Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s You Can See Everything and Poh Si Teng’s American Doctor lead the field for the 20th Cinema Eye Honors with seven nominations each, the New York-based awards for non-fiction filmmaking announced on 12 November. Sara Dosa’s Time and Water has six and Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s NAZA five. The winners will be named at the Times Center in New York on 11 January 2027, at the end of a Cinema Eye week that opens on 8 January.
Cinema Eye reports early in the season and is read as a guide to the Oscar documentary race, so its list carries weight well beyond New York. It is also a scorecard for distributors. Counting every category, including the broadcast nominations released in October, HBO, National Geographic and Netflix have 12 each, Neon nine, and A24 and Watermelon Pictures seven apiece, according to the organisers’ tally as reported by IndieWire.
Key facts
- Event: 20th Cinema Eye Honors; nominations announced 12 November 2026; ceremony at the Times Center, New York, on 11 January 2027
- Most nominated: You Can See Everything (A24) and American Doctor (Watermelon Pictures) 7 each; Time and Water 6; NAZA (Neon) 5
- Best feature nominees: American Doctor, My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile, NAZA, Once Upon a Time in Harlem, Rehearsals for a Revolution, To Hold a Mountain, You Can See Everything
- FilmBunch count: 42 titles share the 83 nomination slots in the 13 competitive film categories announced on 12 November
- Next: shorts nominees and final Audience Choice voting on 14 December; Legacy Award to Steve James’s Hoop Dreams
The leaders
You Can See Everything is the first film in Cinema Eye’s history to be nominated for feature, direction, editing, production, cinematography and original score, according to the announcement, and it is also in the running for Audience Choice. Fielder and Oppenheim have four nominations each. The film follows Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, over three years as she prepares to serve her 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors. It won all five awards it was up for at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, and it is a commercial outlier: A24’s release had taken $80m in North America after four weekends, Variety reported on 8 November, second only to Fahrenheit 9/11 among non-music documentaries there, on a production budget Variety put at $7m. After its Italian premiere in Turin, it begins a staggered release outside North America at the end of November.
American Doctor, Poh Si Teng’s first feature, follows three American doctors, Thaer Ahmad, Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa, who volunteered in hospitals in Gaza. Its seven are six competitive nominations (feature, direction, production, original score for Suad Bushnaq, debut feature and Audience Choice) plus a place for the three doctors among the Unforgettables honourees, named in October. Poh has five nominations of her own, more than any other individual this year. Watermelon Pictures acquired the North American rights in April and opened the film in US cinemas in August.
NAZA, in which Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers describe how targets are selected in Gaza, is nominated for feature, direction, production, sound design and Audience Choice. Abraham and Szor won at Cinema Eye in 2025 with No Other Land. Their new film had sold more than 1.5 million cinema tickets in 47 territories by 6 November, almost half of them in Italy, its producers say. Neon joined the film’s US release in October, after it opened independently in 85 cinemas.
Dosa’s Time and Water spreads its six across direction, editing, original score, sound design, visual design and Audience Choice.
Full list of nominations
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking – American Doctor: Poh Si Teng, Kirstine Barfod, Reem Haddad, Chris Rentaria, Ibrahim Al Otla, Ramzy Haddad, Christopher White, Ema Ryan Yamazaki, Suad Bushnaq, Kristian Selin Eidnes Andersen, Patrick Svaneberg Vejen, Jacob Langkjær Davidsen, Thaer Ahmad, Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa – My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile: Julia Loktev, Michael Taylor, Anna Nemzer, Ksenia Mironova, Elena Kostyuchenko and Valeria Ratnikova – NAZA: Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Harry Davies, Robert Farr and an anonymous team member – Once Upon a Time in Harlem: William Greaves, David Greaves, Liani Greaves, Anne de Mare, Tamar-kali, Clive Davidson, Roland Mitchell, Mike Frank, Matthew J. Hoffman and Bella Racklin – Rehearsals for a Revolution: Pegah Ahangarani, Kaveh Farnam, Adria Mones, Arash Ashtiani, Neda Mohseni and Dani Zacarias – To Hold a Mountain: Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić, Quentin Laurent, Rok Bicek, Eva Kraljević, George Cragg, Draško Adžić, Julij Zornik, Samo Jurca, Mileva Gara Jovanović and Nada Stanišić – You Can See Everything: Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim, Tatiana Bears, Maggie Ambrose, Jack Davis, David Bolen, Adam Locke-Norton, Ari Balouzian, Richard Carlos, Paul Hsu, Elizabeth Holmes, Billy Evans and Amanda Seyfried
