Critics' Choice Movie Award / Best Documentary
From 1996 to 2016, the BFCA honored the best documentary of the previous film year.
Award winners
| year | Award winners | Director |
| 1996 | Crumb | Terry Zwigoff |
| 1997 | When We Were Kings - Once upon a time we were kings | Leon guest |
| 1998 | Four little girls | Spike Lee |
| 1999 | Wild Man Blues | Barbara Kopple |
| 2000 | Buena Vista Social Club | Wim Wenders |
| 2001 | The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg | Aviva Kempner |
| 2002 | not awarded | |
| 2003 | Bowling for Columbine | Michael Moore |
| 2004 | Capturing the Friedmans | Andrew Jarecki |
| 2005 | Fahrenheit 9/11 | Michael Moore |
| 2006 | The journey of the penguins | Luc Jacquet |
| 2007 | An uncomfortable truth | Davis Guggenheim |
| 2008 | Sicko | Michael Moore |
| 2009 | Man on Wire | James Marsh |
| 2010 | The Bay | Louie Psihoyos |
| 2011 | Waiting for Superman | Davis Guggenheim |
| 2012 | George Harrison - Living In The Material World | Martin Scorsese |
| 2013 | Searching for Sugar Man | Malik Bendjelloul |
| 2014 | 20 Feet from Stardom | Morgan Neville |
| 2015 | Life Itself | Steve James |
| 2016 | Amy | Asif Kapadia |