New York Film Critics Circle Award / Best Documentary
Winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Documentary (Best Non-Fiction Film) . The award was called Best Documentary from 1980 to 1996 and has been called Best Non-Fiction Film since 1997 .
The annual figures in the table indicate the film years assessed; the awards were given in the following year.
| year | Award winners | German title | Director | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Best boy | Best boy | Ira Wohl | |
| 1984 | The Times of Harvey Milk | The Times of Harvey Milk | Rob Epstein | |
| 1985 | Shoah | Shoah | Claude Lanzmann | |
| 1986 | Marlene | Marlene | Maximilian Schell | |
| 1988 | The Thin Blue Line | The Randall Adams case | Errol Morris | |
| 1989 | Roger & Me | Roger & Me | Michael Moore | |
| 1991 | Paris is burning | Paris is burning | Jennie Livingston | |
| 1992 | Brother's Keeper | Brother's Keeper | Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky | |
| 1993 | Visions of Light | Visions of Light | Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy and Stuart Samuels | |
| 1994 | Hoop Dreams | Hoop Dreams | Steve James | |
| 1995 | Crumb | Crumb | Terry Zwigoff | |
| 1996 | When We Were Kings | When We Were Kings - Once upon a time we were kings | Leon guest | |
| 1997 | Fast, Cheap & Out of Control | Fast, Cheap & Out of Control | Errol Morris | |
| 1998 | The Farm: Angola, USA | The Farm: Angola, USA | Liz Garbus, Wilbert Rideau and Jonathan Stack | |
| 1999 | Buena Vista Social Club | Buena Vista Social Club | Wim Wenders | |
| 2000 | The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg | The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg | Aviva Kempner | |
| 2001 | The Gleaners and I. | The collector | Agnes Varda | |
| 2002 | Standing in the Shadows of Motown | Standing in the Shadows of Motown | Paul Justman | |
| 2003 | Capturing the Friedmans | Capturing the Friedmans | Andrew Jarecki | |
| 2004 | Fahrenheit 9/11 | Fahrenheit 9/11 | Michael Moore | |
| 2005 | Grizzly Man | Grizzly Man | Werner Herzog | |
| 2006 | Deliver Us from Evil | Deliver us from evil | Amy Berg | |
| 2007 | No end in sight | No End In Sight - Invasion of the Amateurs? | Charles H. Ferguson | |
| 2008 | Man on Wire | Man on Wire | James Marsh | |
| 2009– 2011 |
Prize not awarded | |||
| 2012 | The Central Park Five | not known |
Ken Burns Sarah Burns David McMahon |
|
| 2013 | Stories We Tell | not known | Sarah Polley | |
| 2014 | Citizenfour | Citizenfour | Laura Poitras | |
| 2015 | In Jackson Heights | not known | Frederick Wiseman | |
| 2016 | OJ: Made in America | OJ Simpson: Made in America | Ezra Edelman | |
| 2017 | Visages, villages | Moments: faces of a journey | JR and Agnès Varda | |
| 2018 | Minding the gap | not known | Bing Liu | |
| 2019 | Honeyland | Land of honey |
Tamara Kotevska Ljubomir Stefanov |
|