Hot Docs 2026 Has Wrapped: American Doctor Wins the Audience Award, Nekai Walks Takes the Canadian Prize
The festival closed its 2026 edition with audience favourites spanning medicine, justice, music, Indigenous stories, technology, war, sport, and personal memory.
Hot Docs 2026 has officially come to an end. The festival closed its latest edition on Sunday, May 3, with the announcement of its audience awards, including the Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary and the overall Hot Docs Audience Award.
The top audience prize went to American Doctor, directed by Poh Si Teng, which finished first in the overall audience poll. The film was named the winner of the Hot Docs Audience Award.
The Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary went to Nekai Walks, directed by Rico King. The award recognizes the top Canadian feature documentary as voted by audiences.
The top short film in the audience poll was Sanyi the Rooster, directed by Lotte Salomons.
As always, the final audience ranking shows the range of what Hot Docs brings together. This year’s favourites moved across urgent political stories, intimate personal portraits, Indigenous perspectives, technology, music, sport, justice, memory, and survival. Films such as Code of Misconduct, Ceremony, Black Zombie, The Ballad of Judas Priest, When a Witness Recants, təm kʷaθ nan Namesake, and Birds of War helped underline how wide the documentary field has become.
That is also why our Hot Docs coverage is not finished yet. Over the next few days, we will return to several titles from the festival through reviews, short recommendations, and social media carousels. Some films deserve more than a place on a final ranking and we will be taking a closer look at them soon.
Top 20 Audience Favourites at Hot Docs 2026
American Doctor — Poh Si Teng
Steal This Story, Please! — Carl Deal, Tia Lessin
A Fox Under a Pink Moon — Mehrdad Oskouei, Soraya Akhalaghi
32 Meters — Morteza Atabaki
Nekai Walks — Rico King
Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions — Michelle Mama
Black Zombie — Maya Annik Bedward
The Ballad of Judas Priest — Tom Morello, Sam Dunn
The Seoul Guardians — Chul Young Cho, Shin Wan Kim, Jong Woo Kim
When a Witness Recants — Dawn Porter
Traces — Alisa Kovalenko, Marysia Nikitiuk
Sanyi the Rooster — Lotte Salomons
təm kʷaθ nan Namesake — Evan Adams, Eileen Francis
Code of Misconduct — Sébastien Trahan
Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild] — Zachary Khalil, Adam Khalil
Ceremony — Banchi Hanuse
Birds of War — Janay Boulos, Abd Alkader Habak
Baby Jackfruit Baby Guava — Nhật Quang Nông
To Hold a Mountain — Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazic
Stories for Sandro — Giacomo Boeri