# Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film

This is a list of films by year that have received an Academy Award together with the other nominations for best documentary short film. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year. Copies of every winning film (along with copies of most nominees) are held by the Academy Film Archive. Fifteen films are shortlisted before nominations are announced.

## Rules and eligibility

Per the recent rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), a Short Subject Documentary is defined as a nonfiction motion picture "dealing creatively with cultural, artistic, historical, social, scientific, economic or other subjects". It may be photographed in actual occurrence, or may employ partial reenactment, stock footage, stills, animation, stop-motion or other techniques, as long as the emphasis is on fact, and not on fiction. It must have a run time of no more than 40 minutes and released during a special eligibility period which may vary from year to year, but generally begins the month of October of the prior year and ends in September of the award year. (This eligibility differs from most other Academy Award categories which only includes films released between January and December of the award year.) The documentary's release must also occur within two years of the film's completion, and there are also rules governing the formatting of audio and video used to produce and exhibit the picture.
In addition, to be eligible the film must meet one of the following criteria:
* complete a commercial showing of at least 7 days in either Los Angeles County, California or anywhere in New York City before being released to other non-theatrical venues such as DVD or TV; or
* regardless of any public exhibition or nontheatrical release the film must have won a qualifying award at a competitive film festival, as specified by the Academy; or
* win a Gold, Silver or Bronze Medal award in the Documentary category of the Academy's Student Academy Award Competition.
The film must run daily for seven days, open to the public for paid admission, and must be advertised in one of the city's major circulars during its run, with screening times included. Additionally, the film must be shown at least once during every day of its qualifying run. Unlike the Best Documentary Feature award, whose rules mandate at least one screening starting between noon and 10 pm local time on each day of the qualifying run, there is no restriction on the start time of any screening. The film must have narration or dialogue primarily in English or with English subtitles, and must be the whole of an original work. Partial edits from larger works and episodes from serialized films are not eligible.
Eligibility rules for prior years may have differed from these.

### Nomination process

The Documentary Branch of the Academy first votes to select ten pictures for preliminary nomination, after which a second round of balloting is conducted to select the five documentary nominees. The entire Academy membership will then vote for one of these five for the Oscar. A maximum of two people involved with the production of the documentary may be nominated for the award, one of whom must be the film's credited director. One producer may also be nominated, but if more than one non-director producer is credited the Academy Documentary Branch will vet the producers to select the one they believe was most involved in the creation of the film.

## Winners and nominees
### 1940s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1941 (14th) | Churchill's Island | National Film Board of Canada |
| 1941 (14th) | Adventure in the Bronx | Film Associates |
| 1941 (14th) | Bomber | United States Office for Emergency Management Film Unit |
| 1941 (14th) | Christmas Under Fire | British Ministry of Information |
| 1941 (14th) | Letter from Home | British Ministry of Information |
| 1941 (14th) | Life of a Thoroughbred | Truman Talley |
| 1941 (14th) | Norway in Revolt | The March of Time |
| 1941 (14th) | A Place to Live | Philadelphia Housing Association |
| 1941 (14th) | Russian Soil | Amkino |
| 1941 (14th) | Soldiers of the Sky | Truman Talley |
| 1941 (14th) | Warclouds in the Pacific | National Film Board of Canada |
| 1942 (15th) |
| Short subject and feature documentaries competed in a combined Best Documentary category. ||
| 1943 (16th) |
| 1943 (16th) | December 7th | United States Navy |
| 1943 (16th) | Children of Mars | RKO Radio |
| 1943 (16th) | Plan for Destruction | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| 1943 (16th) | Swedes in America | United States Office of War Information Overseas Motion Picture Bureau |
| 1943 (16th) | To the People of the United States | Walter Wanger |
| 1943 (16th) | Tomorrow We Fly | United States Navy Bureau of Aeronautics |
| 1943 (16th) | Youth in Crisis | The March of Time |
| 1944 (17th) |
| 1944 (17th) | With the Marines at Tarawa | United States Marine Corps |
| 1944 (17th) | Hymn of the Nations | United States Office of War Information Overseas Motion Picture Bureau |
| 1944 (17th) | New Americans | RKO Radio |
| 1945 (18th) |
| 1945 (18th) | Hitler Lives? | Gordon Hollingshead |
| 1945 (18th) | Library of Congress | United States Office of War Information Overseas Motion Picture Bureau |
| 1945 (18th) | To the Shores of Iwo Jima | United States Marine Corps |
| 1946 (19th) |
| 1946 (19th) | Seeds of Destiny | United States Department of War |
| 1946 (19th) | Atomic Power | The March of Time |
| 1946 (19th) | Life at the Zoo | Artkino |
| 1946 (19th) | Paramount News Issue #37 (Twentieth Anniversary Issue! 1927.....1947) | Paramount |
| 1946 (19th) | Traffic with the Devil | Herbert Morgan |
| 1947 (20th) |
| 1947 (20th) | First Steps | United Nations Division of Films and Visual Information |
| 1947 (20th) | Passport to Nowhere | Frederic Ullman Jr. |
| 1947 (20th) | School in the Mailbox | Australian News & Information Bureau |
| 1948 (21st) |
| 1948 (21st) | Toward Independence | United States Army |
| 1948 (21st) | Heart to Heart | Herbert Morgan |
| 1948 (21st) | Operation Vittles | United States Army Air Force |
| 1949 (22nd) |
| 1949 (22nd) | A Chance to Live (TIE) | Richard de Rochemont |
| 1949 (22nd) | So Much for So Little (TIE) | Edward Selzer |
| 1949 (22nd) | 1848 | French Cinema General Cooperative |
| 1949 (22nd) | The Rising Tide | St. Francis-Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia |

