Satellite Award for Best Documentary Film

The Satellite Award for Best Documentary Film is an annual award given by the International Press Academy.

Satellite Award for Best Documentary
Awarded for	Best Documentary
Country	United States
Presented by	International Press Academy
First award	1997 (awarded to 4 Little Girls)
Currently held by	Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (2024)

Winners and nominees

1990s

Year	Film	Director(s)
1997 [1]	4 Little Girls	Spike Lee
	Fast, Cheap & Out of Control	Errol Morris
	Hype!	Doug Pray
	Shooting Porn	Ronnie Larsen
	Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist	Kirby Dick
1998 [2]	Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life	Michael Paxton
	The Cruise	Bennett Miller
	The Farm: Angola, USA	Liz Garbus, Wilbert Rideau, Jonathan Stack
	Kurt & Courtney	Nick Broomfield
	Public Housing	Frederick Wiseman
1999 [3]	Buena Vista Social Club	Wim Wenders
	42: Forty Two Up	Michael Apted
	American Movie	Chris Smith
	Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.	Errol Morris
	Return with Honor	Freida Lee Mock, Terry Sanders
	The Source	Chuck Workman

2000s

Year	Film	Director(s)
2000 [4]	Reckless Indifference	William Gazecki
	Captured on Film: The True Story of Marion Davies	Hugh Munro Neely
	Dark Days	Marc Singer
	The Eyes of Tammy Faye	Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
	Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport	Mark Jonathan Harris
	One Day in September	Kevin Macdonald
2001 [5][6]	In Cane for Life (A Vida em Cana)	Jorge W. Atalla
	Calle 54	Fernando Trueba
	My Voyage to Italy (Il mio viaggio in Italia)	Martin Scorsese
	Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures	Jan Harlan
2002 [7]	The Kid Stays in the Picture	Nanette Burstein, Brett Morgen
	Biggie and Tupac	Nick Broomfield
	Bowling for Columbine	Michael Moore
	The Cockettes	Bill Weber, David Weissman
	Dogtown and Z-Boys	Stacy Peralta
2003 [8]	Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony	Lee Hirsch
	Capturing the Friedmans	Andrew Jarecki
	The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara	Errol Morris
	Lost in La Mancha	Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe
	My Flesh and Blood	Jonathan Karsh
	Stevie	Steve James
2004 [9]	Super Size Me	Morgan Spurlock
	Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids	Zana Briski, Ross Kauffman
	The Fuente Family: An American Dream	James Orr
	Lightning in a Bottle	Antoine Fuqua
	Touching the Void	Kevin Macdonald
	Tupac: Resurrection	Lauren Lazin
2005 [10]	Mad Hot Ballroom	Marilyn Agrelo
	Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room	Alex Gibney
	Favela Rising	Matt Mochary, Jeff Zimbalist
	March of the Penguins (La marche de l'empereur)	Luc Jacquet
	Murderball	Henry Alex Rubin, Dana Adam Shapiro
	New York Doll	Greg Whiteley
2006 [11][12]	Deliver Us from Evil	Amy Berg
	An Inconvenient Truth	David Guggenheim
	Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple	Stanley Nelson
	Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man	Lian Lunson
	The U.S. vs. John Lennon	David Leaf, John Scheinfeld
	The War Tapes	Deborah Scranton
2007 [13][14]	Sicko	Michael Moore
	The 11th Hour	Nadia Conners, Leila Conners
	Darfur Now	Ted Braun
	The King of Kong	Seth Gordon
	Lake of Fire	Tony Kaye
	No End in Sight	Charles Ferguson
2008 [15]	Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer	Robbie Cavolina, Ian McCrudden
	Man on Wire	James Marsh
	Encounters at the End of the World	Werner Herzog
	Pray the Devil Back to Hell	Gini Reticker
	Religulous	Larry Charles
	Waltz with Bashir (Vals im Bashir)	Ari Folman
2009 [16][17]	Every Little Step	James D. Stern, Adam Del Deo
	The Beaches of Agnès	Agnès Varda
	The Cove	Louie Psihoyos
	It Might Get Loud	Davis Guggenheim
	The September Issue	R.J. Cutler
	Valentino: The Last Emperor	Matt Tyrnauer

