Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Documentary

The Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Documentary Film is an annual award, presented by the Vancouver Film Critics Circle to the film judged by its members as the best international documentary film of the year. It is separate from the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Canadian Documentary, presented to Canadian documentary films.

Winners and nominees

2000s

Year	Films	Directors	Ref
2009	Anvil! The Story of Anvil	Sacha Gervasi	[1]
	The Cove	Louie Psihoyos	[2]
	Food, Inc.	Robert Kenner

2010s

Year	Films	Directors	Ref
2010	Exit Through the Gift Shop	Banksy	[3]
	Inside Job	Charles Ferguson	[4]
	Waiting for "Superman"	Davis Guggenheim
2011	Cave of Forgotten Dreams	Werner Herzog	[5]
	The Interrupters	Steve James	[6]
	Nostalgia for the Light	Patricio Guzmán
	Project Nim	James Marsh
	Surviving Progress	Mathieu Roy, Harold Crooks
2012	Searching for Sugar Man	Malik Bendjelloul	[7]
	Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry	Alison Klayman	[8]
	How to Survive a Plague	David France
2013	The Act of Killing	Joshua Oppenheimer	[9]
	Blackfish	Gabriela Cowperthwaite	[10]
	West of Memphis	Amy J. Berg
2014	The Overnighters	Jesse Moss	[11]
	Citizenfour	Laura Poitras	[12]
	Virunga	Orlando von Einsiedel
2015	Amy	Asif Kapadia	[13]
	Cartel Land	Matthew Heineman	[14]
	Going Clear	Alex Gibney
2016	Cameraperson	Kirsten Johnson	[15]
	13th	Ava DuVernay	[16]
	O.J.: Made in America	Ezra Edelman
2017	Ex Libris: The New York Public Library	Frederick Wiseman	[17]
	Faces Places (Visages Villages)	Agnès Varda, JR	[18]
	Jane	Brett Morgen
2018	Minding the Gap	Bing Liu	[19]
	Free Solo	Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin	[20]
	Won't You Be My Neighbor?	Morgan Neville
2019	Honeyland	Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov	[21]
	Apollo 11	Todd Douglas Miller	[22]
	For Sama	Waad Al-Khateab, Edward Watts

2020s

Year	Films	Directors	Ref
2020	Collective	Alexander Nanau	[23]
	Athlete A	Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk	[24]
	Totally Under Control	Alex Gibney
2021	Flee	Jonas Poher Rasmussen	[25]
	The Sparks Brothers	Edgar Wright	[26]
	Summer of Soul	Questlove
2022	All the Beauty and the Bloodshed	Laura Poitras	[27]
	Fire of Love	Sara Dosa	[28]
	Moonage Daydream	Brett Morgen
2023	To Kill a Tiger	Nisha Pahuja	[29]
	American Symphony	Matthew Heineman	[30]
	Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie	Davis Guggenheim
2024	No Other Land	Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor	[31]
	Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story	Ian Bonhôte, Peter Ettedgui	[32]
	Will & Harper	Josh Greenbaum

References

1. "Vancouver critics pick I Killed My Mother". CBC News, January 13, 2010.
2. Craig Takeuchi, "Vancouver Film Critics Circle: Up in the Air, J'ai tué ma mí¨re lead nominations". The Georgia Straight , January 4, 2010.
3. "Incendies, Barney’s lead Vancouver Critics Awards". Playback , January 11, 2011.
4. Glen Schaefer, "Incendies gets five nods from Vancouver film critics". The Province , January 4, 2011.
5. "Vancouver critics name The Artist top film of 2011". The Globe and Mail , January 10, 2012.
6. "VFCC Announces 12th Annual Award Nominees". Vancouver Film Critics Circle, January 2, 2012.
7. "Beyond the Black Rainbow, War Witch win at Vancouver critics awards". Playback , January 8, 2013.
8. "2013 VFCC Nominees Announced!". Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 27, 2012.
9. "The Dirties cleans up in Vancouver; Film critics give top prizes to Matt Johnson, 12 Years a Slave". Edmonton Journal , January 9, 2014.
10. "And the 2014 VFCC nominees are...". Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 22, 2013.
11. "Tu dors Nicole and Mommy top Canadian winners at Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards". The Georgia Straight , January 6, 2015.
12. "2015 Nominees Announced". Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 22, 2014.
13. "Vancouver Film Critics Honour ‘Haida Gwaii’". Point of View , January 7, 2016.
14. "2016 Nominees Announced". Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 14, 2015.
15. "Hello Destroyer wins big with VFCC". Playback , January 11, 2017.
16. "2017 Nominees Announced". Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 16, 2016.
17. "Never Steady, Never Still takes the big prizes at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle awards". The Georgia Straight , January 9, 2018.
18. "2018 Nominees Announced". Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 15, 2017.
19. "Vancouver Film Critics Circle names Edge of the Knife top Canadian feature film". Toronto Star , January 8, 2019.
20. Josh Cabrita, "2019 Nominees Announced". Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 14, 2018.
21. "Vancouver film critics award 'The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open'". Tri-City News, January 7, 2020.
22. Adrian Mack, "Marriage Story dominates Vancouver Film Critics Circle noms". The Georgia Straight , December 13, 2019.
23. Etan Vlessing, "Chloe Zhao's 'Nomadland' Named Best Feature by Vancouver Film Critics Circle". The Hollywood Reporter , February 22, 2021.
24. Etan Vlessing, "Vancouver Film Critics Circle: 'Mank' Leads With Five Nominations". The Hollywood Reporter , February 19, 2021.
25. Dana Gee, "The Power of the Dog named year's best feature by Vancouver Film Critics Circle". Vancouver Sun , March 8, 2022.
26. Dana Gee, "The Power of the Dog, Night Raiders lead Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards nominations". Vancouver Sun , February 20, 2022.
27. Vlessing, Etan (February 13, 2023). "'Everything Everywhere All at Once' Named Best Feature by Vancouver Film Critics". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved February 13, 2023.
28. "Vancouver Film Critics Announce Nominees". Northern Stars. January 23, 2023. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
29. Gee, Dana (February 13, 2024). "'Anatomy of a Fall' beats out Hollywood to take top honours at Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards". Vancouver Sun . Retrieved February 13, 2024.
30. Vlessing, Etan (January 22, 2024). "'Oppenheimer' Leads Vancouver Film Critics Circle Nominations With Six Nods". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved January 23, 2024.
31. Dana Gee, "Oscar favourite Anora wins best international honour from Vancouver Film Critics Circle". Vancouver Sun , February 19, 2025.
32. Erik Anderson, "2024 Vancouver Film Critics Circle (VFCC) Nominations". Awards Watch, January 21, 2025.