### 1950s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1950 (23rd) | Why Korea? | Edmund Reek |
| 1950 (23rd) | The Fight: Science Against Cancer | Guy Glover |
| 1950 (23rd) | The Stairs | Film Documents, Inc. |
| 1951 (24th) |
| 1951 (24th) | Benjy | Made by Fred Zinnemann with the cooperation of Paramount Pictures Corporation for the Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital |
| 1951 (24th) | One Who Came Back | Owen Crump (Film sponsored by the Disabled American Veterans, in cooperation with the United States Department of Defense and the Association of Motion Picture Producers) |
| 1951 (24th) | The Seeing Eye | Gordon Hollingshead |
| 1952 (25th) |
| 1952 (25th) | Neighbours | Norman McLaren |
| 1952 (25th) | Devil Take Us | Herbert Morgan |
| 1952 (25th) | The Garden Spider (Epeira Diadema) | Alberto Ancilotto |
| 1952 (25th) | Man Alive! | Stephen Bosustow |
| 1953 (26th) |
| 1953 (26th) | The Alaskan Eskimo | Walt Disney |
| 1953 (26th) | The Living City | John Barnes |
| 1953 (26th) | Operation Blue Jay | United States Army Signal Corps |
| 1953 (26th) | They Planted a Stone | James Carr |
| 1953 (26th) | The Word | John Healy and John Adams |
| 1954 (27th) |
| 1954 (27th) | Thursday's Children | World Wide Pictures and Morse Films |
| 1954 (27th) | Jet Carrier | Otto Lang |
| 1954 (27th) | Rembrandt: A Self-Portrait | Morrie Roizman |
| 1955 (28th) |
| 1955 (28th) | Men Against the Arctic | Walt Disney |
| 1955 (28th) | The Battle of Gettysburg | Dore Schary |
| 1955 (28th) | The Face of Lincoln | Wilbur T. Blume |
| 1956 (29th) |
| 1956 (29th) | The True Story of the Civil War | Louis Clyde Stoumen |
| 1956 (29th) | A City Decides | Charles Guggenheim & Associates, Inc. |
| 1956 (29th) | The Dark Wave | John Healy |
| 1956 (29th) | The House Without a Name | Valentine Davies |
| 1956 (29th) | Man in Space | Ward Kimball |
| 1957 (30th) |
| No award given ||
| 1958 (31st) |
| 1958 (31st) | Ama Girls | Ben Sharpsteen |
| 1958 (31st) | Employees Only | Kenneth G. Brown |
| 1958 (31st) | Journey into Spring | Ian Ferguson |
| 1958 (31st) | The Living Stone | Tom Daly |
| 1958 (31st) | Overture | Thorold Dickinson |
| 1959 (32nd) |
| 1959 (32nd) | Glass | Bert Haanstra |
| 1959 (32nd) | Donald in Mathmagic Land | Walt Disney |
| 1959 (32nd) | From Generation to Generation | Edward F. Cullen |

