she attempts to become the first female eagle hunter to compete in the eagle festival at Ulgii, Mongolia | Not nominated | |
| Fire at Sea | Gianfranco Rosi | Italy | Life at Lampedusa, Italy | Nominated | |
| Gleason | Clay Tweel | United States | Former football player Steve Gleason and his journey living with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) | Not nominated | |
| Hooligan Sparrow | Nanfu Wang | China, United States | A child rape case in China involving a government official and the subsequent protests led by activists | Not nominated | |
| I Am Not Your Negro | Raoul Peck | France, United States | Author James Baldwin's unfinished memoir about being black in America | Nominated | |
| The Ivory Game | Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani | United States | The poaching of elephants in Africa, related to the ivory trade in China and Hong Kong, and the repercussions of elephant poaching | Not nominated | |
| Life, Animated | Roger Ross Williams | Owen Suskind, son of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, diagnosed with autism learning about life and communication through classic Disney animated movies | Nominated | ||
| OJ: Made in America | Ezra Edelman | United States | The examination of racial divides in America during the O. J. Simpson saga | Won Academy Award | |
| 13th | Ava DuVernay | United States | A look at the 13th amendment and its effect on African Americans | Nominated | |
| Tower | Keith Maitland | The 1966 University of Texas shooting perpetrated by Charles Whitman | Not nominated | ||
| Weiner | Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg | The rise and fall of politician Anthony Weiner due to his excessive sexting | Not nominated | ||
| The Witness | James D. Solomon | The murder of Kitty Genovese and the subsequent investigation led by her brother, Bill | Not nominated | ||
| Zero Days | Alex Gibney | The phenomenon surrounding the Stuxnet computer virus and the development of the malware software known as "Olympic Games." | Not nominated |
2017
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abacus: Small Enough to Jail | Steve James | United States | A family-owned community bank, Abacus Federal Savings Bank, the only financial institution to face criminal charges following the subprime mortgage crisis | Nominated | [15] [16] [17] |
| Chasing Coral | Jeff Orlowski | A team of divers, scientists and photographers around the world who document the disappearance of coral reefs | Not nominated | ||
| City of Ghosts | Matthew Heineman | The Syrian media activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently after their homeland is taken over by ISIS in 2014 | Not nominated | ||
| Ex Libris: The New York Public Library | Frederick Wiseman | The role of the New York Public Library as an egalitarian network of exploration, exchange and learning | Not nominated | ||
| Faces Places | Agnes Varda, JR | France | Varda and JR traveling around rural France, creating portraits of the people they come across | Nominated | |
| Human Flow | Ai Weiwei | Germany | The current global refugee crisis | Not nominated | |
| Icarus | Bryan Fogel | United States | Fogel's exploration of the option of doping to win an amateur cycling race and happening upon a major international doping scandal when he asks for the help of Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory | Won Academy Award | |
| An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power | Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk | United States | Former United States Vice President Al Gore's continuing mission to battle climate change | Not nominated | |
| Jane | Brett Morgen | Iconic anthropologist Jane Goodall | Not nominated | ||
| Jim and Andy | Chris Smith | The making of the 1999 biopic Man on the Moon starring Jim Carrey in his Golden Globe-winning portrayal of the controversial stand-up comedian Andy Kaufman | Not nominated | ||
| LA 92 | Daniel Lindsay, T. J. Martin | Archival coverage of the 1992 Rodney King riots | Not nominated | ||
| Last Men in Aleppo | Feras Fayyad | Denmark, Syria | The lives of three White Helmets founders, Khaled Omar Harrah, Subhi Alhussen and Mahmoud as they grapple the dilemma to flee their country or stay and fight for it | Nominated | |
| Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992 | John Ridley | United States | Prior events leading up to the Rodney King riots | Not nominated | |
| Long Strange Trip | Amir Bar-Lev | The career of the rock band the Grateful Dead | Not nominated | ||
| One of Us | Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady | The lives of three ex-Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn | Not nominated | ||
| Strong Island | Yance Ford | The April 1992 murder of William Ford, the director's brother | Nominated | ||
| Unrest | Jennifer Brea | Brea faced chronic fatigue syndrome that struck just before she married her husband Omar Wasow | Not nominated |
2018
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charm City | Marilyn Ness | United States | A community in Baltimore, Maryland, over the span of three years of high violence | Not nominated | [18] |
