British Academy Film Award for Best Documentary
British Academy Film Awards · 207 nominations across 47 ceremonies · 46 wins
79th BAFTA Film Awards · 2026
- Winner Mr. Nobody Against Putin
- Nominee 2000 Meters to Andriivka · Mstyslav Chernov, Michelle Mizner, Raney Aronson-Rath
- Nominee Apocalypse in the Tropics · Petra Costa
- Nominee Cover-Up · Laura Poitras
- Nominee The Perfect Neighbor · Geeta Gandbhir, Sam Bisbee
78th BAFTA Film Awards · 2025
- Winner Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story · Peter Ettedgui
- Nominee Will & Harper · Josh Greenbaum, Christopher Leggett, Will Ferrell, Jessica Elbaum
- Nominee No Other Land · Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal
- Nominee Black Box Diaries · Shiori Itō
- Nominee Daughters · Angela Patton, Sam Bisbee
77th BAFTA Film Awards · 2024
- Winner 20 Days in Mariupol
- Nominee Beyond Utopia · Sue Mi Terry
- Nominee Wham! · Chris Smith, John Battsek, Simon Halfon
- Nominee Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie · Davis Guggenheim, Annetta Marion
- Nominee American Symphony · Matthew Heineman
76th BAFTA Film Awards · 2023
- Winner Navalny · Daniel Roher, Shane Boris, Odessa Rae
- Nominee Fire of Love · Sara Dosa, Shane Boris, Ina Fichman
- Nominee All That Breathes · Shaunak Sen, Teddy Leifer
- Nominee Moonage Daydream · Brett Morgen
- Nominee All the Beauty and the Bloodshed · Laura Poitras, Howard Gertler, Nan Goldin
75th BAFTA Film Awards · 2022
- Winner Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) · Questlove
- Nominee Becoming Cousteau · Liz Garbus, Dan Cogan
- Nominee The Rescue · Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, John Battsek
- Nominee Flee · Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström
- Nominee Cow · Andrea Arnold
74th BAFTA Film Awards · 2021
- Winner My Octopus Teacher · Craig Foster
- Nominee The Dissident · Bryan Fogel, Thor Halvorssen
- Nominee Collective
- Nominee The Social Dilemma · Jeff Orlowski
- Nominee David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet · Alastair Fothergill, Keith Scholey
73rd BAFTA Film Awards · 2020
- Winner For Sama · Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts
- Nominee Apollo 11 · Todd Douglas Miller
- Nominee The Great Hack · Karim Amer, Jehane Noujaim
- Nominee Diego Maradona · Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees
- Nominee American Factory · Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert
72nd BAFTA Film Awards · 2019
- Winner Free Solo · Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin
- Nominee RBG · Betsy West
- Nominee They Shall Not Grow Old · Peter Jackson
- Nominee Three Identical Strangers · Grace Hughes-Hallett
- Nominee McQueen
71st BAFTA Film Awards · 2018
- Winner I Am Not Your Negro · Raoul Peck
- Nominee City of Ghosts · Matthew Heineman
- Nominee Jane · Brett Morgen, Bryan Burk
- Nominee Icarus · Bryan Fogel, Dan Cogan
- Nominee An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power · Bonni Cohen
70th BAFTA Film Awards · 2017
- Winner The 13th · Ava DuVernay, Spencer Averick, Howard Barish
- Nominee The Eagle Huntress
- Nominee Notes on Blindness
- Nominee Weiner
- Nominee The Beatles: Eight Days a Week · Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Nigel Sinclair
69th BAFTA Film Awards · 2016
- Winner Amy · James Gay-Rees, Asif Kapadia
- Nominee Sherpa · Bridget Ikin, Jennifer Peedom, John Smithson