### 1960s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1960 (33rd) | Giuseppina | James Hill |
| 1960 (33rd) | Beyond Silence | United States Information Agency |
| 1960 (33rd) | A City Called Copenhagen | Statens Filmcentral and The Danish Government Film Office |
| 1960 (33rd) | George Grosz' Interregnum | Charles Carey and Altina Carey |
| 1960 (33rd) | Universe | Colin Low |
| 1961 (34th) |
| 1961 (34th) | Project Hope | Frank P. Bibas |
| 1961 (34th) | Breaking the Language Barrier | United States Air Force |
| 1961 (34th) | Cradle of Genius | Jim O'Connor and Tom Hayes |
| 1961 (34th) | Kahl | Dido-Film-GmbH |
| 1961 (34th) | L'Uomo in Grigio (The Man in Gray) | Benedetto Benedetti |
| 1962 (35th) |
| 1962 (35th) | Dylan Thomas | Jack Howells |
| 1962 (35th) | The John Glenn Story | William L. Hendricks |
| 1962 (35th) | The Road to the Wall | Robert Saudek |
| 1963 (36th) |
| 1963 (36th) | Chagall | Simon Schiffrin |
| 1963 (36th) | The Five Cities of June | George Stevens Jr. |
| 1963 (36th) | The Spirit of America | Algernon G. Walker |
| 1963 (36th) | Thirty Million Letters | Edgar Anstey |
| 1963 (36th) | To Live Again | Mel London |
| 1964 (37th) |
| 1964 (37th) | Nine from Little Rock | Charles Guggenheim |
| 1964 (37th) | 140 Days Under the World | Geoffrey Scott and Oxley Hughan |
| 1964 (37th) | Breaking the Habit | Henry Jacobs and John Korty |
| 1964 (37th) | Children Without | Charles Guggenheim |
| 1964 (37th) | Kenojuak | National Film Board of Canada |
| 1965 (38th) |
| 1965 (38th) | To Be Alive! | Francis Thompson |
| 1965 (38th) | Mural on Our Street | Kirk Smallman |
| 1965 (38th) | Overture | Mafilm Productions |
| 1965 (38th) | Point of View | Vision Associates Productions |
| 1965 (38th) | Yeats Country | Patrick Carey and Joe Mendoza |
| 1966 (39th) |
| 1966 (39th) | A Year Toward Tomorrow | Edmond A. Levy |
| 1966 (39th) | Adolescence | Marin Karmitz and Vladimir Forgency |
| 1966 (39th) | Cowboy | Michael Ahnemann and Gary Schlosser |
| 1966 (39th) | The Odds Against | Lee R. Bobker and Helen Kristt Radin |
| 1966 (39th) | Saint Matthew Passion | Mafilm Studio |
| 1967 (40th) |
| 1967 (40th) | The Redwoods | Mark Jonathan Harris and Trevor Greenwood |
| 1967 (40th) | Monument to the Dream | Charles Guggenheim |
| 1967 (40th) | A Place to Stand | Christopher Chapman |
| 1967 (40th) | See You at the Pillar | Robert Fitchett |
| 1967 (40th) | While I Run This Race | Carl V. Ragsdale |
| 1968 (41st) |
| 1968 (41st) | Why Man Creates | Saul Bass |
| 1968 (41st) | The House That Ananda Built | Fali Bilimoria |
| 1968 (41st) | The Revolving Door | Lee R. Bobker |
| 1968 (41st) | A Space to Grow | Thomas P. Kelly Jr. |
| 1968 (41st) | A Way Out of the Wilderness | Dan E. Weisburd |
| 1969 (42nd) |
| 1969 (42nd) | Czechoslovakia 1968 | Denis Sanders and Robert M. Fresco |
| 1969 (42nd) | An Impression of John Steinbeck: Writer | Donald Wrye |
| 1969 (42nd) | Jenny Is a Good Thing | Joan Horvath |
| 1969 (42nd) | Leo Beuerman | Arthur H. Wolf and Russell A. Mosser |
| 1969 (42nd) | The Magic Machines | Joan Keller Stern |

