# Black Reel Award for Outstanding Television Documentary or Special

This article lists the winners and nominees for the Black Reel Award for Outstanding Television Documentary or Special. This award is given to the directors and was first awarded during the 2001 ceremony. In May 2017 the category was moved from the film awards as part of the Black Reel Awards for Television honors thus resulting in two separate winners in 2017.

## Winners and nominees

Winners are listed first and highlighted in bold.

### 2000s

| Year | Documentary / Special | Network | Director |
| 2001 |
| 2001 | Half Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks | Showtime | Craig Laurence Rice |
| 2001 | The BET 20th Anniversary Celebration | BET | Terri McCoy |
| 2001 | Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly | Comedy Central | Stan Lathan |
| 2001 | That's Black Entertainment | Showtime | Walid Khaldi |
| 2001 | Ali-Frazier I: One Nation...Divisible | HBO | Dave Anderson |
| 2002 | | | |
| 2002 | Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel | AMC | Madison D. Lacy |
| 2002 | Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind | PBS | Stanley Nelson |
| 2002 | BET Walk of Fame: Patti LaBelle | BET | Glenn Weiss |
| 2002 | 32nd Image Awards | FOX | Terri McCoy |
| 2002 | VH1 Divas: The One and Only Aretha Franklin | Vh1 | Liz Imperio |
| 2003 | | | |
| 2003 | Jim Brown: All American | HBO | Spike Lee |
| 2003 | Ralph Ellison: An American Journey | PBS | Avon Kirkland |
| 2003 | Heroes of Black Comedy | Comedy Central | David Upshal & Ninder Billing |
| 2003 | Inside TV Land: African-Americans in Television | TV Land | |
| 2004 | | | |
| 2004 | Hollywood Celebrates Denzel Washington: An American Cinematheque Tribute | AMC | Michael Dempsey |
| 2004 | Hell Up in Hollywood: Soul Cinema and the 1970s | AMC | Eric Anderson |
| 2004 | Brother Outside: The Life of Bayard Rustin | PBS | Nancy D. Kates & Bennett Singer |
| 2004 | The Murder of Emmett Till | PBS | Stanley Nelson |
| 2004 | Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives | PBS | Ed Bell & Thomas Lennon |
| 2005 | | | |
| 2005 | American Beyond the Color Line with Henry Louis Gates Jr. | PBS | Mary Crisp & Daniel Percival |
| 2005 | Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise | PBS | Carol Bash, Lullie Haddad & Stanley Nelson |
| 2005 | The N Word | Trio | Todd Williams |
| 2006 | | | |
| 2006 | Unstoppable: A Conversation with Melvin Van Peebles, Gordon Parks & Ossie Davis | Black Starz! | Warrington Hudlin |
| 2006 | Slavery and the Making of America | PBS | Leslie D. Farrell, Chana Gazit, Dante James & Gail Pellett |
| 2006 | Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson | PBS | Ken Burns |
| 2006 | Chisholm '72 Unbought & Unbossed | PBS | Shola Lynch |
| 2006 | Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story | USA Network | Ron Berger & Dan Klores |
| 2007–2009 | — | — | — |