| Communion | Anna Zamecka | Poland | Ola, a 14-year-old girl who takes care of her dysfunctional, alcoholic father, autistic brother, mother who lives separately, and her preparation of family celebration of her brother's Holy Communion sacrament | Not nominated | |
| Crime + Punishment | Stephen T. Maing | United States | A group of black and Latino whistleblower cops and a private investigator who risk everything to expose illegal quota practices and their impact on young minorities | Not nominated | |
| Dark Money | Kimberly Reed | The effects of corporate money and influence in the American political system | Not nominated | ||
| The Distant Barking of Dogs | Simon Lereng Wilmont | Ukraine, Denmark, Finland, Sweden | The life of 10-year-old Ukrainian boy Oleg throughout a year during the war in Donbas | Not nominated | |
| Free Solo | Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin | United States | Alex Honnold as he attempts to become the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite National Park's 3,000 foot high El Capitan wall | Won Academy Award | |
| Hale County This Morning, This Evening | RaMell Ross | United States | The lives of black people in Hale County, Alabama | Nominated | |
| Minding the Gap | Bing Liu | The lives and friendships of three young men growing up in Rockford, Illinois, united by their love of skateboarding | Nominated | ||
| Of Fathers and Sons | Talal Derki | Germany, Lebanon Netherlands, Qatar, Syria | Radical jihadism and terrorist training in Syria | Nominated | |
| On Her Shoulders | Alexandria Bombach | United States | Human rights activist Nadia Murad, as she met with politicians and journalists to alert the world to the massacres and kidnapping happening in Iraq | Not nominated | |
| RBG | Betsy West, Julie Cohen | The life, legacy and career of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Ruth Bader Ginsburg | Nominated | ||
| Shirkers | Sandi Tan | Singapore, United Kingdom, United States | The making of an independent thriller featuring a teenage assassin set in Singapore | Not nominated | |
| The Silence of Others | Almudena Carracedo, Robert Bahar | United States, Spain | The silenced fight of the victims from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco | Not nominated | |
| Three Identical Strangers | Tim Wardle | United States, United Kingdom | The lives of Edward Galland, David Kellman, and Robert Shafran, a set of identical triplet brothers adopted as infants by separate families | Not nominated | |
| Won't You Be My Neighbor? | Morgan Neville | United States | The life, legacy and guiding philosophy of children's television host Fred Rogers | Not nominated |
2019
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advocate | Rachel Leah Jones, Philippe Bellaïche | Israel | Human rights lawyer Leah Tsemel as she navigates through the Israeli judicial system in defense of Palestinians accused of terrorism | Not nominated | [19] [20] |
| American Factory | Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert | United States | Chinese company Fuyao's factory in Moraine that occupies Moraine Assembly, a shuttered General Motors plant | Won Academy Award | |
| The Apollo | Roger Ross Williams | United States | The history of Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York City | Not nominated | |
| Apollo 11 | Todd Douglas Miller | The 1969 Apollo 11 mission | Not nominated | ||
| Aquarela | Viktor Kossakovsky | Germany, United Kingdom, United States | Climate change depicted by water and ice around the world | Not nominated | |
| The Biggest Little Farm | John Chester | United States | John Chester and his wife Molly as they acquire and establish themselves on Apricot Lane Farms in Moorpark, California | Not nominated | |
| The Cave | Feras Fayyad | Syria, Denmark | Dr. Amani Ballour, a physician in Ghouta who is operating a makeshift hospital nicknamed "the Cave" during the Syrian Civil War | Nominated | |
| The Edge of Democracy | Petra Costa | Brazil | Political past of Costa in a personal way, in context with the first term of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the events leading to impeachment of Dilma Rousseff | Nominated | |
| For Sama | Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts | Syria, United Kingdom, United States | Al-Kateab's journey as a journalist and rebel in the Syrian civil war uprising as she and her husband raise their daughter Sama | Nominated | |
| The Great Hack | Jehane Noujaim, Karim Amer | United States | The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal | Not nominated | |
| Honeyland | Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov | North Macedonia | The life of Hatidže Muratova, a loner beekeeper of wild bees who lives in the remote mountain village of Bekirloja, North Macedonia | Nominated | |
| Knock Down the House | Rachel Lears | United States | Four female democrats who run for Congress in the 2018 United States elections: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush and Paula Jean Swearengin | Not nominated | |