- Nominee Listen to Me Marlon · John Battsek, R. J. Cutler, Stevan Riley
- Nominee He Named Me Malala · Davis Guggenheim, Laurie MacDonald, Walter F. Parkes
- Nominee Cartel Land · Matthew Heineman, Tom Yellin
68th BAFTA Film Awards · 2015
- Winner Citizenfour · Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, Dirk Wilutzky
- Nominee 20,000 Days on Earth · Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard
- Nominee 20 Feet from Stardom · Morgan Neville, Caitrin Rogers, Gil Friesen
- Nominee Finding Vivian Maier
- Nominee Virunga · Orlando von Einsiedel, Joanna Natasegara
67th BAFTA Film Awards · 2014
- Winner The Act of Killing · Joshua Oppenheimer
- Nominee Tim's Vermeer · Teller, Penn Jillette
- Nominee The Armstrong Lie · Alex Gibney
- Nominee We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks · Alex Gibney
- Nominee Blackfish · Gabriela Cowperthwaite
66th BAFTA Film Awards · 2013
- Winner Searching for Sugar Man · Malik Bendjelloul, Simon Chinn
- Nominee West of Memphis · Amy J. Berg
- Nominee Marley · Kevin Macdonald
- Nominee McCullin
- Nominee The Imposter · Bart Layton
65th BAFTA Film Awards · 2012
- Winner Senna · Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, James Gay-Rees, Asif Kapadia
- Nominee Project Nim
- Nominee George Harrison: Living in the Material World
44th BAFTA Film Awards · 1991
43rd BAFTA Film Awards · 1990
- Winner First Tuesday
- Nominee Viewpoint 89: Cambodia Year 10: A Special Report by John Pilger · David Munro
- Nominee Everyman: Romania State of Fear
- Nominee Lost Children of the Empire
42nd BAFTA Film Awards · 1989
- Winner This Week
- Nominee The Men Who Killed Kennedy
- Nominee In from the Cold: A Portrait of Richard Burton · Tony Palmer
- Nominee The Duty Men: East Enders
41st BAFTA Film Awards · 1988
- Winner Baka – People of the Rainforest
- Nominee Forty Minutes: Home from the Hill · Molly Dineen
- Nominee Fourteen Days in May
- Nominee Man-Eating Tigers / Saving the Tiger · Naresh Bedi
40th BAFTA Film Awards · 1987
- Winner Shoah · Claude Lanzmann
- Nominee British Cinema: Personal View A Turnip Head's Guide to the British Cinema · Alan Parker
- Nominee Forty Minutes: The Fishing Party · Paul Watson
- Nominee Viewpoint 86: Afghanistan: The Agony of a Nation · Sandy Gall
- Nominee Omnibus: The Mission
- Nominee Equinox: Prisoner of Consciousness
39th BAFTA Film Awards · 1986
38th BAFTA Film Awards · 1985
- Winner Up · Michael Apted
- Nominee Afghanistan Reports: Allah Against the Sunships · Sandy Gall
- Nominee South Bank Show: Allan Bennett
- Nominee GI Brides · Lavinia Warner
37th BAFTA Film Awards · 1984
- Winner Schindler
- Nominee The Visit: Part 3: The Boy David
- Nominee Forty Minutes: Female Circumcision
- Nominee Wildlife On One: Night Life
36th BAFTA Film Awards · 1983
- Winner Burden of Dreams · Les Blank
- Nominee The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time! · Jim Brown
- Nominee Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography · Bonnie Sherr Klein
- Nominee The Atomic Cafe · Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader
35th BAFTA Film Awards · 1982
- Winner Soldier Girls · Nick Broomfield
- Nominee Best Boy · Ira Wohl
- Nominee The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter · Connie Field
- Nominee Return Journey
33rd BAFTA Film Awards · 1980
- Winner The Tree of Wooden Clogs · Ermanno Olmi
32nd BAFTA Film Awards · 1979
- Winner The Silent Witness
