Black Reel Award for Outstanding Independent Documentary

Black Reel Award for Outstanding Independent Documentary
Country	United States
Presented by	The Black Reel Awards (BRAs)
First awarded	Black Reel Awards of 2010
Most recent winner	Mr. Soul! (Black Reel Awards of 2021)
Website	blackreelawards.com

This article lists the winners and nominees for the Black Reel Award for Outstanding Independent Documentary. This award is given to the directors and was first awarded during the 2010 ceremony.

Winners and nominees

Winners are listed first and highlighted in bold.

2010s

Year	Film	Director	Ref
2010
	Without Bias	Kirk Fraser
	Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness	Llewellyn M. Smith
	Still Bill	Damani Baker and Alex Vlack
2011
	For the Best and for the Onion	Sani Elhadj Magori
	Gefilte Fish	Shelly Kling
	One of These Mornings	Valery Lyman
2012
	Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of the Spook Who Sat By the Door	Christine Acham and Clifford Ward
	Brown Babies	Regina Griffin
	Burn: The Evolution of An American City	Harold Jackson III
	Gang Girl: A Mother's Journey to Save Her Daughter	Valerie Goodloe
	The Manuscripts of Timbuktu	Zola Maseko
	Zero Percent	Tim Skousen
2013
	Soul Food Junkies	Byron Hurt
	BMF: The Rise and Fall of Hip-Hop Drug Empire	Dan Sikorski
	Contradictions of Fair Hope	S. Epatha Merkerson and Rockell Metcalf
	From Fatherless to Fatherhood	Kobie Brown
	Justice for Sale	Femeke and Isla van Velzen
2014
	The New Black	Yoruba Richen
	Africa: The Beat	Javier Arias Bal, Polo Vallejo and Manuel Velasco
	I Want My Name Back	Roger Paradiso
	Lenny Cooke	Benny and Joshua Safdie
	Unheard: Black Women in Civil Rights	Nev Nnaji
2015
	25 to Life	Mike Brown
	Evolution of a Criminal	Darius Clark Monroe
	Oscar Micheaux: The Czar of Black Hollywood	Bayer Mack
	Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People	Thomas Allen Harris
2016
	Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band	Carol Bush
	Adina Howard 20: A Story of Sexual Liberation	Gezus Zaire
	Be Known	Dwayne Johnson-Cochran
	Cody High: A Life Remodeled Project	Walter V. Marshall
	Romeo is Bleeding	Jason Zeldes
2017	—
2018
	Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities	Stanley Nelson Jr.
	Back to Natural: A Documentary Film	Gillian Scott-Ward
	Quest	Jonathan Olshefski
	Yemanja: Wisdom From the African Heart of Brazil	Donna Roberts & Donna Reed
	Zo! Making of Skybreak!	Donnie Seales Jr.
2019
	Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me	Sam Pollard
	Basquiat: Rage to Riches	David Schulman
	Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart	Tracey Heather Strain

2020s

Year	Film	Director	Ref
2020
	No Lye: An American Beauty Story	Bayer Mack
	16 Bars	Sam Bathrick
	The Remix: Hip Hop x Fashion	Lisa Cortes & Farah X
2021
	Mr. Soul!	Melissa Haizlip
	The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show	Yoruba Richen
	With Drawn Arms	Glenn Kaino & Afshin Shahidi
2022
	100 Years from Mississippi	Tarabu Betserai Kirkland
	Big Chief, Black Hawk	Jonathan Isaac Jackson
	I Still Breathe	Alfred George Bailey
	Little Satchmo	John Alexander
	Unzipped: An Autopsy of American Inequality	Colin K. Gray

Multiple nominations and wins

Multiple nominations

2 Nominations

• Bayer Mack
• Yoruba Richen