Outstanding Achievement in Direction – Poh Si Teng, American Doctor – Michal Marczak, Closure – John Wilson, The History of Concrete – Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, NAZA – Pegah Ahangarani, Rehearsals for a Revolution – Sara Dosa, Time and Water – Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, You Can See Everything
Outstanding Achievement in Editing – Jeff Malmberg, The Bend in the River – Colin Monie, Everybody to Kenmure Street – Anne de Mare and Lynn True, Once Upon a Time in Harlem – Ross McElwee and Joe Bini, Remake – Erin Casper, Jocelyne Chaput and Mark Harrison, Time and Water – Adam Locke-Norton, You Can See Everything
Outstanding Achievement in Production – Poh Si Teng, Kirstine Barfod and Reem Haddad, American Doctor – Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Shannon Dill, Anna Barnes and Bob Eisenhardt, Everest: The Other Side – Jessie Deeter, Erin Edeiken and Alex Gibney, Musk – Julia Loktev, My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile – NAZA (nominees to be confirmed) – Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim, Tatiana Bears, Maggie Ambrose and Jack Davis, You Can See Everything
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography – Nathan Golon, Pete Muller and Mark Unger, Bucks Harbor – Michal Marczak, Closure – Clair Popkin, Jimmy Chin and Christopher Murphy, Everest: The Other Side – Stephen Maing and Eric Daniel Metzgar, The Great Experiment – Eva Kraljević, To Hold a Mountain – David Bolen, You Can See Everything
Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score – Suad Bushnaq, American Doctor – Daniel Pemberton, Musk – Cristóbal Tapia de Veer, Nuisance Bear – William Ryan Fritch and T. Griffin, The Oldest Person in the World – Dan Deacon, Time and Water – Ari Balouzian, You Can See Everything
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design – Gisela Fulla Silvestre and Eli Cohn, Barbara Forever – Katarzyna Szczerba and Konrad Błaszczyk, Closure – Robert Farr, NAZA – David Rose, Lou Solakofski and Reid Goobie, Nuisance Bear – Mark Mangini, The Oldest Person in the World – Björn Viktorsson, Atli Arnarsson and Jón Atli Magnússon, Time and Water
Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design – Will Hodgson, 14th – Philip Eddolls, Michael Enzbrunner and Aisha Ghali, The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist – Mohammad Lotfali, A Fox Under a Pink Moon – Anthony Konigbagbe, Yibi Hu and Daisy Evans, Jean-Michel Basquiat – Musk (nominees to be confirmed) – Lucy Munger, Time and Water
Outstanding Achievement in Archival Artistry – Brydie O’Connor, Barbara Forever – Wyatt Stone, Viridiana Lieberman and Rebecca Adorno Dávila, Jean-Michel Basquiat – Paula Vaccaro, Aaron Brookner and Tomas Baltazar, Nova ’78 – Anne de Mare, Lynn True, Matthew J. Hoffman and Bella Racklin, Once Upon a Time in Harlem – Arash Ashtiani, Rehearsals for a Revolution – Helen Macgowan, Byron Leon, Niles Howard and Gabriela Tessitore, Soul Patrol
Outstanding Achievement in Debut Feature Filmmaking – American Doctor, directed by Poh Si Teng – Barbara Forever, directed by Brydie O’Connor – Bucks Harbor, directed by Pete Muller – The History of Concrete, directed by John Wilson – Nuisance Bear, directed by Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden
Spotlight Award – Jaripeo, directed by Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig – Joybubbles, directed by Rachael J. Morrison – My NDA, directed by Juliane Dressner and Miriam Shor – TheyDream, directed by William D. Caballero – The Whole World Is a Lie, directed by Charlie Birns – Wood Street, directed by Caron Creighton
Heterodox Award – Blue Heron, directed by Sophy Romvari – A Child of My Own, directed by Maite Alberdi – Dao, directed by Alain Gomis – I Heard That They Are Not Going to See Each Other Anymore, directed by Ka Ki Wong – Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, directed by Matt Johnson – Whispers in May, directed by Dongnan Chen
Audience Choice Prize – American Doctor, directed by Poh Si Teng – Cookie Queens, directed by Alysa Nahmias – The Cycle of Love, directed by Orlando von Einsiedel – Everest: The Other Side, directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi – NAZA, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor – The Oldest Person in the World, directed by Sam Green – Steal This Story, Please!, directed by Carl Deal and Tia Lessin – Time and Water, directed by Sara Dosa – Wild Inside, directed by Penny Lane – You Can See Everything, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim
Announced on 22 October
Unforgettables honourees: Thaer Ahmad, Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa (American Doctor); E. Jean Carroll (Ask E. Jean); Soraya Akhlaghi (A Fox Under a Pink Moon); Billie Jean King (Give Me the Ball); Israa (One in a Million); Amy Goodman (Steal This Story, Please!).