30th BAFTA Film Awards · 1977
- Winner The Canadians (Los Canadienses) · Albert Kish
- Nominee White Rock · Tony Maylam
29th BAFTA Film Awards · 1976
- Winner The Early Americans
- Nominee Seven Green Bottles
28th BAFTA Film Awards · 1975
- Winner Cree Hunters of Mistassini
- Nominee Leprosy
- Nominee Companero: Victor Jara of Chile
27th BAFTA Film Awards · 1974
- Winner Grierson
25th BAFTA Film Awards · 1972
- Winner The Hellstrom Chronicle · Walon Green
- Nominee Death of a Legend · Bill Mason
22nd BAFTA Film Awards · 1969
- Winner In Need of Special Care · Jonathan Stedall
- Nominee Music! · Michael Tuchner
- Nominee Inside North Vietnam · Felix Greene
- Nominee A Plague On Your Children · Adrian Malone
21st BAFTA Film Awards · 1968
- Winner To Die in Madrid · Frédéric Rossif
- Nominee Famine · Jack Gold
- Nominee The Things I Cannot Change
20th BAFTA Film Awards · 1967
- Winner Goal! The World Cup · Ross Devenish
- Nominee Matadar · Kevin Billington
- Nominee Buster Keaton Rides Again · John Spotton
- Nominee I'm Going to Ask You to Get Up Out of Your Seat
19th BAFTA Film Awards · 1966
- Winner Tokyo Olympiad · Kon Ichikawa
- Nominee Stravinsky · Roman Kroitor, Wolf Koenig
- Nominee Deckie Learner · Michael Grigsby
- Nominee Brute Force and Finesse · Max Morgan-Witts
18th BAFTA Film Awards · 1965
- Winner Nobody Waved Good-bye
- Nominee The Life of Billy Walker
- Nominee The Human Dutch
- Nominee Portrait of Queenie
13th BAFTA Film Awards · 1960
- Winner Not awarded
- Nominee White Wilderness
10th BAFTA Film Awards · 1957
- Winner On the Bowery
- Nominee The Silent World
- Nominee Under the Same Sky
- Nominee Foothold in Antarctica
- Nominee Generator 4
9th BAFTA Film Awards · 1956
- Winner Foothold in Antarctica
- Nominee The Silent World
- Nominee Under the Same Sky
- Nominee Generator 4
8th BAFTA Film Awards · 1955
- Winner The Great Adventure
7th BAFTA Film Awards · 1954
- Winner The Conquest of Everest
- Nominee White Mane
- Nominee Mille Miglia
- Nominee Life in the Arctic
- Nominee World without End
- Nominee Pictures of the Middle Ages
- Nominee Kumak, the Sleepy Hunter
- Nominee Operation Hurricane
- Nominee A Queen Is Crowned
- Nominee Teeth of the Wind
- Nominee Elizabeth is Queen
- Nominee Water Birds
6th BAFTA Film Awards · 1953
- Winner Royal Journey
- Nominee The Streamlined Pig
- Nominee Nature's Half Acre
- Nominee Le Mans 1952
- Nominee Highlights of Farnborough 1952
- Nominee Opera School
- Nominee Journey into History
- Nominee Ocean Terminal
- Nominee Fisherman of Negombo
- Nominee The Open Window
- Nominee Rig 20
5th BAFTA Film Awards · 1952
- Winner In Beaver Valley
- Nominee Out of True
- Nominee A Family Affair
- Nominee Oil for the Twentieth Century
- Nominee Visit to Picasso
- Nominee Family Portrait
4th BAFTA Film Awards · 1951
- Winner The Undefeated
- Nominee Seal Island
- Nominee Inland Waterways
- Nominee La Vie Commence Demain
- Nominee The Mountain is Green (La Montagne est Vert)
- Nominee Kon-Tiki
- Nominee The Vatican
3rd BAFTA Film Awards · 1950
- Winner Daybreak in Udi
- Nominee Island of the Lagoon
- Nominee Report on the Refugee Problem
- Nominee Circulation
- Nominee The Liver Fluke in Great Britain
- Nominee Drug Addict
- Nominee The Cornish Engine
2nd BAFTA Film Awards · 1949
- Winner Louisiana Story
- Nominee Farrebique
- Nominee Shadow of the Ruhr
- Nominee Three Dawns to Sydney
- Nominee Those Blasted Kids
- Nominee Is Everybody Listening?