Davis Guggenheim’s “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” which chronicled the actor’s life, career and battle with Parkinson’s disease, was named the best nonfiction film of 2023 at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, which took place on Sunday night in New York City.
The Apple TV+ film won five awards overall, also including best director for Guggenheim, best narration for Fox, best biographical documentary and best editing.
Journalist Mstyslav Chernov Chernov won the award for Best First Documentary for “20 Days in Mariupol.”
Other winners included “Being Mary Tyler Moore” (Best Archival Documentary), “The Deepest Breath” (Best Sports Documentary), “20 Days in Mariupol” (Best Political Documentary), “American Symphony” (Best Music Documentary), “Secrets of the Elephants” (Best Science/Nature Documentary) and “JFK: One Day in America” (Best Historical Documentary).
Jon Batiste won for the music in “American Symphony,” and Tim Cragg won for the cinematography of “The Deepest Breath.”
In the doc series categories, the winners were “30 for 30” for ongoing documentary series and “The 1619 Project” for limited documentary series.
The award for short documentary went to Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers’ “The Last Repair Shop.”
Special awards went to Ross McElwee, who won the Pennebaker Award, formerly the Critics Choice Lifetime Achievement Award.
Actor and comedian Wyatt Cenac hosted the show, which took place at the Edison Ballroom in New York City.
The Critics Choice Documentary Awards have been given out since 2016. Of the seven previous winners, two went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, “O.J.: Made in America” in 2016 and “Summer of Soul” in 2021; the other five years, the CCDA winner was a mainstream doc that surprisingly wasn’t even nominated for the Oscar. (For the record, those were “Jane,” “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” “Apollo 11,” “Dick Johnson Is Dead” and “Good Night Oppy.”)
The winners:
Best Documentary: “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” (Appkle TV+)
Best Director: Davis Guggenheim, “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” (Apple TV+)
Best First Documentary: “20 Days in Mariupol,” Mstyslav Chernov (PBS)
Best True Crime Documentary: (tie) “John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial” (Apple TV+) and “Telemarketers” (HBO)
Best Sports Documentary: “The Deepest Breath” (Netflix)
Best Political Documentary: “20 Days in Mariupol” (PBS)
Best Music Documentary: “American Symphony” (Netflix)
Best Archival Documentary: “Being Mary Tyler Moore” (HBO)
Best Science/Nature Documentary: “Secrets of the Elephants” (National Geographic)
Best Historical Documentary: “JFK: One Day in America” (National Geographic)
Best Biographical Documentary: “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” (Apple TV+)
Best Ongoing Documentary Series: “30 for 30” (ESPN)
Best Limited Documentary Series: “The 1619 Project” (Hulu/Onyx Collective)
Best Cinematography: Tim Cragg, “The Deepest Breath” (Netflix)
Best Editing: Michael Harte, “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” (Apple TV+)
Best Music Score: Jon Batiste, “American Symphony” (Netflix)
Best Narration: “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” (Apple TV+), narration written and performed by Michael J. Fox
Best Short Documentary: “The Last Repair Shop” (Breakwater Studios)
Pennebaker Award: Ross McElwee