| year | Award winners | for the movie | Nominations | 
| 2000 | Kevin Macdonald and Arthur Cohn | One Day in September  (One Day in September) | Wim Wenders , Ulrich Felsberg for Buena Vista Social Club 
 Roko Belic , Adrian Belic for Genghis BluesNanette Burstein , Brett Morgen for On the Ropes
 Paola di Florio , Lilibet Foster for Speaking in Strings
 | 
| 2001 | Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer | Kindertransport -  Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport | Death Lending for Legacy 
 Deborah Hoffmann , Frances Reid for Long Night's Journey Into DayDaniel Anker , Barak Goodman for Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
 Josh Aronson , Roger Weisberg for Sound and Fury
 | 
| 2002 | Jean-Xavier de Lestrade , Denis Poncet | A killer made to measure  (Un coupable idéal) | Edet Belzberg for asphalt  children in Bucharest (Children Underground) 
 Susan Froemke , Deborah Dickson for LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of CottonJustine Shapiro , BZ Goldberg for Hate and Hope - Children in the Middle East Conflict  (Promises)
 Christian Frei for War Photographer
 | 
| 2003 | Michael Moore and Michael Donovan | Bowling for Columbine | Gail Dolgin , Vicente Franco for Daughter from Danang 
 Jacques Perrin for Nomads of the Skies - The Secret of the Migratory Birds  (Le peuple migrateur) Malcolm Clarke , Stuart Sender for Kurt Gerron -  Prisoner of Paradise
 Jeffrey Blitz , Sean Welch for Spellbound
 | 
| 2004 | Errol Morris and Michael Williams | The Fog of War | Carlos Bosch , Josep Maria Domènech for Balseros 
 Andrew Jarecki , Marc Smerling for Capturing the FriedmansNathaniel Kahn , Susan R. Behr for My Architect
 Sam Green , Bill Siegel for The Weather Underground
 | 
| 2005 | Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman | Born in a brothel - children in the red light district of Calcutta  (Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids) | Luigi Falorni , Byambasuren Davaa for The Story of the Weeping Camel 
 Morgan Spurlock for Super Size MeLauren Lazin , Karolyn Ali for Tupac: Resurrection
 Kirby Dick , Eddie Schmidt for Twist of Faith
 | 
| 2006 | Luc Jacquet and Yves Darondeau | The journey of the penguins  (La marche de l'empereur) | Hubert Sauper for Darwin's Nightmare 
 Alex Gibney , Jason Kliot for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the RoomHenry-Alex Rubin , Dana Adam Shapiro for Murderball
 Marshall Curry for Street Fight
 | 
| 2007 | Davis Guggenheim | An  Inconvenient Truth | Amy Berg , Frank Donner for Deliver Us from Evil  (Deliver Us from Evil) 
 James Longley , Yahya Sinno for Iraq in FragmentsHeidi Ewing , Rachel Grady for Jesus Camp
 Laura Poitras , Jocelyn Glatzer for My Country, My Country
 | 
| 2008 | Alex Gibney and Eva Orner | Taxi  to the Dark Side | Charles H. Ferguson , Audrey Marrs for No End In Sight - Invasion of the Amateurs? 
 Richard E. Robbins for Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime ExperienceMichael Moore , Meghan O'Hara for Sicko
 Andrea Nix Fine , Sean Fine for War / Dance
 | 
| 2009 | James Marsh and Simon Chinn | Man on Wire | Ellen Kuras , Thavisouk Phrasavath for The Betrayal - Nerakhoon 
 Werner Herzog , Henry Kaiser for Encounters at the End of the World  (Encounters at the End of the World) Scott Hamilton Kennedy for The Garden
 Tia Lessin , Carl Deal for Trouble the Water
 |