### 1970s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1970 (43rd) | Interviews with My Lai Veterans | Joseph Strick |
| 1970 (43rd) | The Gifts | Robert McBride |
| 1970 (43rd) | A Long Way from Nowhere | Bob Aller |
| 1970 (43rd) | Oisin | Patrick Carey and Vivien Carey |
| 1970 (43rd) | Time Is Running Out | Horst Dallmayr and Robert Menegoz |
| 1971 (44th) |
| 1971 (44th) | Sentinels of Silence | Manuel Arango and Robert Amram |
| 1971 (44th) | Adventures in Perception | Han van Gelder |
| 1971 (44th) | Art Is... | Julian Krainin and DeWitt L. Sage Jr. |
| 1971 (44th) | The Numbers Start with the River | Donald Wrye |
| 1971 (44th) | Somebody Waiting | Hal Riney, Dick Snider and Sherwood Omens |
| 1972 (45th) |
| 1972 (45th) | This Tiny World | Charles and Martina Huguenot van der Linden |
| 1972 (45th) | Hundertwasser's Rainy Day | Peter Schamoni |
| 1972 (45th) | K-Z | Giorgio Treves |
| 1972 (45th) | Selling Out | Tadeusz Jaworski |
| 1972 (45th) | The Tide of Traffic | Humphrey Swingler |
| 1973 (46th) |
| 1973 (46th) | Princeton: A Search for Answers | Julian Krainin and DeWitt Sage |
| 1973 (46th) | Background | Carmen D'Avino |
| 1973 (46th) | Children at Work (Paisti Ag Obair) | Louis Marcus |
| 1973 (46th) | Christo's Valley Curtain | Albert Maysles and David Maysles |
| 1973 (46th) | Four Stones for Kanemitsu | Terry Sanders and June Wayne |
| 1974 (47th) |
| 1974 (47th) | Don't | Robin Lehman |
| 1974 (47th) | City Out of Wilderness | Francis Thompson |
| 1974 (47th) | Exploratorium | Jon Boorstin |
| 1974 (47th) | John Muir's High Sierra | Dewitt Jones and Lesley Foster |
| 1974 (47th) | Naked Yoga | Ronald S. Kass and Mervyn Lloyd |
| 1975 (48th) |
| 1975 (48th) | The End of the Game | Claire Wilbur and Robin Lehman |
| 1975 (48th) | Arthur and Lillie | Jon Else, Steven Kovacs and Kristine Samuelson |
| 1975 (48th) | Millions of Years Ahead of Man | Manfred Baier |
| 1975 (48th) | Probes in Space | George V. Casey |
| 1975 (48th) | Whistling Smith | Barrie Howells and Michael Scott |
| 1976 (49th) |
| 1976 (49th) | Number Our Days | Lynne Littman and Barbara Myerhoff |
| 1976 (49th) | American Shoeshine | Sparky Greene |
| 1976 (49th) | Blackwood | Tony Ianzelo and Andy Thomson |
| 1976 (49th) | The End of the Road | John Armstrong |
| 1976 (49th) | Universe | Lester Novros |
| 1977 (50th) |
| 1977 (50th) | Gravity Is My Enemy | John C. Joseph and Jan Stussy |
| 1977 (50th) | Agueda Martinez: Our People, Our Country | Moctesuma Esparza |
| 1977 (50th) | First Edition | Helen Whitney and DeWitt L. Sage Jr. |
| 1977 (50th) | Of Time, Tombs and Treasures | James R. Messenger and Paul N. Raimondi |
| 1977 (50th) | The Shetland Experience | Douglas Gordon |
| 1978 (51st) |
| 1978 (51st) | The Flight of the Gossamer Condor | Jacqueline Phillips Shedd and Ben Shedd |
| 1978 (51st) | The Divided Trail: A Native American Odyssey | Jerry Aronson |
| 1978 (51st) | An Encounter with Faces | K.K. Kapil |
| 1978 (51st) | Goodnight Miss Ann | August Cinquegrana |
| 1978 (51st) | Squires of San Quentin | J. Gary Mitchell |
| 1979 (52nd) |
| 1979 (52nd) | Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist | Saul J. Turell |
| 1979 (52nd) | Dae | Risto Teofilovski |
| 1979 (52nd) | Koryo Celadon | Donald A. Connolly and James R. Messenger |
| 1979 (52nd) | Nails | Phillip Borsos |
| 1979 (52nd) | Remember Me | Dick Young |