2010s

Year	Film	Director(s)
2010 [18]	Restrepo	Sebastian Junger, Tim Hetherington
	Behind the Burly Q	Leslie Zemeckis
	Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer	Alex Gibney
	Countdown to Zero	Lucy Walker
	A Film Unfinished	Yael Hersonski
	Inside Job	Charles Ferguson
	Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work	Ricki Stern, Anne Sundberg
	Sequestro	Jorge Wolney Atalla Junior
	The Tillman Story	Amir Bar-Lev
	Waiting for "Superman"	Davis Guggenheim
2011 [19][20]	Senna	Asif Kapadia
	American: The Bill Hicks Story	Matt Harlock, Paul Thomas
	Cave of Forgotten Dreams	Werner Herzog
	The Interrupters	Steve James
	My Perestroika	Robin Hessman
	One Lucky Elephant	Lisa Leeman
	Pina	Wim Wenders
	Project Nim	James Marsh
	Tabloid	Errol Morris
	Under Fire: Journalists in Combat	Martyn Burke
2012 [21][22]	Chasing Ice	Jeff Orlowski
	Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry	Alison Klayman
	The Central Park Five	Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
	The Gatekeepers	Dror Moreh
	Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present	Matthew Akers
	The Pruitt-Igoe Myth	Chad Freidrichs
	Searching for Sugar Man	Malik Bendjelloul
	West of Memphis	Amy J. Berg
2013 [23][24]	Blackfish	Gabriela Cowperthwaite
	20 Feet from Stardom	Morgan Neville
	The Act of Killing	Joshua Oppenheimer
	After Tiller	Martha Shane, Lana Wilson
	American Promise	Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson
	Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie	Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, Jeremy Newberger
	Sound City	Dave Grohl
	The Square	Jehane Noujaim
	Stories We Tell	Sarah Polley
	Tim's Vermeer	Teller
2014 [25][26]	Citizenfour	Laura Poitras
	Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq	Nancy Buirski
	Art and Craft	Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman
	Finding Vivian Maier	John Maloof, Charlie Siskel
	Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me	James Keach
	Jodorowsky's Dune	Frank Pavich
	Keep on Keepin' On	Alan Hicks
	Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles	Chuck Workman
	Red Army	Gabe Polsky
	Virunga	Orlando von Einsiedel
2015 [27]	Amy	Asif Kapadia
	The Look of Silence	Joshua Oppenheimer
	Becoming Bulletproof	Michael Barnett
	Best of Enemies	Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville
	Cartel Land	Matthew Heineman
	Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief	Alex Gibney
	He Named Me Malala	Davis Guggenheim
	The Hunting Ground	Kirby Dick
	National Lampoon: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead	Douglas Tirola
	Where to Invade Next	Michael Moore
2016 [28]	13th	Ava DuVernay
	The Beatles: Eight Days a Week	Ron Howard
	The Eagle Huntress	Otto Bell
	Fire at Sea	Gianfranco Rosi
	Gleason	Clay Tweel
	The Ivory Game	Richard Ladkani, Kief Davidson
	Life, Animated	Roger Ross Williams
	O.J.: Made in America	Ezra Edelman
	Tower	Keith Maitland
	Zero Days	Alex Gibney
2017 [29][30]	Chasing Coral	Jeff Orlowski
	City of Ghosts	Matthew Heineman
	Cries from Syria	Evgeny Afineevsky
	Ex Libris: The New York Public Library	Frederick Wiseman
	Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS	Sebastian Junger, Nick Quested
	Human Flow	Ai Weiwei
	Icarus	Bryan Fogel
	Kedi	Ceyda Torun
	Legion of Brothers	Greg Barker
2018 [31]	Minding the Gap	Bing Liu
	Crime + Punishment	Stephen Maing
	Free Solo	Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin
	RBG	Betsy West, Julie Cohen
	Three Identical Strangers	Tim Wardle
	Won't You Be My Neighbor?	Morgan Neville
2019 [32]	63 Up	Michael Apted
	The Apollo	Roger Ross Williams
	Apollo 11	Todd Douglas Miller
	The Cave	Feras Fayyad
	Citizen K	Alex Gibney
	For Sama	Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts
	Honeyland	Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov
	One Child Nation	Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang

2020s

Year	Film	Director(s)
2020 [33][34]	Collective	Alexander Nanau
	Acasă, My Home	Radu Ciorniciuc
	Circus of Books	Rachel Mason
	Coup 53	Rachel Mason
	Crip Camp	Nicole Newnham, James Lebrecht
	The Dissident	Bryan Fogel
	Gunda	Viktor Kossakovsky
	MLK/FBI	Sam Pollard
	A Most Beautiful Thing	Mary Mazzio
	The Truffle Hunters	Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
2021 [35]	Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)	Amir "Questlove" Thompson
	Ascension	Jessica Kingdon
	Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road	Brent Wilson
	Flee	Jonas Poher Rasmussen
	Introducing, Selma Blair	Rachel Fleit
	Julia	Julie Cohen and Betsy West
	Procession	Robert Greene
	The Rescue	Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
	Val	Leo Scott and Ting Poo
	The Velvet Underground	Todd Haynes
2022 [36]	Fire of Love	Sara Dosa
	All That Breathes	Shaunak Sen
	All the Beauty and the Bloodshed	Laura Poitras
	Descendant	Margaret Brown
	Good Night Oppy	Ryan White
	Moonage Daydream	Brett Morgen
	The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile	Kathlyn Horan
	The Territory	Alex Pritz
	Young Plato	Declan McGrath, Neasa Ní Chianáin
2023 [37][38]	Bad Press	Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler
	20 Days in Mariupol	Mstyslav Chernov
	American Symphony	Matthew Heineman
	Close to Vermeer	Suzanne Raes
	Lakota Nation vs. United States	Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli
	Little Richard: I Am Everything	Lisa Cortés
	Love to Love You, Donna Summer	Roger Ross Williams and Brooklyn Sudano
	Stamped from the Beginning	Roger Ross Williams
2024 [39]	Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story	Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui
	The Bloody Hundredth	Laurent Bouzereau and Mark Herzog
	Dahomey	Mati Diop
	Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes	Nanette Burstein
	I Am: Celine Dion	Irene Taylor
	No Other Land	Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor
	Porcelain War	Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev
	Sugarcane	Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie

Multiple wins

• Asif Kapadia-2 (one tied with Joshua Oppenheimer)
• Jeff Orlowski-2

See also

• Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
• Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature