RON HOWARD TO RECEIVE CRITICS CHOICE IMPACT AWARD
AT THE 11TH ANNUAL CRITICS CHOICE DOCUMENTARY AWARDS
DOCUMENTARIAN JEHANE NOUJAIM TO RECEIVE THE PENNEBAKER AWARD
HOST AND PRODUCER ROSS MATHEWS TO HOST AWARDS CEREMONY
EVENT SET FOR SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8 AT THE EDISON BALLROOM IN NEW YORK CITY
The Event Celebrates and Honors Excellence in Nonfiction Filmmaking
Nominations to be Announced on Tuesday, October 13
New York, NY (Monday, October 5, 2026) – The Critics Choice Association (CCA) has named legendary filmmaker and documentarian Ron Howard the recipient of the Critics Choice Impact Award at the 11th Annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards. The prestigious award recognizes filmmakers whose work, influence, and commitment to nonfiction storytelling have made a significant and lasting impact on the documentary form, broadening its reach and championing its continued evolution.
The CCA will present the Pennebaker Award (formerly known as the Critics Choice Lifetime Achievement Award) to visionary filmmaker Jehane Noujaim. Named in honor of D A Pennebaker, a trailblazer in the field, the award celebrates filmmakers whose careers have made a profound and lasting contribution to the art of the documentary. Chris Hegedus, Pennebaker’s widow and filmmaking partner, will present the award.
These honors, along with awards in 18 categories, will be presented at the 11th Annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards gala on Sunday, November 8, 2026, at 7:00 PM ET at The Edison Ballroom in New York City.
Hosted by award-winning television host and producer Ross Mathews,the eventwill bring together leading filmmakers, industry professionals, and special guests for an evening celebrating excellence in documentary filmmaking. Nominations are determined by a vote of qualified CCA members with expertise in the documentary field and will be announced on Tuesday, October 13.
11th Annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards Timeline:
Submissions Opened: Tuesday, July 7, 2026
Final Deadline for Submissions: Friday, September 18, 2026
Nominations to be Announced: Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Final Voting Window: Wednesday, October 14 to Friday, November 6, 2026
Critics Choice Documentary Awards Gala: Sunday, November 8, 2026
“Documentary filmmaking has the extraordinary ability to illuminate our world through the people and stories that shape it, and this year’s honorees represent the very best of what the form can achieve,” said Christopher Campbell, VP, Documentary at the Critics Choice Association. “Ron Howard has brought his remarkable gifts as a storyteller to nonfiction filmmaking, finding the humanity at the heart of every story he tells and expanding the reach and visibility of the documentary form. Jehane Noujaim has spent her career immersing audiences in pivotal moments as they unfold, bringing an intimacy and immediacy to her filmmaking that has helped define contemporary documentary storytelling.”
Feature-length documentaries, two-part documentaries, and short-form documentaries are eligible for nomination if first released commercially in the U.S. between January 1 and December 31, 2026. Documentaries may be delivered to audiences theatrically or by broadcast, cable, or streaming. Documentary series of three episodes or more are eligible for nomination if a majority of the episodes of the series’ eligible season have been released between January 1, 2026, and December 31, 2026. The awards ceremony is produced by Bob Bain of Bob Bain Productions.
Award Categories:
- Best Documentary Feature
- Best Director
- Best First Documentary Feature
- Best True Crime Documentary
- Best Sports Documentary
- Best Political Documentary
- Best Music Documentary
- Best Archival Documentary
- Best Science/Nature Documentary
- Best Historical Documentary
- Best Biographical Documentary
- Best Ongoing Documentary Series
- Best Limited Documentary Series
- Best Cinematography
- Best Editing
- Best Music Score
- Best Narration
- Best Short Documentary
Honorees and Host:
Ron Howard is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker whose acclaimed documentary work includes We Feed People, Pavarotti, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years, and Jim Henson Idea Man. The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years won Best Music Documentary at the inaugural Critics Choice Documentary Awards in 2016 and earned Howard a directing nomination. Pavarotti received three CCDA nominations, while Jim Henson Idea Man received five and won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. His latest documentary, Avedon, a portrait of renowned photographer Richard Avedon, premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival and will be released by Netflix this fall.