| Maiden | Alex Holmes | United Kingdom | Tracy Edwards and the crew of the Maiden as they compete as the first all-woman crew in the 1989–1990 Whitbread Round the World Race | Not nominated | |
| Midnight Family | Luke Lorentzen | Mexico, United States | Ochoa family who run a private ambulance business | Not nominated | |
| One Child Nation | Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang | United States | The fallout of China's one-child policy that lasted from 1980 to 2015 | Not nominated |
2020
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All In: The Fight for Democracy | Liz Garbus, Lisa Cortés | United States | Voter suppression and the perspective and expertise of Stacey Abrams, the former Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives | Not nominated | [21] [22] |
| Boys State | Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine | A thousand teenage boys attending Boys State in Texas, coming to build a representative government from the ground up | Not nominated | ||
| Collective | Alexander Nanau | Romania | The 2016 public health scandal following the Colectiv nightclub fire | Nominated | |
| Crip Camp | Nicole Newnham, James Lebrecht | United States | Camp Jened campers who turned themselves into activists for the disability rights movement in the 1970s and follows their fight for accessibility legislation | Nominated | |
| Dick Johnson Is Dead | Kirsten Johnson | Johnson's father Richard "Dick", who suffers from dementia, portraying different ways in which he could ultimately die | Not nominated | ||
| Gunda | Viktor Kossakovsky | United States, Norway, Spain | The daily life of a pig, two cows, and a one-legged chicken | Not nominated | |
| MLK/FBI | Sam Pollard | United States | The investigation and harassment of activist Martin Luther King Jr. by J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation | Not nominated | |
| The Mole Agent | Maite Alberdi | Chile, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, United States | A private investigator, Rómulo, hires Sergio, an elderly man to go undercover in a nursing home in Chile | Nominated | |
| My Octopus Teacher | Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed | South Africa, United Kingdom | A year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with wild common octopus in a South African kelp forest | Won Academy Award | |
| Notturno | Gianfranco Rosi | Italy, Germany, France | Different people from areas near war zones in the Middle East who are trying to start over again with their everyday lives | Not nominated | |
| The Painter and the Thief | Benjamin Ree | Norway, United States | Barbora Kysilkova, an artist, forming a friendship with Karl-Bertil Nordland, a man who stole her artwork | Not nominated | |
| 76 Days | Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, anonymous third | China, United States | The struggles of patients and frontline medical professionals battling the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan | Not nominated | |
| Time | Garrett Bradley | United States | Sibil Fox Richardson, fighting for the release of her husband, Rob, who is serving a 60-year prison sentence for engaging in an armed bank robbery | Nominated | |
| The Truffle Hunters | Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw | United States, Italy, Greece | A group of aging men hunt in the woods in Northern Italy, for a prized quarry, the Alba truffle | Not nominated | |
| Welcome to Chechnya | David France | United States | LGBT Chechen refugees as they made their way out of anti-gay purges in Chechnya of the late 2010s | Not nominated |
2021
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ascension | Jessica Kingdon | United States | The pursuit of the Chinese Dream | Nominated | [23] |
| Attica | Stanley Nelson Jr., Traci Curry | The infamous 1971 Attica Prison riot | Nominated | ||
| Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry | R. J. Cutler | The career and creative process of singer-songwriter Billie Eilish | Not nominated | ||
| Faya Dayi | Jessica Beshir | United States, Ethiopia, Qatar | The rituals of khat, a psychoactive plant that plays an important role in Ethiopia's economy and culture | Not nominated | |
| The First Wave | Matthew Heineman | United States | A hospital in New York City, as it battles the COVID-19 pandemic | Not nominated | |
| Flee | Jonas Poher Rasmussen | Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden, United States | Amin Nawabi, who shares his hidden past of fleeing his home country of Afghanistan to Denmark for the first time | Nominated | |
| In the Same Breath | Nanfu Wang | United States | The response of the Chinese and American governments to the COVID-19 pandemic | Not nominated | |
| Julia | Julie Cohen, Betsy West | The life of cooking teacher and television personality Julia Child | Not nominated | ||
| President | Camilla Nielsson | Denmark, Norway, United States, Zimbabwe | The career of Nelson Chamisa who takes on the corrupt ruling party in Zimbabwe | Not nominated | |
| Procession | Robert Greene | United States | The six men, who suffered abuse by priests, looking for peace | Not nominated | |
