The Critics Choice winner has gone on to be nominated for the documentary Oscar only once in the last four years
Kirsten Johnson’s playful “Dick Johnson Is Dead” has been named the best nonfiction film of 2020 at the fifth annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards, which were announced on Monday morning. Johnson also won the Best Director award for her Netflix film, in which she deals with the impending death of her father by staging his death in a variety of ways. Melissa Haizlip won the Best First Documentary Feature award for “Mr. SOUL!,” while other awards went to “My Octopus Teacher” for cinematography, “Totally Under Control” for editing, “The Way I See It” for music and “David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet” for narration. “MLK/FBI” was named Best Archival Documentary, “John Lewis: Good Trouble” Best Historical/Biographical Documentary, “Boys State” Best Political Documentary” and “My Octopus Teacher” Best Science/Nature Documentary. There were two ties: “Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes” and “Athlete A” tied in the Best Sports Documentary category, while two films about bands that came to prominence in the 1980s tied for Best Music Documentary: “Beastie Boys Story” and “The Go-Go’s.
