- Unforgettables Honorees Revealed, Including E. Jean Carroll, Amy Goodman, Billie Jean King and the physicians from American Doctor
- Worldwide Voting Opens on Monday, October 26 for Audience Choice Prize
- 17 of the Year’s Most Acclaimed and Talked About Docs Named to Longlist including Cookie Queens, Everest: The Other Side, Everybody to Kenmure Street, The History of Concrete, NAZA, Once Upon a Time in Harlem, Time and Water, Wild Inside and You Can See Everything
- Hoop Dreams to Receive Legacy Award
- Annual Shorts List Unveiled
- Broadcast Nominations Revealed
- 20th Annual Award Ceremony set for Monday, January 11, 2027 in New York City
Los Angeles, CA, October 22, 2026 — Cinema Eye Honors, which recognizes outstanding artistic achievement in nonfiction and documentary films and series, kicked off its 20th annual celebrations today with its first awards announcements for 2027. Among the announcements were the 17 films on the Audience Choice Prize Longlist, the unveiling of this year’s Unforgettables Honorees, nominees in five Broadcast categories, this year’s Legacy Award recipient and the annual Shorts List — spotlighting 10 of the year’s top documentary short films.
The Audience Choice Prize Longlist and selection of Unforgettables Honorees can be key harbingers of future awards. Last year, the eventual Oscar and BAFTA winner, Mr. Nobody Against Putin, was on the Audience Choice longlist and Pavel Talankin was an Unforgettable Honoree.
This year’s Unforgettable Honorees, the on-camera collaborators that are the first announced winners for 2027, come from six films: Dr. Thaer Ahmad, Dr. Mark Perlmutter and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa from American Doctor, E. Jean Carroll from Ask E. Jean, Soraya Akhlaghi from A Fox Under a Pink Moon, Billie Jean King from Give Me the Ball, Israa from One in a Million and Amy Goodman from Steal This Story, Please!
Four of those films — American Doctor, Ask E. Jean, Give Me the Ball and Steal This Story, Please! — are also on the Audience Choice Prize Longlist, along with thirteen of the year’s most talked about and acclaimed feature documentaries: The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, The Bend in the River, Cookie Queens, The Cycle of Love, Everest: The Other Side, Everybody to Kenmure Street, The History of Concrete, NAZA, The Oldest Person in the World, Once Upon a Time in Harlem, Time and Water, Wild Inside and You Can See Everything.
The eventual Oscar winner for Best Documentary Feature has been on the Audience Choice Longlist for each of the past eight years. Public voting to determine the ten films that will be nominated in the category will open on Monday, October 26.
HBO Max led this year’s Broadcast announcement with ten nominations across five categories, including two apiece for Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story, Earth, Wind & Fire: To Be Celestial or That’s the Weight of the World and The Yogurt Shop Murders.
Also receiving two nominations in the Broadcast categories were Katrina: Come Hell and High Water and Songs from the Hole from Netflix, High Horse: The Black Cowboy from Peacock, Mr. Scorsese from Apple TV and Tucci in Italy (Season Two) from National Geographic.
Three previous Cinema Eye winners were amongst the filmmakers on this year’s ten-film Shorts List, Cinema Eye’s annual list of semi-finalists for its Nonfiction Short Film Honor: Bill Morrison (Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon), Laura Poitras (They’re Here) and Nathan Truesdell (A Derailment). From those ten semi-finalists, six films will be announced in December as the official nominees. For the fourth year in a row, Cinema Eye will screen all of the Shorts List films in both Los Angeles and New York, with a series of screenings in New York at DCTV on Wednesday, December 2 and at Vidiots in Los Angeles on Saturday, December 5.
In each of the past two years, four of the nominees (and the eventual winner) for the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film were part of the Cinema Eye Shorts List.
Steve James’ documentary masterpiece, Hoop Dreams, will receive the Legacy Award, which is presented to a classic nonfiction film that continues to inspire today’s working filmmakers. James will accept the award on behalf of his team members Peter Gilbert (Producer and DP), Frederick Marx (Producer and Editor), Adam Singer (Sound Recordist), Gordon Quinn (Executive Producer and founder of Kartemquin Films), Bill Haugse (Editor), Marcie McCall (Kartemquin) and Ben Sidran (Composer).
Cinema Eye will celebrate its 20th annual Awards Ceremony on Monday, January 11, 2027.
Today’s announcements were made on the organization’s All These Wonderful Things podcast, which was posted just prior to the 9th Annual Cinema Eye Honors Fall Lunch in Downtown Los Angeles. The event was co-hosted by Amazon MGM Studios, Apple Original Films, Hulu, National Geographic Documentary Films and Netflix.
Key Dates for the 2027 Cinema Eye Honors
| Date | Event |
| Monday, November 2 | Voting Closes for Audience Choice First Round Voting |
| Thursday, November 12 | Cinema Eye Honors Feature Film Nominations Announced |
| Wednesday, December 2 | Shorts List Screenings, DCTV, New York |
| Saturday, December 5 | Shorts List Screenings, Videos, Los Angeles |
| Monday, December 14 | Shorts Nominees Announced and Final Audience Choice Voting Opens |
| Friday, January 8, 2027 | Cinema Eye Weekend begins in New York City |
| Monday, January 11, 2027 | 20th Annual Cinema Eye Honors Awards Ceremony |
A full list of this year’s announcements and nominees follows.
Unforgettables Honorees
Dr. Thaer Ahmad, Dr. Mark Perlmutter and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa
American Doctor
E. Jean Carroll
Ask E. Jean
Soraya Akhlaghi
A Fox Under a Pink Moon
Billie Jean King
Give Me the Ball
Israa
One in a Million
Amy Goodman
Steal This Story, Please!
Audience Choice Prize Longlist
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist
Directed by Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell
American Doctor
Directed by Poh Si Teng
Ask E. Jean
Directed by Ivy Meerapol
The Bend in the River
Directed by Robb Moss
Cookie Queens
Directed by Alysa Nahmias
The Cycle of Love
Directed by Orlando von Einsiedel
Everest: The Other Side
Directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Everybody to Kenmure Street
Directed by Felipe Bustos Sierra
Give Me the Ball
Directed by Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff
The History of Concrete
Directed by John Wilson
NAZA
Directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor
The Oldest Person in the World
Directed by Sam Green
Once Upon a Time in Harlem
Directed by William Greaves and David Greaves
Steal This Story, Please!
Directed by Carl Deal and Tia Lessin
Time and Water
Directed by Sara Dosa
Wild Inside
Directed by Penny Lane
You Can See Everything
Directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim
Broadcast Film Nominees
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story
Directed by Jyllian Gunther and Stephanie Schwam
HBO Max
The Bitter Pill
Directed by Clay Tweel
POV
Critical Incident: Death at the Border
Directed by Richard Rowley
HBO Max
Earth, Wind & Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World
Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
HBO Max
Seen & Heard: The History of Black Television
Directed by Giselle Bailey and Phil Bertelsen
HBO Max
Songs From the Hole
Directed by Contessa Gayles
Netflix
Nonfiction Series Nominees
High Horse: The Black Cowboy
Directed by Jason Perez
Peacock
Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time
Directed by Traci A. Curry
National Geographic
Katrina: Come Hell and High Water
Directed by Geeta Gandbhir, Samantha Knowles and Spike Lee
Netflix
Mr. Scorsese
Directed by Rebecca Miller
Apple TV
Trust Me: The False Prophet
Directed by Rachel Dretzin
Netflix
The Yogurt Shop Murders
Directed by Margaret Brown
HBO Max
Anthology Series Nominees
Limitless: Live Better Now (Season Two)
Executive Producers Darren Aronofsky, Jane Root, Ari Handel, Tom Watt-Smith, Chris Hemsworth and Benjamin Grayson
Disney+
Neighbors
Executive Producers Ronald Bronstein, Eli Bush, John Paul Lopez-Ali, Josh Safdie, Harrison Fishman and Dylan Redford
HBO Max
Trainwreck
Executive Producers Sheun Adelasoye de Nicola, Alexander Marengo and Tim Wardle
Netflix
Tucci in Italy (Season Two)
Executive Producers Stanley Tucci, Lottie Birmingham, Amanda Lyon and Simon Raikes
National Geographic
Untold (Volume Six)
Executive Producers Ben Silverman, Howard Owens, Isabel San Vargas, Chapman Way, Maclain Way and Ryan Duffy
Netflix
Broadcast Editing Nominees
#Skyking
Edited by Emiliano Battista and Alexis Johnson
Hulu
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story
Edited by Jeremy Stulberg
HBO Max
Breakdown: 1975
Edited by Alan Lowe and Jody McVeigh-Schultz
Netflix
Earth, Wind & Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World
Edited by Andrew Morrow, Matt Cascella and Tim Ziegler
HBO Max
Katrina: Come Hell and High Water
Edited by Arielle Amsalem and Anna Auster
Netflix
Mr. Scorsese
Edited by David Barter
Apple TV
Broadcast Cinematography Nominees
Caught in the Crackdown
Cinematographers Timothy Grucza, Jeremy Gould and Nick Kraus
Frontline | PBS
High Horse: The Black Cowboy
Cinematographers Jerry Henry and Justin Janowitz
Peacock
The Man Will Burn
Cinematographers Benji Lanpher, Consuelo Althouse and Natalie Sim
HBO Max
Songs from the Hole
Cinematographers Michelle Kwong and Contessa Gayles
Netflix
Tucci in Italy (Season Two)
Cinematographer Matt Ball
National Geographic
The Yogurt Shop Murders
Cinematographer Justin Zweifach
HBO Max
Shorts List
The Boys and the Bees
Directed by Arielle Knight
Buckskin
Directed by Mars Verrone
A Derailment
Directed by Nathan Truesdell
Free Joan Little
Directed by Yoruba Richen
I Got My Brother
Directed by Victor Gabriel
La Tierra del Valor (The Home of the Brave)
Directed by Cristina Costantini
An Open Field
Directed by Teboho Edkins
Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon
Directed by Bill Morrison
They’re Here
Directed by Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller
Water Cooler
Directed by Emma V.F.