| The Rescue | Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin | United States, United Kingdom | The 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue | Not nominated | |
| Simple as Water | Megan Mylan | United States | The Syrian families across five countries, revealing the impact of war, separation, and displacement | Not nominated | |
| Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) | Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson | United States | The 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival | Won Academy Award | |
| The Velvet Underground | Todd Haynes | United States | The life and times of influential rock band The Velvet Underground | Not nominated | |
| Writing with Fire | Sushmit Ghosh, Rintu Thomas | India | The journalists running the Dalit women-led newspaper Khabar Lahariya , as they shift from 14 years of print to digital journalism using smartphones | Nominated |
2022
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A House Made of Splinters | Simon Lereng Wilmont | Denmark Ukraine Sweden | The care of the staff of an institution for children who have been removed from their homes. | Nominated | [24] |
| All That Breathes | Shaunak Sen | India United States United Kingdom | Two brothers devote their lives to protect one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the black kite | Nominated | |
| All the Beauty and the Bloodshed | Laura Poitras | United States | The life of artist Nan Goldin and the downfall of the Sackler family | Nominated | |
| Bad Axe | David Siev | David Siev's Asian-American family struggles to keep their local restaurant afloat amidst racial tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic | Not nominated | ||
| Children of the Mist | Ha Le Diem | Vietnam | The Di Hmong teenager faces challenges growing up. In traditional Di culture, girls are married at the age of 14. But at school he learns that there are alternatives. | Not nominated | |
| Descendant | Margaret Brown | United States | The community of Africatown and the descendants of some of the last known enslaved Africans that were brought to the United States | Not nominated | |
| Fire of Love | Sara Dosa | United States Canada | The life and career of the daring French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who were ultimately killed in the 1991 eruption of Mount Unzen | Nominated | |
| Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song | Daniel Geller & Dayna Goldfine | United States Canada | The story of Leonard Cohen, and his song "Hallelujah" | Not nominated | |
| Hidden Letters | Violet Du Feng & Qing Zhao | China | The story of two Chinese women trying to balance their lives as independent women in modern China while confronting the traditional identity that defines but also oppresses them. | Not nominated | |
| The Janes | Tia Lessin & Emma Pildes | United States | The story of a clandestine service for women seeking safe, affordable, and illegal abortions, calling themselves JANE | Not nominated | |
| Last Flight Home | Ondi Timoner | In his final days, we discover Eli Timoner and an extraordinary life of wild achievements, tragic loss and most of all, enduring love | Not nominated | ||
| Moonage Daydream | Brett Morgen | Germany United States | David Bowie's creative, spiritual and musical journey | Not nominated | |
| Navalny | Daniel Roher | United States | The poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny | Won Academy Award | |
| Retrograde | Matthew Heineman | United States | The events that took place during the last nine months of the United States' 20-year war in Afghanistan | Not nominated | |
| The Territory | Alex Pritz | United States United Kingdom Brazil Denmark | The attempts of a young indigenous leader of the Uru-eu-wau-wau, an Amazonian tribe contacted by the Brazilian government only in 1980 | Not nominated |
2023
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Symphony | Matthew Heineman | United States | A year in the life of musician Jon Batiste chronicling his career in music and his marriage with Suleika Jaouad as they deal with her leukemia. | Not nominated | [25] |
| Apolonia, Apolonia | Lea Glob | Denmark, Poland, France | The coming-of-age story of Apolonia Sokol as she finds her place in the art world, told through 13 years. | Not nominated | |
| Beyond Utopia | Madeleine Gavin | United States | The work of Pastor Sungeun Kim, a South Korean human rights activist who has helped rescuing North Korean defectors. | Not nominated | |
| Bobi Wine: The People's President | Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp | United Kingdom, Uganda, United States | The campaign trail of Ugandan politician, singer, and actor Bobi Wine leading to the 2021 Ugandan general election. | Nominated | |
| Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy | Nancy Buirski | United States | The journey of making and producing John Schlesinger's 1969 film Midnight Cowboy . | Not nominated | |
| The Eternal Memory | Maite Alberdi | Chile | The relationship between actress Paulina Urrutia and journalist Augusto Góngora as they struggle with Gongora's Alzheimer's disease diagnosis. | Nominated | |