Audience Choice longlist: 17 films were longlisted on 22 October. The seven that did not advance to the final 10 were The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist; Ask E. Jean; The Bend in the River; Everybody to Kenmure Street; Give Me the Ball; The History of Concrete; Once Upon a Time in Harlem.
Nonfiction shorts list (nominees due on 14 December): The Boys and the Bees (Arielle Knight); Buckskin (Mars Verrone); A Derailment (Nathan Truesdell); Free Joan Little (Yoruba Richen); I Got My Brother (Victor Gabriel); An Open Field (Teboho Edkins); Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon (Bill Morrison); They’re Here (Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller); La Tierra del Valor (The Home of the Brave, Cristina Costantini); Water Cooler (Emma V.F.).
Broadcast Film: Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story (HBO Max); The Bitter Pill (POV); Critical Incident: Death at the Border (HBO Max); Earth, Wind & Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World (HBO Max); Seen & Heard: The History of Black Television (HBO Max); Songs From the Hole (Netflix).
Nonfiction Series: High Horse: The Black Cowboy (Peacock); Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time (National Geographic); Katrina: Come Hell and High Water (Netflix); Mr. Scorsese (Apple TV); Trust Me: The False Prophet (Netflix); The Yogurt Shop Murders (HBO Max).
Anthology Series: Limitless: Live Better Now, season two (Disney+); Neighbors (HBO Max); Trainwreck (Netflix); Tucci in Italy, season two (National Geographic); Untold, volume six (Netflix).
Broadcast Editing: Skyking (Hulu); Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story (HBO Max); Breakdown: 1975 (Netflix); Earth, Wind & Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World (HBO Max); Katrina: Come Hell and High Water (Netflix); Mr. Scorsese (Apple TV).
Broadcast Cinematography: Caught in the Crackdown (Frontline, PBS); High Horse: The Black Cowboy (Peacock); The Man Will Burn (HBO Max); Songs From the Hole (Netflix); Tucci in Italy, season two (National Geographic); The Yogurt Shop Murders (HBO Max).
Legacy Award: Hoop Dreams, directed by Steve James.
How the field is spread
Across the 13 competitive film categories announced on 12 November, 42 titles share 83 nomination slots, by FilmBunch’s count, and 25 of them have a single nomination. Behind the four leaders, eight films have three each: Barbara Forever, Closure, Everest: The Other Side, Musk, Nuisance Bear, The Oldest Person in the World, Once Upon a Time in Harlem and Rehearsals for a Revolution. Jimmy Chin’s three for Everest: The Other Side take his career total to 14, third on Cinema Eye’s all-time list.
The 10 Audience Choice nominees were chosen in a first round of public voting, and a second round opening on 14 December decides the winner. Each of the last eight Oscar winners for documentary feature was on Cinema Eye’s Audience Choice longlist in its year, the organisers say. The Academy’s documentary shortlist in December is the next public test for this year’s leaders. FilmBunch’s report on the European Audiovisual Observatory’s documentary study shows how rarely documentaries reach that kind of audience in cinemas.
Our reading
The two leaders reached seven by very different routes. You Can See Everything is the rare documentary with mainstream box office; American Doctor is a first feature that a specialist distributor opened city by city. Their tie is a reminder that Cinema Eye counts craft, and a box-office record earns no extra nominations there.
The distributor table needs reading with the same care. HBO, National Geographic and Netflix lead on volume, much of it from the broadcast and series categories announced in October. In the film categories, the strongest positions belong to companies releasing documentaries in cinemas: A24, Watermelon and Neon, whose nine rest largely on NAZA’s five. The Academy’s shortlist will show whether that strength carries into the Oscar race.
Sources
- IndieWire, 2027 Cinema Eye Honors film nominations: full list (12 November 2026)
- Variety, American Doctor and You Can See Everything top Cinema Eye documentary nominations (12 November 2026)
- Cinema Eye Honors, first awards announcements for 2027 (22 October 2026)
- Variety, You Can See Everything becomes second-biggest documentary in North America with $80m (8 November 2026)
- Deadline, Watermelon Pictures acquires American Doctor (23 April 2026)
- Variety, Neon partners with NAZA filmmakers, Guardian and MK2 (21 October 2026)
- American Doctor, official film site (Watermelon Pictures)