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 who 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 26th.
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 among the filmmakers on this year’s ten-film Shorts List, Cinema Eye’s annual list of semifinalists 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 semifinalists, 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 2nd, and at Vidiots in Los Angeles on Saturday, December 5th.
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 11th, 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
Monday, October 26th: Voting Opens for Audience Choice First Round Voting
Monday, November 2nd: Voting Closes for Audience Choice First Round Voting
Thursday, November 12th: Cinema Eye Honors Feature Film Nominations Announced
Wednesday, December 2nd: Shorts List Screenings, DCTV, New York
Saturday, December 5th: Shorts List Screenings, Vidiots, Los Angeles
Monday, December 14th: Shorts Nominees Announced and Final Audience Choice Voting Opens
Friday, January 8th, 2027: Cinema Eye Weekend begins in New York City
Mond, January 11thy 11th, 2027: 20th Annual Cinema Eye Honors Awards Ceremony
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