### 1980s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1980 (53rd) | Karl Hess: Toward Liberty | Roland Hallé and Peter Ladue |
| 1980 (53rd) | Don't Mess with Bill | John Watson and Pen Densham |
| 1980 (53rd) | The Eruption of Mount St. Helens | George Casey |
| 1980 (53rd) | It's the Same World | Dick Young |
| 1980 (53rd) | Luther Metke at 94 | Richard Hawkins and Jorge Preloran |
| 1981 (54th) |
| 1981 (54th) | Close Harmony | Nigel Noble |
| 1981 (54th) | Americas in Transition | Obie Benz |
| 1981 (54th) | Journey for Survival | Dick Young |
| 1981 (54th) | See What I Say | Linda Chapman, Pam LeBlanc and Freddi Stevens |
| 1981 (54th) | Urge to Build | Roland Hallé and John Hoover |
| 1982 (55th) |
| 1982 (55th) | If You Love This Planet | Edward Le Lorrain and Terre Nash |
| 1982 (55th) | Gods of Metal | Robert Richter |
| 1982 (55th) | The Klan: A Legacy of Hate in America | Charles Guggenheim and Werner Schumann |
| 1982 (55th) | To Live or Let Die | Freida Lee Mock |
| 1982 (55th) | Traveling Hopefully | John G. Avildsen |
| 1983 (56th) |
| 1983 (56th) | Flamenco at 5:15 | Cynthia Scott and Adam Symansky |
| 1983 (56th) | In the Nuclear Shadow: What Can the Children Tell Us? | Vivienne Verdon-Roe and Eric Thiermann |
| 1983 (56th) | Sewing Woman | Arthur Dong |
| 1983 (56th) | Spaces: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph | Robert Eisenhardt |
| 1983 (56th) | You Are Free (Ihr Zent Frei) | Dea Brokman and Ilene Landis |
| 1984 (57th) |
| 1984 (57th) | The Stone Carvers | Marjorie Hunt and Paul Wagner |
| 1984 (57th) | The Children of Soong Ching Ling | Gary Bush and Paul T.K. Lin |
| 1984 (57th) | Code Gray: Ethical Dilemmas in Nursing | Ben Achtenberg and Joan Sawyer |
| 1984 (57th) | The Garden of Eden | Lawrence R. Hott and Roger M. Sherman |
| 1984 (57th) | Recollections of Pavlovsk | Irina Kalinina |
| 1985 (58th) |
| 1985 (58th) | Witness to War: Dr. Charlie Clements | David Goodman |
| 1985 (58th) | The Courage to Care | Robert Gardner |
| 1985 (58th) | Keats and His Nightingale: A Blind Date | Michael Crowley and James Wolpaw |
| 1985 (58th) | Making Overtures: The Story of a Community Orchestra | Barbara Willis Sweete |
| 1985 (58th) | The Wizard of the Strings | Alan Edelstein |
| 1986 (59th) |
| 1986 (59th) | Women – for America, for the World | Vivienne Verdon-Roe |
| 1986 (59th) | Debonair Dancers | Alison Nigh-Strelich |
| 1986 (59th) | The Masters of Disaster | Sonya Friedman |
| 1986 (59th) | Red Grooms: Sunflower in a Hothouse | Thomas L. Neff and Madeline Bell |
| 1986 (59th) | Sam | Aaron D. Weisblatt |
| 1987 (60th) |
| 1987 (60th) | Young at Heart | Sue Marx and Pamela Conn |
| 1987 (60th) | Frances Steloff: Memoirs of a Bookseller | Deborah Dickson |
| 1987 (60th) | In the Wee Wee Hours... | Dr. Frank Daniel and Izak Ben-Meir |
| 1987 (60th) | Language Says It All | Megan Williams |
| 1987 (60th) | Silver into Gold | Lynn Mueller |
| 1988 (61st) |
| 1988 (61st) | You Don't Have to Die | Malcolm Clarke and Bill Guttentag |
| 1988 (61st) | The Children's Storefront | Karen Goodman |
| 1988 (61st) | Family Gathering | Lise Yasui and Ann Tegnell |
| 1988 (61st) | Gang Cops | Thomas B. Fleming and Daniel J. Marks |
| 1988 (61st) | Portrait of Imogen | Nancy Hale and Meg Partridge |
| 1989 (62nd) |
| 1989 (62nd) | The Johnstown Flood | Charles Guggenheim |
| 1989 (62nd) | Fine Food, Fine Pastries, Open 6 to 9 | David Petersen |
| 1989 (62nd) | Yad Vashem: Preserving the Past to Ensure the Future | Ray Errol Fox |

