Films are listed by the year they received the Academy Award for Documentary Feature; the year of production follows the title in parentheses. There is sometimes a gap of more than a year between a film's production and its award, which is often the result of the film's unavailability in translation.

  • 1944 Desert Victory
  • 1945 The Fighting Lady
  • 1946 The True Glory
  • 1947 none given
  • 1948 Design for Death
  • 1949 The Secret Land
  • 1950 Daybreak in Udi
  • 1951 The Titan: Story of Michelangelo
  • 1952 Kon-Tiki
  • 1953 The Sea Around Us
  • 1954 The Living Desert
  • 1955 The Vanishing Prairie
  • 1956 Helen Keller in Her Story
  • 1957 The Silent World
  • 1958 Albert Schweitzer
  • 1959 White Wilderness
  • 1960 Serengeti Shall Not Die
  • 1961 The Horse with the Flying Tail
  • 1962 Sky Above and Mud Beneath
  • 1963 Black Fox: The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler
  • 1964 Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel With the World
  • 1965 Jacques-Yves Cousteau's World Without Sun
  • 1966 The Eleanor Roosevelt Story
  • 1967 The War Game
  • 1968 The nderson Platoon
  • 1969 Journey Into Self
  • 1970 Arthur Rubinstein - The Love of Life
  • 1971 Woodstock
  • 1972 The Hellstrom Chronicle
  • 1973 Marjoe
  • 1974 The Great American Cowboy
  • 1975 Hearts and Minds
  • 1976 The Man Who Skied Down Everest
  • 1977 Harlan County, U.S.A
  • 1978 Who Are the Debolts? And Where Did They Get Nineteen Kids
  • 1979 Scared Straight
  • 1980 Best Boy
  • 1981 From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China
  • 1982 Genocide
  • 1983 Just Another Missing Kid
  • 1984 He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'
  • 1985 The Times of Harvey Milk
  • 1986 Broken Rainbow
  • 1987 (tie):
    • Artie Shaw: Time Is All You've Got
    • Down and Out in America
  • 1988 The Ten-Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table
  • 1989 Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
  • 1990 Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt
  • 1991 American Dream
  • 1992 In the Shadow of the Stars
  • 1993 The Panama Deception
  • 1994 I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School
  • 1995 Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision
  • 1996 Anne Frank Remembered
  • 1997 When We Were Kings
  • 1998 The Long Way Home
  • 1999 The Last Days
  • 2000 One Day in September
  • 2001 Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport
  • 2002 Bowling for Columbine - Alliance Atlantis Communications, Dog Eat Dog Films, Salter Street Films International, United Broadcasting Inc., VIF Babelsberger Filmproduktion GmbH & Co. Zweite KG (VIF 2) - Michael Moore, Charles Bishop, Jim Czarnecki, Michael Donovan, Kathleen Glynn producers - Michael Moore director
    • Daughter From Danang - Gail Dolgin producer - Gail Dolgin, Vicente Franco directors
    • Le Peuple migrateur - Bac Films, Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC), Eyescreen S.r.l., Filmstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen, France 2 Cinéma, France 3 Cinéma, Galatée Films, Le Studio Canal+, Les Productions JMH, Les Productions de la Guéville, Pandora Filmproduktion GmbH, Télévision Suisse-Romande (TSR), Wanda Visión S.A., Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) - Jacques Perrin, Christophe Barratier producers - Jacques Perrin director
    • Prisoner of Paradise - Malcolm Clarke, Stuart Sender directors
    • ''Spellbound - Blitz/Welch - Jeffrey Blitz, two persons named Sean Welch producers - Jeffrey Blitz director

See also : Academy Awards