Howard co-founded Imagine Entertainment with Brian Grazer and has continued to champion nonfiction storytelling through Imagine Documentaries. As a producer, his documentary credits include the Emmy-nominated Marty, Life Is Short and 2024 CCDA winner Music by John Williams, among numerous documentary features and series produced through Imagine.
One of his generation’s most celebrated directors, Howard’s narrative films include A Beautiful Mind, for which he won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture, Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon, Parenthood, Splash, The Da Vinci Code, Rush, and most recently, Eden. His next narrative feature, Alone at Dawn, is currently in post-production for a 2027 release. In 2021, Howard and his brother, Clint Howard, published The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family.
Jehane Noujaim is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker renowned for her incisive and immersive documentaries. As producer and director of HBO’s acclaimed series The Vow, she explored the complex world of the self-improvement group NXIVM. The series received two nominations at the 2021 Critics Choice Real TV Awards. She also co-directed The Great Hack, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, earned BAFTA and Emmy nominations, and won a Cinema Eye Honors Award.
Her distinguished body of work includes Rafea: Solar Mama, Control Room, Startup.com, and the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated The Square, for which she became the first Arab woman nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 2006, she became the first woman and youngest recipient of the TED Prize, recognizing her innovative contributions to filmmaking and social impact.
Most recently, Noujaim co-directed The Man Will Burn, an HBO docuseries that premiered in July 2026 and takes audiences inside the iconic cultural phenomenon. She is currently working on a project examining the Israel-Palestine conflict in collaboration with journalists in Gaza. Throughout her career, Noujaim has brought audiences inside pivotal events and complex communities, using intimate, character-driven filmmaking to illuminate some of the defining social and political issues of our time.
Ross Mathews is an Emmy-winning television host and producer who has entertained audiences for more than two decades. He currently serves as co-host and producer of the nationally syndicated talk show The Drew Barrymore Show, and as a judge and producer on RuPaul’s Drag Race and RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars. Mathews first gained national attention as a correspondent on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and went on to host Hello Ross and Hollywood Today Live, as well as appear regularly on Chelsea Lately and E!’s Live from the Red Carpet.
Mathews is also the author of the national bestseller Man Up!: Tales of My Delusional Self-Confidence and Name Drop: The Really Good Celebrity Stories I Usually Only Tell at Happy Hour. In 2025, he and his husband, Dr. Wellinthon García-Mathews, co-authored the children’s book Tío and Tío: The Ring Bearers. Mathews has hosted the GLAAD Media Awards six times and received the organization’s Davidson/Valentini Award in 2018.
National Geographic Documentary Films and Netflix are Catalyst Sponsors for the event.
ABOUT THE CRITICS CHOICE ASSOCIATION (CCA)
Founded in 1995, the Critics Choice Association (CCA) is one of the largest critics organizations in the world, representing more than 500 media critics and entertainment journalists. It is known for presenting the annual Critics Choice Awards, honoring the finest in cinematic and television achievement for over three decades.
With a commitment to recognizing industry creatives and professionals across genres, CCA has expanded its slate of events over the years to include the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, Critics Choice Real TV Awards, and Critics Choice Super Awards. The CCA also produces a series of Celebration events to recognize historically underrepresented communities, including the Celebration of Black Cinema and Television, Celebración of Cinema and Television, Celebration of AAPI Cinema and Television, and Celebration of LGBTQ+ Cinema and Television.
Most recently, the CCA has announced its plan to present the inaugural Critics Choice Creator Awards in April 2027.
For more information, to stream the ceremony, and to view the full list of nominees and winners, visit CriticsChoice.com. Follow the Critics Choice Association on Instagram and X @CriticsChoice, on TikTok @OfficialCriticsChoice, and on Facebook at /CriticsChoiceAwards.
Contacts:
To send FYC content and screeners to the CCA membership:
Kymber Allen: kymber@criticschoice.com
For tickets and table sales:
David Freedman: dfreedman@criticschoice.com
For press inquiries:
Laura Danford Mandel, LDM | PR
laura@ldmpr.com
917-848-1460
Photos are available HERE.
Ron Howard: Jeff Lipsky
Jehane Noujaim: Courtesy of Jehane Noujaim
Ross Mathews: Courtesy of Ross Mathews