### 1990s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 1990 (63rd) | Days of Waiting | Steven Okazaki |
| 1990 (63rd) | Burning Down Tomorrow | Kit Thomas |
| 1990 (63rd) | Chimps: So Like Us | Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon |
| 1990 (63rd) | Journey Into Life: The World of the Unborn | Derek Bromhall |
| 1990 (63rd) | Rose Kennedy: A Life to Remember | Freida Lee Mock and Terry Sanders |
| 1991 (64th) |
| 1991 (64th) | Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment | Debra Chasnoff |
| 1991 (64th) | Birdnesters of Thailand (Shadow Hunters) | Éric Valli and Alain Majani |
| 1991 (64th) | A Little Vicious | Immy Humes |
| 1991 (64th) | The Mark of the Maker | David McGowan |
| 1991 (64th) | Memorial: Letters from American Soldiers | Bill Couturié and Bernard Edelman |
| 1992 (65th) |
| 1992 (65th) | Educating Peter | Thomas C. Goodwin (posthumously) and Gerardine Wurzburg |
| 1992 (65th) | At the Edge of Conquest: The Journey of Chief Wai-Wai | Geoffrey O'Connor |
| 1992 (65th) | Beyond Imagining: Margaret Anderson and the 'Little Review' | Wendy L. Weinberg |
| 1992 (65th) | The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein | Richard Elson and Sally Bochner |
| 1992 (65th) | When Abortion Was Illegal: Untold Stories | Dorothy Fadiman |
| 1993 (66th) |
| 1993 (66th) | Defending Our Lives | Margaret Lazarus and Renner Wunderlich |
| 1993 (66th) | Blood Ties: The Life and Work of Sally Mann | Steven Cantor and Peter Spirer |
| 1993 (66th) | Chicks in White Satin | Elaine Holliman and Jason Schneider |
| 1994 (67th) |
| 1994 (67th) | A Time for Justice | Charles Guggenheim |
| 1994 (67th) | Blues Highway | Vince DiPersio and Bill Guttentag |
| 1994 (67th) | 89 mm od Europy (89mm from Europe) | Marcel Łoziński |
| 1994 (67th) | School of Assassins | Robert Richter |
| 1994 (67th) | Straight from the Heart | Dee Mosbacher and Frances Reid |
| 1995 (68th) |
| 1995 (68th) | One Survivor Remembers | Kary Antholis |
| 1995 (68th) | Jim Dine: A Self-Portrait on the Walls | Nancy Dine and Richard Stilwell |
| 1995 (68th) | The Living Sea | Greg MacGillivray and Alec Lorimore |
| 1995 (68th) | Never Give Up: The 20th Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper | Terry Sanders and Freida Lee Mock |
| 1995 (68th) | The Shadow of Hate | Charles Guggenheim |
| 1996 (69th) |
| 1996 (69th) | Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien | Jessica Yu |
| 1996 (69th) | Cosmic Voyage | Jeffrey Marvin and Bayley Silleck |
| 1996 (69th) | An Essay on Matisse | Perry Wolff |
| 1996 (69th) | Special Effects: Anything Can Happen | Susanne Simpson and Ben Burtt |
| 1996 (69th) | The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage | Paul Seydor and Nick Redman |
| 1997 (70th) |
| 1997 (70th) | A Story of Healing | Donna Dewey and Carol Pasternak |
| 1997 (70th) | Alaska: Spirit of the Wild | George Casey and Paul Novros |
| 1997 (70th) | Amazon | Kieth Merrill and Jonathan Stern |
| 1997 (70th) | Daughter of the Bride | Terri Randall |
| 1997 (70th) | Still Kicking: The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies | Mel Damski and Andrea Blaugrund |
| 1998 (71st) |
| 1998 (71st) | The Personals: Improvisations on Romance in the Golden Years | Keiko Ibi |
| 1998 (71st) | A Place in the Land | Charles Guggenheim |
| 1998 (71st) | Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square | Shui-Bo Wang and Donald McWilliams |
| 1999 (72nd) |
| 1999 (72nd) | King Gimp | Susan Hannah Hadary and William A. Whiteford |
| 1999 (72nd) | Eyewitness | Bert Van Bork |
| 1999 (72nd) | The Wildest Show in the South: The Angola Prison Rodeo | Simeon Soffer and Jonathan Stack |

