Black Reel Award for Outstanding Television Documentary or Special

Tina (2021)
Website	blackreelawards.com

This article lists the winners and nominees for the

for Outstanding Television Documentary or Special. This award is given to the directors and was first awarded during the 2001 ceremony. In May 2017 the category was moved from the film awards as part of the Black Reel Awards for Television honors thus resulting in two separate winners in 2017.

Winners and nominees

Winners are listed first and highlighted in bold.

2000s

Year	Documentary / Special	Network	Director	Ref
2001
	Half Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks	Showtime	Craig Laurence Rice	[1]
	The BET 20th Anniversary Celebration	BET	Terri McCoy
	Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly	Comedy Central	Stan Lathan
	That's Black Entertainment	Showtime	Walid Khaldi
	Ali-Frazier I: One Nation...Divisible	HBO	Dave Anderson
2002
	Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel	AMC	Madison D. Lacy	[2]
	Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind	PBS	Stanley Nelson
	BET Walk of Fame: Patti LaBelle	BET	Glenn Weiss
	32nd Image Awards	FOX	Terri McCoy
	VH1 Divas: The One and Only Aretha Franklin	Vh1	Liz Imperio
2003
	Jim Brown: All American	HBO	Spike Lee	[3]
	Ralph Ellison: An American Journey	PBS	Avon Kirkland
	Heroes of Black Comedy	Comedy Central	David Upshal & Ninder Billing
	Inside TV Land: African-Americans in Television	TV Land
2004
	Hollywood Celebrates Denzel Washington: An American Cinematheque Tribute	AMC	Michael Dempsey	[4]
	Hell Up in Hollywood: Soul Cinema and the 1970s	AMC	Eric Anderson
	Brother Outside: The Life of Bayard Rustin	PBS	Nancy D. Kates & Bennett Singer
	The Murder of Emmett Till	PBS	Stanley Nelson
	Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives	PBS	Ed Bell & Thomas Lennon
2005
	American Beyond the Color Line with Henry Louis Gates Jr.	PBS	Mary Crisp & Daniel Percival	[5]
	Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise	PBS	Carol Bash, Lullie Haddad & Stanley Nelson
	The N Word	Trio	Todd Williams
2006
	Unstoppable: A Conversation with Melvin Van Peebles, Gordon Parks & Ossie Davis	Black Starz!	Warrington Hudlin	[6]
	Slavery and the Making of America	PBS	Leslie D. Farrell, Chana Gazit, Dante James & Gail Pellett
	Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson	PBS	Ken Burns
	Chisholm '72 Unbought & Unbossed	PBS	Shola Lynch
	Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story	USA Network	Ron Berger & Dan Klores
2007–2009	—

2010s

Year	Documentary / Special	Network	Director	Ref
2010	—
2011
	If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise	HBO	Spike Lee	[7]
	The Black List: Volume Three	HBO	Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
2012
	Planet Rock: The Story of Hip-Hop and the Crack Generation	VH1	Rickard Lowe & Martin Torgoff	[8]
	Pray the Devil Back to Hell	PBS	Gini Reticker
	The Latino List	HBO	Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
	Black in Latin America	PBS	Ricardo Pollack & Ilana Trachtman
	The Fab Five	ESPN	Jason Hehir
2013
	Brooklyn Boheme	Showtime	Nelson George	[9]
	The Announcement	ESPN	Nelson George
	On the Shoulders of Giants	Showtime	Deborah Morales
	Slavery by Another Name	PBS	Sam Pollard
	Uprising: Hip Hop and the LA Riots	VH1	Mark Ford
2014
	Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley	HBO	Whoopi Goldberg	[10]
	Dark Girls	OWN	Bill Duke
	Venus vs.	ESPN	Ava DuVernay
	Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train a Comin'	PBS	Bob Smeaton
	Made in America	Showtime	Ron Howard
2015
	Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown	HBO	Alex Gibney	[11]
	Finding the Funk	VH1	Nelson George
	On the Run Tour: Beyoncé and Jay-Z	HBO	Jonas Åkerlund
	The Tanning of America: One Nation Under Hip-Hop	VH1	Billy Corben
	Terror at the Mall	HBO	Dan Reed
2016
	The Wiz Live!	NBC	Kenny Leon	[12]
	3 ½ Minutes	HBO	Marc Silver
	Holler If You Hear Me: Black and Gay in the Church	BET	Clay Cane
	Kareem: Minority of One	HBO	Clare Lewins
	Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life: An All-Star Grammy Tribute	CBS	Leon Knoles
2017
	Lemonade	HBO	Beyoncé Knowles and Khalil Joseph	[13]
	Black America Since MLK: Still I Rise	HBO	Talleah Bridges
	Hamilton's America	PBS	Alex Horowitz
	Jackie Robinson	HBO	Ken Burns
	Streets of Compton	A&E	Leon Knoles
2017
	Time: The Kalief Browder Story	Spike TV	Jenner Furst	[14]
	LA 92	National Geographic	T.J. Martin & Daniel Lindsay
	The Lost Tapes: LA Riots	Smithsonian Channel	Tom Jennings
	L.A. Burning: The Riots 25 Years Later	A&E	One9 & Erik Parker
	Rodney King	Netflix	Spike Lee
2018
	The Defiant Ones	HBO	Allen Hughes	[15][16]
	Being Serena	HBO	Noah Lerner
	Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert	NBC	David Leveaux & Alex Rudzinski
	Biggie: The Life of Notorious B.I.G.	A&E	Mark Ford
	Def Comedy Jam 25	Netflix	Louis J. Horvitz
2019
	Surviving R. Kelly	Lifetime	Nigel Bellis & Astral Finnie	[17]
	Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story	Paramount Network	Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nason
	Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men	Showtime	Sacha Jenkins
	Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland	HBO	Kate Davis & David Heilbroner
	HΘMΣCΘMING	Netflix	Beyonce & Ed Burke

2020s

Year	Documentary / Special	Network	Director	Ref
2020
	The Last Dance	ESPN	Jason Hehir	[18][19][20]
	Becoming	Netflix	Nadia Hallgren
	Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince	CBS	David Wild
	Hitsville: The Making of Motown	Showtime	Ben Turner & Gabe Turner
	Who Killed Malcolm X?	Netflix	Rachel Dretzin & Phil Bertelsen
2021
	Tina	HBO	T.J. Martin & Dan Lindsay	[21][22]
	Black Is King	Disney+	Beyonce , Kwasi Fordjour, Emmanuel Adjei, Blitz Bazawule, Ibra Ake, Jenn Nkiru, Jake Nava, Pierre Debusschere, Dikayl Rimmasch, Dafe Oboro
	High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America	Netflix	Stephen Satterfield
	The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion	HBO Max	Marcus Raboy
	First Ladies: Michelle Obama	CNN	Liz Mermin

Total awards by network

• HBO - 7
• AMC - 2
• Showtime - 2
• Black Starz! - 1
• ESPN - 1
• Lifetime - 1
• NBC - 1
• PBS - 1
• Spike TV - 1
• VH1 - 1

References