'The Biggest Little Farm' Leads 2019 Critics' Choice Documentary Award Nominations

Honoring the best documentaries of 2019, the Critics Choice Association will name their winners on November 10th.

Emma the pig and Greasy the rooster in 'The Biggest Little Farm.'
Neon

The Critics Choice Association (formerly Broadcast Film Critics Association and Broadcast Television Journalists Association) has announced its nominees for the 4th Annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards. John Chester‘s The Biggest Little Farm received the most nominations with seven, including one for Best Documentary Feature.

This year’s nominees, which were selected by a committee of CCA members led by our own founding editor, Christopher Campbell, are spread over 15 competitive categories plus one special group of honored subjects. The top award has 11 contenders, while other categories have more than the usual number of nominees. This is clearly a reflection on how great a year it’s been for documentaries.

Other major players include box office hits such as Apollo 11, Maiden, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, Penguins, Pavarotti, and Peter Jackson‘s They Shall Not Grow Old, which first opened theatrically in December 2018 but qualified for this year’s CCDAs. There are also streaming hits such as Netflix’s Knock Down the House, The Edge of Democracy, and American Factory, plus Amazon’s One Child Nation.

Docs that haven’t even released yet with nominations include National Geographic’s The Cave, Showtime’s The Kingmaker, and Serendipity, the last of which is nominated for as one of the alternatives selections in the Most Innovative Documentary category. Other unique docs competing there include Screwball, Aquarela, and Martin Scorsese‘s hybrid Bob Dylan film Rolling Thunder Revue.

This year the CCDAs introduced a category recognizing the year’s best short documentaries, with 10 nominees representing a variety of mostly online outlets, including Field of Vision, the New York TimesOp-Docs, and of course Netflix, which has its Oscar winner Period. End of Sentence, which released publicly in 2019, contending here.

Other new categories honor score, and narration — which recognizes both the performer of the narration and the writers behind its script — plus such subgenres as archival, biographical, and science/nature films. The CCDAs now have an opportunity to showcase a broader variety of nonfiction cinema.

And speaking of new honors, the CCDA lifetime achievement award is now called the D A Pennebaker Award, and that’s being given to the legendary Frederick Wiseman. Another new special honor, the CCDA Landmark Award, will go to Michael Apted for his more than 50 years of work on the Up series, which continued this year with 63 Up.

The nominees for the fourth annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards are:

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
American Factory (Netflix)
Apollo 11 (Neon)
The Biggest Little Farm (Neon)
The Cave (National Geographic)
Honeyland (Neon)
The Kingmaker (Showtime)
Knock Down the House (Netflix)
Leaving Neverland (HBO)
Maiden (Sony Pictures Classics)
One Child Nation (Amazon Studios)
They Shall Not Grow Old (Warner Bros.)

BEST DIRECTOR
Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts, For Sama (PBS)
Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, American Factory (Netflix)
John Chester, The Biggest Little Farm (Neon)
Feras Fayyad, The Cave (National Geographic)
Peter Jackson, They Shall Not Grow Old (Warner Bros.)
Todd Douglas Miller, Apollo 11 (Neon)
Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, One Child Nation (Amazon Studios)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Ben Bernhard and Viktor Kossakovsky, Aquarela (Sony Pictures Classics)
John Chester, The Biggest Little Farm (Neon)
Fejmi Daut and Samir Ljuma, Honeyland (Neon)
Nicholas de Pencier, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (Kino Lorber)
Muhammed Khair Al Shami, Ammar Suleiman, and Mohammad Eyad, The Cave (National Geographic)
Richard Ladkani, Sea of Shadows (National Geographic)

BEST EDITING
Georg Michael Fischer and Verena Schönauer, Sea of Shadows (National Geographic)
Todd Douglas Miller, Apollo 11 (Neon)
Jabez Olssen, They Shall Not Grow Old (Warner Bros.)
Amy Overbeck, The Biggest Little Farm (Neon)
Lindsay Utz, American Factory (Netflix)
Nanfu Wang, One Child Nation (Amazon Studios)

BEST SCORE
Jeff Beal, The Biggest Little Farm (Neon)
Matthew Herbert, The Cave (National Geographic)
Matt Morton, Apollo 11 (Neon)
Plan 9, They Shall Not Grow Old (Warner Bros.)
H. Scott Salinas, Sea of Shadows (National Geographic)
Eicca Toppinen, Aquarela (Sony Pictures Classics)

