Critics' Choice Documentary Award for Best First Documentary Feature

The Best First Documentary Feature is one of the annual Critics' Choice Documentary Awards. It is usually given to the director (or directors). The "first feature" designation is applied to the director.

At the 9th Critics' Choice Documentary Awards, the category was renamed to Best New Documentary Filmmaker(s).

Winners and nominees

  indicates the winner

2010s

Year	Film	Director(s)	Ref.
2016 (1st)	Weiner	Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg	[1][2]
	The Eagle Huntress	Otto Bell
	Hooligan Sparrow	Nanfu Wang
	Off the Rails	Adam Irving
	Tickled	David Farrier and Dylan Reeve
	The Witness	James D. Solomon
2017 (2nd)	Kedi	Ceyda Torun	[3]
	California Typewriter	Doug Nichol
	Nowhere to Hide	Zaradasht Ahmed
	Step	Amanda Lipitz
	Strong Island	Yance Ford
	Whose Streets?	Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis
2018 (3rd)	Science Fair	Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster	[4][5]
	Minding the Gap	Bing Liu
	Kusama: Infinity	Heather Lenz
	Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda	Stephen Nomura Schible
	The Sentence	Rudy Valdez
	Wild Wild Country	Chapman Way and Maclain Way
2019 (4th)	Honeyland	Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov	[6][7]
	Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché	Pamela B. Green
	David Crosby: Remember My Name	A.J. Eaton
	For the Birds	Richard Miron
	Love, Antosha	Garret Price
	Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound	Midge Costin

2020s

Year	Film	Director(s)	Ref.
2020 (5th)	Mr. Soul!	Melissa Haizlip	[8][9]
	Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes	Robert S. Bader
	A Secret Love	Chris Bolan
	Feels Good Man	Arthur Jones
	Jane Goodall: The Hope	Elizabeth Leiter and Kim Woodard
	Stray	Elizabeth Lo
2021 (6th)	Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)	Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson	[10]
	Ascension	Jessica Kingdon
	Faya Dayi	Jessica Beshir
	Introducing, Selma Blair	Rachel Fleit
	Pray Away	Kristine Stolakis
	The Sparks Brothers	Edgar Wright
	The Velvet Underground	Todd Haynes
2022 (7th)	Bad Axe	David Siev	[11]
	Cow	Andrea Arnold
	The Automat	Lisa Hurwitz
	My Old School	Jono McLeod
	Lucy and Desi	Amy Poehler
	The Territory	Alex Pritz
	Three Minutes: A Lengthening	Bianca Stigter
2023 (8th)	20 Days in Mariupol	Mstyslav Chernov	[12]
	26.2 to Life	Christine Yoo
	Bad Press	Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler
	Bobi Wine: The People's President	Christopher Sharp and Moses Bwayo
	Kokomo City	D. Smith
	Orlando, My Political Biography	Paul B. Preciado
	Smoke Sauna Sisterhood	Anna Hints
	The Thief Collector	Allison Otto
2024 (9th)	Daughters	Natalie Rae and Angela Patton	[13]
	Porcelain War	Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev
	Frida	Carla Gutiérrez
	Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story	Charlie Hamilton James
	The Last of the Sea Women	Sue Kim
	Sugarcane	Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie