The Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association (BTJA) announced the winners of the third annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards tonight at a gala event, hosted by Bill Nye at BRIC in Brooklyn.
“As the documentary world is exploding with great works, we are thrilled to shine a light on the best of the best,” said BFCA President Joey Berlin. “In The Year of the Documentary this was a very special night celebrating the giants in our business and some amazing newcomers.”
During the awards show, filmmaker Michael Moore was honored with the Critics’ Choice Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Robert De Niro. Renowned documentarian Stanley Nelson was honored with the Critics’ Choice Impact Award, presented by Joe Berlinger, who received the same honor last year. Presenters and attendees at the gala event included Rashida Jones, Pamela Adlon, Matt Dillon, Natasha Lyonne, Steve James, D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, Bing Liu, and Morgan Neville.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? took home the evening’s most prestigious award for Best Documentary as well as Best Director for Morgan Neville and the award for Best Editing. Free Solo took home the award for Best Sports Documentary, the award for Best Innovative Documentary and was honored for Best Cinematography. The award for Best Limited Documentary Series went to The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling. The Best Ongoing Documentary Series award went to Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown and the Best Political Documentary winner was RBG. Quincy took home the award for Best Music Documentary.
And in a surprise that disappointed no one, there was a tie for Best First Time Director between Bing Liu for Minding the Gap and Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster for Science Fair.
Host Bill Nye lead the celebration of this year’s honorees for Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary — Scotty Bowers (Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG), Alex Honnold (Free Solo), Joan Jett (Bad Reputation), Quincy Jones (Quincy), David Kellman and Bobby Shafran (Three Identical Strangers), John McEnroe (John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection) and Leon Vitali (Filmworker).
Many of the winners and nominees of the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards this year were interviewed on the Film Threat Podcast, so take a deeper dive into some of the best doc films and filmmakers work by checking out some of these episodes.
We love when you subscribe to the Film Threat Podcast! Listen on your favorite podcast listening platform and you can even find the podcast on YouTube with bonus features.