BEST NARRATION
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (Kino Lorber)
  Alicia Vikander, narrator
  Jennifer Baichwal, writer
The Biggest Little Farm (Neon)
  John Chester and Molly Chester, narrators
  John Chester, writer
The Edge of Democracy (Netflix)
   Petra Costa, narrator
   Petra Costa, Carol Pires, David Barker and Moara Passoni, writers
The Elephant Queen (Apple)
   Chiwetel Ejiofor, narrator
   Mark Deeble, writer
For Sama (PBS)
   Waad Al-Kateab, narrator
   Waad Al-Kateab, writer
Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People (First Run)
   Adam Driver, narrator
   Oren Rudavsky and Bob Seidman, writers
One Child Nation (Amazon Studios)
   Nanfu Wang, narrator
   Nanfu Wang, writer
Western Stars (Warner Bros.)
  Bruce Springsteen, narrator
  Bruce Springsteen, writer

BEST FIRST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Midge Costin, Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (Matson Films)
A.J. Eaton, David Crosby: Remember My Name (Sony Pictures Classics)
Pamela B. Green, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (Kino Lorber/Zeitgeist Films)
Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov, Honeyland (Neon)
Richard Miron, For the Birds (Dogwoof)
Garret Price, Love, Antosha (Lurker Films)

BEST ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTARY
Amazing Grace (Neon)
Apollo 11 (Neon)
Maiden (Sony Pictures Classics)
Mike Wallace is Here (Magnolia)
Pavarotti (CBS Films)
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (Netflix)
They Shall Not Grow Old (Warner Bros.)
What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali (HBO)

BEST BIOGRAPHICAL DOCUMENTARY
David Crosby: Remember My Name (Sony Pictures Classics)
The Kingmaker (Showtime)
Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (Greenwich)
Love, Antosha (Lurker Films)
Mike Wallace is Here (Magnolia)
Pavarotti (CBS Films)
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (Magnolia)

BEST MUSIC DOCUMENTARY
Amazing Grace (Neon)
David Crosby: Remember My Name (Sony Pictures Classics)
Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (Greenwich)
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (Abramorama)
Pavarotti (CBS Films)
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (Netflix)
Western Stars (Warner Bros.)

BEST POLITICAL DOCUMENTARY
American Factory (Netflix)
The Edge of Democracy (Netflix)
Hail Satan? (Magnolia)
The Kingmaker (Showtime)
Knock Down the House (Netflix)
One Child Nation (Amazon Studios) 

BEST SCIENCE/NATURE DOCUMENTARY
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (Kino Lorber)
Apollo 11 (Neon)
Aquarela (Sony Pictures Classics)
The Biggest Little Farm (Neon)
The Elephant Queen (Apple)
Honeyland (Neon)
Penguins (Disney)
Sea of Shadows (National Geographic)

BEST SPORTS DOCUMENTARY
Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable (Entertainment Studios)
Diego Maradona (HBO)
Maiden (Sony Pictures Classics)
Rodman: For Better or Worse (ESPN)
The Spy Behind Home Plate (Ciesla Foundation)
What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali (HBO)

MOST INNOVATIVE DOCUMENTARY
Aquarela (Sony Pictures Classics)
Cold Case Hammarskjöld (Magnolia)
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (Netflix)
Screwball (Greenwich)
Serendipity (Cohen Media)
They Shall Not Grow Old (Warner Bros.)

BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY
The Chapel at the Border (Atlantic Documentaries)
   (Director and Producer: Jeremy Raff)
Death Row Doctor (The New York Times Op-Docs)
   (Director: Lauren Knapp)
In the Absence (Field of Vision)
   (Director: Yi Seung-Jun. Producer: Gary Byung-Seok Kam)
Lost World
  (Director and Producer: Kalyanee Mam. Producers: Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee)
Mack Wrestles (ESPN)
   (Directors and Producers: Taylor Hess and Erin Sanger. Producers: Erin Leyden and Gentry Kirby)
Period. End of Sentence. (Netflix)
   (Director: Rayka Zehtabchi. Producers: Melissa Berton, Garrett K. Schiff and Lisa Taback)
The Polaroid Job (The New York Times Op-Docs)
   (Director: Mike Plante)
Sam and the Plant Next Door (The Guardian)
   (Director and Producer: Ömer Sami)
The Unconditional
  (Director and Producer: Dave Adams. Producers: Adam Soltis, Renee Woodruff Adams, Josie Swantek Heitz, and Chris Tuss)
The Waiting Room (The Guardian)
  (Director and Producer: Victoria Mapplebeck)

MOST COMPELLING LIVING SUBJECTS OF A DOCUMENTARY
Dr. Amani Ballor – The Cave (National Geographic)
David Crosby – David Crosby: Remember My Name (Sony Pictures Classics)
Tracy Edwards – Maiden (Sony Pictures Classics)
Imelda Marcos – The Kingmaker (Showtime)
Hatidze Muratova – Honeyland (Neon)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush, and Paula Jean Swearengin – Knock Down the House (Netflix)
Linda Ronstadt – Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (Greenwich)
Dr. Ruth Westheimer – Ask Dr. Ruth (Hulu)

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