The Grierson Awards, officially the British Documentary Awards, are the UK’s dedicated prizes for documentary film and television. They are presented every year by the Grierson Trust, a charity named after the Scottish film-maker John Grierson, and the 2026 ceremony takes place on Tuesday 10 November at the Roundhouse in London. This guide explains how the Grierson Awards work, who can enter, and how they compare with the other major documentary prizes, from BAFTA and the Oscars to festival juries in London and Sheffield.
What are the Grierson Awards?
The trust is a registered charity, set up by members of the British documentary film movement after Grierson’s death in 1972, according to a Durham University research case study. Alongside the awards, it runs training and mentoring schemes for new factual talent, including Grierson DocLab, Grierson Sessions and the Grierson-Percy Grant.
Unlike general television prizes, the Griersons cover documentary only, but across every platform: terrestrial and pay TV, streaming services, online channels and cinema releases.
Who was John Grierson?
Grierson was born in Perthshire in 1898 and died in 1972. In a 1926 review of Robert Flaherty’s film Moana for the New York Sun, he wrote that it had documentary value, which is why the Grierson Trust credits him with coining the term. The University of Stirling, which holds his papers, dates his first use of the word to 1925, so accounts of the exact moment vary.
After joining the Empire Marketing Board in 1928 he produced Drifters (1929), about herring fishing, and from 1933 he led the General Post Office film unit, whose work included Night Mail (1936). Just before the Second World War he moved to Canada, where he established the National Film Board of Canada. Because his review appeared in 1926, the Grierson Trust is treating 2026 as the centenary of the word “documentary” and has made this year’s awards the centrepiece of a year-long celebration.
How the Grierson Awards work
Production companies, broadcasters and film-makers enter their own work. For the 2026 awards, a film had to have been first shown to UK audiences between 1 June 2025 and 31 May 2026, whether on television, a streaming or digital platform, at a festival or in cinemas. University and college screenings count for the student category. Entries closed on 22 May 2026.
The process then narrows in stages:
- Entries: the trust received 511 submissions in 2026.
- Longlist: published on 20 July 2026, with the BBC leading on 32 longlisted entries, followed by Channel 4 on 19 and Netflix on 17.
- Nominations: category juries of documentary makers, broadcasters and subject experts pick four nominees per category. The 2026 nominations were published on 14 September.
- Winners: the same juries choose a winner, announced at the November ceremony.
Judges look for quality, integrity, creativity, originality and overall excellence.
The 2026 categories
There are 15 programme categories plus Best Documentary Presenter. Several changed for 2026:
- The science and natural history prize has been renamed the Sir David Attenborough Award for Best Science and Natural History Documentary, marking the broadcaster’s 100th birthday.
- A new Best Digital Documentary category covers films made mainly for online platforms.
- Best Constructed and Formatted Documentary Series, sponsored by Channel 4, returns for unscripted series of two or more episodes. Scripted reality is excluded.
- Most Entertaining Documentary also returns, judged partly on humour and wit.
Other awards include the single documentary prizes, current affairs, history, arts, music and sport categories, documentary series, documentary short and student documentary.
The Trustees’ Award
One prize is not competitive. The Grierson Trustees’ Award is chosen by the trust’s board to honour an outstanding contribution to the art or craft of documentary. The 2026 recipient is Anna Godas, chief executive and co-founder of the UK documentary company Dogwoof. According to the trust, films backed by Dogwoof over the past 22 years include 37 Academy Award nominees and 20 Grierson winners. Recent recipients include the editor Rupert Houseman (2025), the presenter and documentary maker Stacey Dooley (2024) and the documentary maker Anna Hall (2023).
The 2026 Grierson Awards at a glance
The BBC leads the 2026 nominations with 19 across its channels and iPlayer. Channel 4 has nine, Netflix eight, Sky Documentaries five, Disney+ and National Geographic four, and Apple TV two. Curious Films, Rogan Productions and Passion Pictures lead the production companies with three nominations each. The comedian and broadcaster Nish Kumar will host the ceremony at the Roundhouse in Camden.
For a sense of what wins, the 2025 awards went to Witches for best domestic single documentary, No Other Land for best international single documentary and Bibaa & Nicole: Murder in the Park (Sky Documentaries) for best documentary series. When the 2026 longlist was published, the trust’s chair, Tom McDonald, said “documentary storytelling is vibrant and vital”.
Other major documentary awards to know
The Griersons focus solely on documentary, but several other awards shape which documentaries get seen and funded.
BAFTA Film Awards: Documentary
BAFTA’s film awards include a Documentary category, and in the final round every BAFTA film-voting member can vote for the winner. The 79th BAFTA Film Awards were held on 22 February 2026 at the Royal Festival Hall, with nominees including 2000 Meters to Andriivka, Cover-Up, Mr Nobody Against Putin and The Perfect Neighbor. The 2025 award went to Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.