### 2000s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 2000 (73rd) | Big Mama | Tracy Seretean |
| 2000 (73rd) | Curtain Call | Chuck Braverman and Steve Kalafer |
| 2000 (73rd) | Dolphins | Greg MacGillivray and Alec Lorimore |
| 2000 (73rd) | The Man on Lincoln's Nose | Daniel Raim |
| 2000 (73rd) | On Tiptoe: Gentle Steps to Freedom | Eric Simonson and Leelai Demoz |
| 2001 (74th) |
| 2001 (74th) | Thoth | Sarah Kernochan and Lynn Appelle |
| 2001 (74th) | Artists and Orphans: A True Drama | Lianne Klapper McNally |
| 2001 (74th) | Sing! | Freida Lee Mock and Jessica Sanders |
| 2002 (75th) |
| 2002 (75th) | Twin Towers | Bill Guttentag and Robert David Port |
| 2002 (75th) | The Collector of Bedford Street | Alice Elliott |
| 2002 (75th) | Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks | Robert Hudson and Bobby Houston |
| 2002 (75th) | Why Can't We Be a Family Again? | Roger Weisberg and Murray Nossel |
| 2003 (76th) |
| 2003 (76th) | Chernobyl Heart | Maryann DeLeo |
| 2003 (76th) | Asylum | Sandy McLeod and Gini Reticker |
| 2003 (76th) | Ferry Tales | Katja Esson |
| 2004 (77th) |
| 2004 (77th) | Mighty Times: The Children's March | Robert Hudson and Robert Houston |
| 2004 (77th) | Autism Is a World | Gerardine Wurzburg |
| 2004 (77th) | The Children of Leningradsky | Hanna Polak and Andrzej Celinski |
| 2004 (77th) | Hardwood | Hubert Davis and Erin Faith Young |
| 2004 (77th) | Sister Rose's Passion | Oren Jacoby and Steve Kalafer |
| 2005 (78th) |
| 2005 (78th) | A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin | Corinne Marrinan and Eric Simonson |
| 2005 (78th) | The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club | Dan Krauss |
| 2005 (78th) | God Sleeps in Rwanda | Kimberlee Acquaro and Stacy Sherman |
| 2005 (78th) | The Mushroom Club | Steven Okazaki |
| 2006 (79th) |
| 2006 (79th) | The Blood of Yingzhou District | Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon |
| 2006 (79th) | Recycled Life | Leslie Iwerks and Mike Glad |
| 2006 (79th) | Rehearsing a Dream | Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon |
| 2006 (79th) | Two Hands | Nathaniel Kahn and Susan Rose Behr |
| 2007 (80th) |
| 2007 (80th) | Freeheld | Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth |
| 2007 (80th) | La Corona (The Crown) | Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega |
| 2007 (80th) | Salim Baba | Tim Sternberg and Francisco Bello |
| 2007 (80th) | Sari's Mother | James Longley |
| 2008 (81st) |
| 2008 (81st) | Smile Pinki | Megan Mylan |
| 2008 (81st) | The Conscience of Nhem En | Steven Okazaki |
| 2008 (81st) | The Final Inch | Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant |
| 2008 (81st) | The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306 | Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde |
| 2009 (82nd) |
| 2009 (82nd) | Music by Prudence | Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett |
| 2009 (82nd) | China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province | Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill |
| 2009 (82nd) | The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner | Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher |
| 2009 (82nd) | The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant | Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert |
| 2009 (82nd) | Rabbit à la Berlin | Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra |

### 2010s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 2010 (83rd) | Strangers No More | Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon |
| 2010 (83rd) | Killing in the Name | Jed Rothstein |
| 2010 (83rd) | Poster Girl | Sara Nesson and Mitchell Block |
| 2010 (83rd) | Sun Come Up | Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger |
| 2010 (83rd) | The Warriors of Qiugang | Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon |
| 2011 (84th) |
| 2011 (84th) | Saving Face | Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy |
| 2011 (84th) | The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement | Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin |
| 2011 (84th) | God Is the Bigger Elvis | Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson |
| 2011 (84th) | Incident in New Baghdad | James Spione |
| 2011 (84th) | The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom | Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen |
| 2012 (85th) |
| 2012 (85th) | Inocente | Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine |
| 2012 (85th) | Kings Point | Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider |
| 2012 (85th) | Mondays at Racine | Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan |
| 2012 (85th) | Open Heart | Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern |
| 2012 (85th) | Redemption | Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill |
| 2013 (86th) |
| 2013 (86th) | The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life | Malcolm Clarke and Nicholas Reed |
| 2013 (86th) | CaveDigger | Jeffrey Karoff |
| 2013 (86th) | Facing Fear | Jason Cohen |
| 2013 (86th) | Karama Has No Walls | Sara Ishaq |
| 2013 (86th) | Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall | Edgar Barens |
| 2014 (87th) |
| 2014 (87th) | Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 | Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry |
| 2014 (87th) | Joanna | Aneta Kopacz |
| 2014 (87th) | Our Curse | Tomasz Śliwiński and Maciej Ślesicki |
| 2014 (87th) | The Reaper (La Parka) | Gabriel Serra Arguello |
| 2014 (87th) | White Earth | J. Christian Jensen |
| 2015 (88th) |
| 2015 (88th) | A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness | Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy |
| 2015 (88th) | Body Team 12 | David Darg and Bryn Mooser |
| 2015 (88th) | Chau, Beyond the Lines | Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck |
| 2015 (88th) | Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah | Adam Benzine |
| 2015 (88th) | Last Day of Freedom | Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman |
| 2016 (89th) |
| 2016 (89th) | The White Helmets | Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara |
| 2016 (89th) | Extremis | Dan Krauss |
| 2016 (89th) | 4.1 Miles | Daphne Matziaraki |
| 2016 (89th) | Joe's Violin | Kahane Cooperman and Raphaela Neihausen |
| 2016 (89th) | Watani: My Homeland | Marcel Mettelsiefen and Stephen Ellis |
| 2017 (90th) |
| 2017 (90th) | Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405 | Frank Stiefel |
| 2017 (90th) | Edith+Eddie | Laura Checkoway and Thomas Lee Wright |
| 2017 (90th) | Heroin(e) | Elaine McMillion Sheldon and Kerrin Sheldon |
| 2017 (90th) | Knife Skills | Thomas Lennon |
| 2017 (90th) | Traffic Stop | Kate Davis and David Heilbroner |
| 2018 (91st) |
| 2018 (91st) | Period. End of Sentence. | Rayka Zehtabchi and Melissa Berton |
| 2018 (91st) | Black Sheep | Ed Perkins and Jonathan Chinn |
| 2018 (91st) | End Game | Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman |
| 2018 (91st) | Lifeboat | Skye Fitzgerald and Bryn Mooser |
| 2018 (91st) | A Night at the Garden | Marshall Curry |
| 2019 (92nd) |
| 2019 (92nd) | Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl) | Carol Dysinger and Elena Andreicheva |
| 2019 (92nd) | In the Absence | Yi Seung-Jun and Gary Byung-Seok Kam |
| 2019 (92nd) | Life Overtakes Me | John Haptas and Kristine Samuelson |
| 2019 (92nd) | St. Louis Superman | Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan |
| 2019 (92nd) | Walk Run Cha-Cha | Laura Nix and Colette Sandstedt |