| Four Daughters | Kaouther Ben Hania | Tunisia, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia | After two daughters of a Tunisian woman disappeared, the filmmaker invites professional actresses to compensate for the loss. | Nominated | |
| Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project | Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson | United States | The life of American poet Nikki Giovanni and the historical periods she lived through from civil rights movement and Black Arts Movement to Black Lives Matter. | Not nominated | |
| In the Rearview | Maciek Hamela | Ukraine, Poland, France | Following the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Polish van travels through Ukraine's streets serving as a refuge for citizens. | Not nominated | |
| Stamped from the Beginning | Roger Ross Williams | United States | A hybrid documentary based on Ibram X. Kendi's 2016 non-fiction book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas . | Not nominated | |
| Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie | Davis Guggenheim | The life of American actor Michael J. Fox and his struggle with Parkinson's disease. | Not nominated | ||
| A Still Small Voice | Luke Lorentzen | United Kingdom | A chaplain completing a year-long hospital residency facing the challenges and spiritual questions that come from her experiences with her patients. | Not nominated | |
| 32 Sounds | Sam Green | United States | Sound and its effects on human's perception of time and the world. | Not nominated | |
| To Kill a Tiger | Nisha Pahuja | Canada | A family in Jharkhand, India campaigning for justice for the teenage daughter, who has brutally raped. | Nominated | |
| 20 Days in Mariupol | Mstyslav Chernov | Ukraine | The twenty days spent by the filmmaker and his colleagues in besieged Mariupol after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. | Won Academy Award |
2024
| Film | Director(s) | Countrie(s) | Subject(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Bibi Files | Alexis Bloom | United States | The leaked interrogation footage of the trial of Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel. | Not nominated | [26] [27] |
| Black Box Diaries | Shiori Itō | United States, United Kingdom, Japan | The investigation into Shiori's sexual assault case committed by Noriyuki Yamaguchi, director of the Tokyo Broadcasting System. | Nominated | |
| Dahomey | Mati Diop | France, Senegal, Benin | Dramatised account of 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey (in modern-day Republic of Benin), which were held in a museum in France. | Not nominated | |
| Daughters | Natalie Rae and Angela Patton | United States | The account of 4 young girls as part of afatherhood program in a Washington, D.C., jail. | Not nominated | |
| Eno | Gary Hustwit | United States, United Kingdom | An account of English ambient music artist Brian Eno, produced with a computer software capable to select footage and edit the film in 52 quintillion possible iterations. | Not nominated | |
| Frida | Carla Gutierrez | Mexico, United States | The life of Frida Kahlo told through her own writings and interviews. | Not nominated | |
| Hollywoodgate | Ibrahim Nash'at | Germany, United States | The daily life of Taliban air force commander Mawlawi Mansour, and the fundamentalist M.J. Mukhtar, following the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. | Not nominated | |
| No Other Land | Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor | Palestine, Norway | The struggle of Palestinian activist Basel Adra over the destruction of the Masafer Yatta villages due to the occupation of the Israeli army. | Won Academy Award | |
| Porcelain War | Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev | United States, Australia, Ukraine | The experience of Ukrainian artists as they face the current Russian occupation in Ukraine. | Nominated | |
| Queendom | Agniia Galdanova | United States, France | The art and activism of Gena Marvin, a queer artist from Russia challenging her country's anti-LGBTQ+ laws. | Not nominated | |
| The Remarkable Life of Ibelin | Benjamin Ree | Norway | The secret life of Mats Steen, a World of Warcraft gamer with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. | Not nominated | |
| Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat | Johan Grimonprez | Belgium, France, Netherlands | The crash of Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach at the UN Security Council in protest of the murder of Patrice Lumumba. | Nominated | |
| Sugarcane | Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie | United States, Canada | The investigation into the abuse and disappearances of Canadian indigenous children in the nearby Sugarcane Reserve. | Nominated | |
| Union | Brett Story and Stephen Maing | United States | The journey of Amazon Labor Union to unionize Amazon's JKF8 warehouse on Staten Island. | Not nominated | |
| Will & Harper | Josh Greenbaum | A road trip across the United States between Will Ferrel and his friend Harper Steele, who completed her gender transition. | Not nominated |