### 2010s

| Year | Documentary / Special | Network | Director |
| 2010 | — | — | — |
| 2011 |
| 2011 | If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise | HBO | Spike Lee |
| 2011 | The Black List: Volume Three | HBO | Timothy Greenfield-Sanders |
| 2012 | | | |
| 2012 | Planet Rock: The Story of Hip-Hop and the Crack Generation | VH1 | Rickard Lowe & Martin Torgoff |
| 2012 | Pray the Devil Back to Hell | PBS | Gini Reticker |
| 2012 | The Latino List | HBO | Timothy Greenfield-Sanders |
| 2012 | Black in Latin America | PBS | Ricardo Pollack & Ilana Trachtman |
| 2012 | The Fab Five | ESPN | Jason Hehir |
| 2013 | | | |
| 2013 | Brooklyn Boheme | Showtime | Nelson George |
| 2013 | The Announcement | ESPN | Nelson George |
| 2013 | On the Shoulders of Giants | Showtime | Deborah Morales |
| 2013 | Slavery by Another Name | PBS | Sam Pollard |
| 2013 | Uprising: Hip Hop and the LA Riots | VH1 | Mark Ford |
| 2014 | | | |
| 2014 | Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley | HBO | Whoopi Goldberg |
| 2014 | Dark Girls | OWN | Bill Duke |
| 2014 | Venus vs. | ESPN | Ava DuVernay |
| 2014 | Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train a Comin' | PBS | Bob Smeaton |
| 2014 | Made in America | Showtime | Ron Howard |
| 2015 | | | |
| 2015 | Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown | HBO | Alex Gibney |
| 2015 | Finding the Funk | VH1 | Nelson George |
| 2015 | On the Run Tour: Beyoncé and Jay-Z | HBO | Jonas Åkerlund |
| 2015 | The Tanning of America: One Nation Under Hip-Hop | VH1 | Billy Corben |
| 2015 | Terror at the Mall | HBO | Dan Reed |
| 2016 | | | |
| 2016 | The Wiz Live! | NBC | Kenny Leon |
| 2016 | 3 ½ Minutes | HBO | Marc Silver |
| 2016 | Holler If You Hear Me: Black and Gay in the Church | BET | Clay Cane |
| 2016 | Kareem: Minority of One | HBO | Clare Lewins |
| 2016 | Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life: An All-Star Grammy Tribute | CBS | Leon Knoles |
| 2017 | | | |
| 2017 | Lemonade | HBO | Beyoncé Knowles and Khalil Joseph |
| 2017 | Black America Since MLK: Still I Rise | HBO | Talleah Bridges |
| 2017 | Hamilton's America | PBS | Alex Horowitz |
| 2017 | Jackie Robinson | HBO | Ken Burns |
| 2017 | Streets of Compton | A&E | Leon Knoles |
| 2017 | | | |
| 2017 | Time: The Kalief Browder Story | Spike TV | Jenner Furst |
| 2017 | LA 92 | National Geographic | T.J. Martin & Daniel Lindsay |
| 2017 | The Lost Tapes: LA Riots | Smithsonian Channel | Tom Jennings |
| 2017 | L.A. Burning: The Riots 25 Years Later | A&E | One9 & Erik Parker |
| 2017 | Rodney King | Netflix | Spike Lee |
| 2018 | | | |
| 2018 | The Defiant Ones | HBO | Allen Hughes |
| 2018 | Being Serena | HBO | Noah Lerner |
| 2018 | Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert | NBC | David Leveaux & Alex Rudzinski |
| 2018 | Biggie: The Life of Notorious B.I.G. | A&E | Mark Ford |
| 2018 | Def Comedy Jam 25 | Netflix | Louis J. Horvitz |
| 2019 | | | |
| 2019 | Surviving R. Kelly | Lifetime | Nigel Bellis & Astral Finnie |
| 2019 | Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story | Paramount Network | Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nason |
| 2019 | Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men | Showtime | Sacha Jenkins |
| 2019 | Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland | HBO | Kate Davis & David Heilbroner |
| 2019 | HΘMΣCΘMING | Netflix | Beyonce & Ed Burke |

### 2020s

| Year | Documentary / Special | Network | Director |
| 2020 |
| 2020 | The Last Dance | ESPN | Jason Hehir |
| 2020 | Becoming | Netflix | Nadia Hallgren |
| 2020 | Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince | CBS | David Wild |
| 2020 | Hitsville: The Making of Motown | Showtime | Ben Turner & Gabe Turner |
| 2020 | Who Killed Malcolm X? | Netflix | Rachel Dretzin & Phil Bertelsen |
| 2021 | | | |
| 2021 | Tina | HBO | T.J. Martin & Dan Lindsay |
| 2021 | Black Is King | Disney+ | Beyonce, Kwasi Fordjour, Emmanuel Adjei, Blitz Bazawule, Ibra Ake, Jenn Nkiru, Jake Nava, Pierre Debusschere, Dikayl Rimmasch, Dafe Oboro |
| 2021 | High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America | Netflix | Stephen Satterfield |
| 2021 | The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion | HBO Max | Marcus Raboy |
| 2021 | First Ladies: Michelle Obama | CNN | Liz Mermin |

## Total awards by network

* HBO - 7
* AMC - 2
* Showtime - 2
* Black Starz! - 1
* ESPN - 1
* Lifetime - 1
* NBC - 1
* PBS - 1
* Spike TV - 1
* VH1 - 1