### 2020s

| Year | Film | Nominees |
| 2020/21 (93rd) | Colette | Anthony Giacchino and Alice Doyard |
| 2020/21 (93rd) | A Concerto Is a Conversation | Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers |
| 2020/21 (93rd) | Do Not Split | Anders Hammer and Charlotte Cook |
| 2020/21 (93rd) | Hunger Ward | Skye Fitzgerald and Michael Scheuerman |
| 2020/21 (93rd) | A Love Song for Latasha | Sophia Nahli Allison and Janice Duncan |
| 2021 (94th) |
| 2021 (94th) | The Queen of Basketball | Ben Proudfoot |
| 2021 (94th) | Audible | Matthew Ogens and Geoff McLean |
| 2021 (94th) | Lead Me Home | Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk |
| 2021 (94th) | Three Songs for Benazir | Elizabeth Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaei |
| 2021 (94th) | When We Were Bullies | Jay Rosenblatt |
| 2022 (95th) |
| 2022 (95th) | The Elephant Whisperers | Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga |
| 2022 (95th) | Haulout | Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev |
| 2022 (95th) | How Do You Measure a Year? | Jay Rosenblatt |
| 2022 (95th) | The Martha Mitchell Effect | Anne Alvergue and Beth Levison |
| 2022 (95th) | Stranger at the Gate | Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones |
| 2023 (96th) |
| 2023 (96th) | The Last Repair Shop | Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers |
| 2023 (96th) | The ABCs of Book Banning | Sheila Nevins and Trish Adlesic |
| 2023 (96th) | The Barber of Little Rock | John Hoffman and Christine Turner |
| 2023 (96th) | Island in Between | S. Leo Chiang and Jean Tsien |
| 2023 (96th) | Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó | Sean Wang and Sam Davis |
| 2024 (97th) |
| 2024 (97th) | The Only Girl in the Orchestra | Molly O'Brien and Lisa Remington |
| 2024 (97th) | Death by Numbers | Kim A. Snyder and Janique L. Robillard |
| 2024 (97th) | I Am Ready, Warden | Smriti Mundhra and Maya Gnyp |
| 2024 (97th) | Incident | Bill Morrison and Jamie Kalven |
| 2024 (97th) | Instruments of a Beating Heart | Ema Ryan Yamazaki and Eric Nyari |

## Multiple wins
### Individuals with multiple wins
#### 3 wins

* Charles Guggenheim

#### 2 wins

* Malcolm Clarke
* Walt Disney
* Bill Guttentag
* Robin Lehman
* Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
* Ben Proudfoot

### Studios with multiple wins
#### 4 wins

* National Film Board of Canada

#### 3 wins

* Walt Disney Productions