The Oscars: Best Documentary Feature
The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature is the best-known documentary prize in the world. Recent nominees show how closely it overlaps with BAFTA: Mr Nobody Against Putin and The Perfect Neighbor were nominated for both in 2026. The 2025 Oscar went to No Other Land, which also took a Grierson.
Critics Choice Documentary Awards
Run by the US-based Critics Choice Association, these awards cover features, series and craft categories such as editing, score and narration. Nominations for the 11th edition were announced on 13 October 2026, led by Ava DuVernay’s 14th with six. The ceremony is scheduled for 8 November 2026 in Manhattan, where the film-maker Jehane Noujaim will receive the Pennebaker Award, the association’s honour for a body of work.
IDA Documentary Awards
The International Documentary Association in Los Angeles runs a long-established awards programme judged by juries. Its 41st edition, held on 6 December 2025, nominated films including Apocalypse in the Tropics, Life After and Seeds for best feature.
Festival prizes in London and Sheffield
Two UK festival awards can be confused with the Griersons. The BFI London Film Festival’s Documentary Competition prize is also called the Grierson Award, and is given to a feature-length documentary judged to combine integrity, originality and social or cultural significance. In October 2026 it went to Asmahan Bkerat’s Concrete Land. Sheffield DocFest, which bills itself as the UK’s leading documentary festival, gives Grand Jury awards and the Tim Hetherington Award; its 2026 winners included Filthy and The Long Cuban Night.
Why documentary awards matter
For viewers, award lists are a useful shortlist of what is worth watching across a crowded streaming landscape. For film-makers, a nomination can help a film find distributors and broadcasters, and festival prizes in particular can launch a first-time director. The Griersons also judge UK television documentaries alongside cinema releases. For more on how documentaries have fared at the Oscars, see our look at the rise of documentaries in the Oscar spotlight, and our report on British success at the BAFTAs.
Frequently asked questions
What are the Grierson Awards?
They are the British Documentary Awards, presented every year by the Grierson Trust charity for the best documentaries shown to UK audiences on television, streaming, online or in cinemas.
When are the 2026 Grierson Awards?
The ceremony is on Tuesday 10 November 2026 at the Roundhouse in London, hosted by Nish Kumar. Nominations were announced on 14 September 2026.
Who can enter the Grierson Awards?
Any documentary first shown to UK audiences within the eligibility window can be entered, usually by the production company or broadcaster. For 2026 the window was 1 June 2025 to 31 May 2026. Check the Grierson Trust website for the next year’s dates and rules.
Is the London Film Festival’s Grierson Award the same thing?
No. Both are named after John Grierson, but the LFF prize is a single festival award for a film in its Documentary Competition, chosen by a festival jury. The Grierson Awards are a separate, multi-category ceremony run by the Grierson Trust.
Who invented the word “documentary”?
John Grierson is usually credited, after he described Robert Flaherty’s Moana as having documentary value in a 1926 newspaper review, although some accounts date his first use of the word to 1925.
Sources: The Grierson Trust, Revealing the 2026 Grierson Awards longlist (20 July 2026); The Grierson Trust, Entries open for the 2026 Grierson Awards (11 March 2026); The Grierson Trust, Nish Kumar to host 2026 Grierson Awards ceremony (16 October 2026); The Grierson Trust, Anna Godas named recipient of the 2026 Grierson Trustees’ Award (8 October 2026); Señal News, Entries open for the 2026 Grierson Awards (11 March 2026); The Knowledge, BBC heads Grierson nominations (14 September 2026); The Grierson Trust, 100 years of documentary (6 February 2026); The Grierson Trust, 2025 Grierson Awards winners (18 November 2025); The Grierson Trust, Past awards: 2025 (accessed October 2026); The Grierson Trust, 2024 Trustees’ Award recipient (2024); The Grierson Trust, 2023 Grierson Trustees’ Award (2023); Durham University (REF2014 impact case study), The Grierson Trust and British Documentary Film (accessed October 2026); Archives Hub, Papers of John Grierson (University of Stirling) (accessed October 2026); BFI, The Grierson Awards 40 years on (24 November 2012); NBC News, Oscar-winning ‘No Other Land’ directors plead for end to Israeli-Palestinian conflict (3 March 2025); Business Doc Europe, BAFTA 2026 documentary nominations announced (27 January 2026); Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, 2026 Oscar nominees announced (23 January 2026); Showbiz Junkies, 2026 Critics Choice Documentary Awards nominations (13 October 2026); Business Doc Europe, EFA unveils the five doc nominees for European Film Awards (November 2025); International Documentary Association, IDA announces nominees for the 41st Documentary Awards (18 November 2025); BFI, Competition winners announced at 70th BFI London Film Festival (18 October 2026); British Cinematographer, Winners announced for 2026 Sheffield DocFest Awards (15 June 2026).
