It was announced at the end of last week that Jehane Noujaim’s The Square has been nominated for four Emmy awards, adding to its Oscar nomination received earlier this year.

To celebrate the film documentary releasing today on DVD, we thought we’d take a look some of the best award-nominated and award-winning documentaries of 2014 to date.

 

20 Feet from Stardom

Winner of Best Documentary Feature at the 2014 Academy Awards, 20 Feet From Stardom is the untold true story of the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the 21^stcentury.

The documentary has won 16 awards since its release including Best Edited Documentary Feature at the 2014 American Cinema Editors awards and Outstanding Documentary and Outstanding Song at the 2014 Black Reel Awards.

 

The Act Of Killing

With a staggering 42 wins under its belt, the 2012 documentary The Act of Killing has still making award headlines this year when it was nominated for an Academy Award and when it took home Best Documentary at this year’s BAFTAs.

The documentary challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.

 

Blackfish

This gripping documentary about the devastating consequences of keeping orcas in captivity, particularly as performing attractions at theme parks like SeaWorld, was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Documentary.

It also won Best Documentary at the 2014 Golden Trailer Awards, received a BFCA Critics’ Choice nomination for Best Documentary Feature and received mixed reactions when it was snubbed for an Oscar nomination, even though it was the third-highest grossing documentary of 2013 that didn’t star One Direction or Justin Bieber.

 

Stories We Tell

Another documentary that caused controversy when it failed to receive a nomination at the 2014 Academy Awards, Stories We Tell is a 2012 Canadian documentary film written and directed by Sarah Polley. The film excavates layers of myth and memory to find the elusive truth at the core of a family storyteller.

Winner of Best Documentary at the Georgia Film Critics Association (2014) and Best Documentary at the Iowa Film Critics Awards (2014), it also took home Best Documentary Screenplay at the Writers Guild of America awards.

 

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks

An American Independent documentary film that details the creation of Julian Assange’s controversial website (which facilitated the largest security breach in U.S. history), We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks was nominated for a BAFTA and also a FOCAL Award this year. It was also nominated for Documentary of the Year at the 2014 London Critics Circle Film Awards.

The documentary was written and directed by Alex Gibney, who Esquire magazine previously described as “becoming the most important documentarian of our time”.

 

The Square

A 2013 Egyptian-American documentary film, The Square depicts the ongoing Egyptian Revolution of 2011 from its roots in Tahir Square. As well as being nominated for an Oscar this year, the film was last week nominated for four Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Documentary, Outstanding Cinematography, Outstanding Picture Editing and Outstanding Directing.

It also won the Amnesty International Film Prize at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival and Noujaim received the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary award at the Directors Guild of America award ceremony.

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