A photo of an award winner smiling and holding the award

A photo of an award winner giving a speech

A photo of an award winner looking happy

Milwaukee Film Festival Awards

Each year, our festival juries and audience award a few films with the top honors from the festival. See past winners of current and past awards categories below, and check back after this year’s film festival to see the 2026 Milwaukee Film Festival award winners!

Audience Awards

Best Feature Film

2025: The Librarians (dir. Kim A Snyder)
2024: Remembering Gene Wilder (dir. Ron Frank)
2023: Mom & Dad’s Nipple Factory (dir. by Justin “Justinsuperstar” Johnson)
2022: Navalny (dir. Daniel Roher)
2021: Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America (dirs. Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler)
2020: Us Kids (dir. Kim A Snyder)
2019: Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (dir. Timothy Greenfield-Sanders)
2018: Science Fair (dirs. Darren Foster and Cristina Costantini)
2017: The Blood is at the Doorstep (dir. Erik Ljung)
2016: Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise (dirs. Rita Coburn and Bob Hercules)
2015: Romeo is Bleeding (dir. Peter Medak)
2014: Alive Inside (dir. Michael Rossato-Bennett)
2013: The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete (dir. George Tillman Jr.)
2012: Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (dir. Alex Gibney)
2011: Louder Than A Bomb (dir. Jon Siskel)
2010: Waiting for “Superman” (dir. Davis Guggenheim)
2009: Precious (dir. Lee Daniels)

Best Short Film

2025:Jane Austen’s Period Drama (dirs. Julia Aks and Steve Pinder)
2024: Dead Cat (dirs. Danick Audet, Annie-Claude Caron)
2023:Troy (dir. Mike Donahue)
2022: The Warrior Princess (dir. Vianca Fuster)
2021: Tulip (dirs. Andrea Love and Phoebe Wahl)
2020 (Tie): Selfish (dir. PoChien Chen) and The Quintet of the Sunset (dir. Jie Weng)
2019: Tree #3 (dir. Omer Ben-Shachar)
2018: Liberty Hill (dir. Katie Graham)
2017: The Tables (dir. Jon Bunning)
2016: Joe’s Violin (dir. Kahane Corn Cooperman)
2015: Grounded (Au Sol) (dir. Alexis Michalik)
2014: The Numberlys (dirs. William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg)
2013: Eddie Adams: Saigon ’68 (dir. Douglas Sloan)
2012: Magic Piano (dir. Martin Clapp)
2011: The Wheel (dir. John Dylan Roberts)
2010: Drunk History: Tesla & Edison (dir. Jeremy Konner)
2009: The Violinist (dir. Carlo Besasie)

Jury Awards

Cream City Cinema Jury Awards

2025: Zastava Brothers (dir. Pep Stojanovic), What Happened to Dorothy Bell? (dir. Danny Villanueva Jr.), CYCLE (dirs. Laura Dyan Kezman and William Howell)
2024: Decoupling 脱钩 (dir. Yinan Wang), Out of the Picture (dir. Mary Louise Schumacher), A Sweetness of Lapse (dir. Bashir Aden)
2023: A Common Sequence (dirs. Mary Helena Clark and Mike Gibisser), Friday Night Blind (dirs. Scott Krahn and Robb Fischer), Of Wood (dir. Owen Klatte)
2022: A Life on the Farm (dir. Oscar Harding), The Waiting Room (dir. Diya Gitanjali Mark), Flowers Forever: Visibility for Existence (dir. Nick Leffel)
2021: The Heartland (dir. Marquise Mays), Background Material (dir. Britany Gunderson), 25 Weeks: A Wisconsin Pizza Harvest (dir. Charlie Tennessen)
2020: Growing Up Milwaukee (Dir. Tyshun Wardlaw), I’ve Been Afraid (Dir. Cecelia Condit), Ray Nitti Presents “Champion Style: A Jade Charon Dance Film” (Dir.  Jade “Charon” Robertson)
2019: Garden City Beautiful (dir. Ben Balcom)
2018: Pet Names (dir. Carol Brandt)
2017: Scott Road (dir. William Tang)
2016: Twin Sister (Jimagua) (dir. Sitora Takanaev)
2015: Lemon (dir. John Roberts)
2014: New Planet (dir. James Tindell)
2013: Before You (dir. Michael T. Vollmann)
2012: The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (dir. Chris James Thompson)
2011: Don’t Go (dir. Michael Hawkins-Burgos)
2010: Mickey Burgermeister (dir. Tate Bunker)
2009: Mary’s Friend (dir. John Roberts)

Kids’ Choice Jury Award (2014-2019; 2022-present)

2025: The Carp and the Child (dirs. Morgane Simon and Arnaud Demuynck)
2024: What’s Up With the Sky? (dir. Irene Iborra)
2023: FATHEAD (dir. C. Craig Patterson)
2022: Wolf and Cub: An Epic Lunch Journey (dir. Marvin “Stro” Bynoe)
2019: Tree #3 (dir. Omer Ben-Shachar)
2018: Two Balloons (dir. Mark C. Smith)
2017: Litterbugs (dir. Peter Stanley-Ward)
2016: MOOM (dir. Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi)
2015: A Place in the Middle (dir. Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer)
2014: Sweet Love (dir. Albert Jan van Rees)

Luminaries Jury Award

2025: Middletown (dirs. Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine)
2024: La Chimera (dir. Alice Rohrwacher)
2023: Smoking Causes Coughing (dir. Quentin Dupieux)
2022: Petite Maman (dir. Céline Sciamma)

Emerging Fiction Jury Award

2025: Outerlands (dir. Elena Oxman)
2024: Femme (dirs. Ng Choon Ping and Sam Freeman)
2023: Next Sohee (dir. July Jung)
2022: Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (dir. Junta Yamaguchi)

Emerging Documentary Jury Award

2025: Remaining Native (dir. Paige Bethmann)
2024: Desire Lines (dir. Jules Rosskam)
2023: Lakota Nation vs. United States (dirs. Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli)
2022: North By Current (dir. Angelo Madsen Minax)

Shorts Jury Award

2025: It Shouldn’t Rain Tomorrow (dir. Maria Trigo Teixeira)
2024: Essex Girls (dir. Yero Timi-Biu)
2023: How Not to Date While Trans (dir. Nyala Moon)
2022: Like the Ones I Used to Know (dir. Annie St-Pierre)
2019: After You Left (dir. April Maxey)
2018: Caroline (dirs. Logan George and Celine Held)
2017: The Burden (dir. Niki Lindroth von Bahr)
2016: Bird Hearts (Fuglehjerter) (dir. Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel)
2015: Giovanni and the Water Ballet (dir. Astrid Bussink)
2014: Love. Love. Love. (dir. Sandhya Daisy Sundaram)

Archived Awards

Black Lens Jury Awards (2016-21)

2021: Mama Gloria (dir. Luchina Fisher)
2019:The Remix: Hip Hop X Fashion (dirs. Farah X, Farah Z. Khalid and Lisa Cortés), Evelyn X Evelyn (dir. Eric Pumphrey)
2018: A Boy. A Girl. A Dream. (dir. Qasim Basir)
2017: Dear Mr. Shakespeare (dir. Shola Amoo)
2016: Can You Dig This (dir. Delila Vallot)

Cream City Cinema College Filmmaker Award (2016-19)

2019: Ms. Hart’s School for Young Women (dir. Ella Freigang)
2018: The Water Will Carry Us Home (dir. Gabrielle Tesfaye)
2017: ANGELAAA (dir. Shannon McInnis)
2016: Sterile (dir. Matthew Klein)

Documentary Jury Award (2015-2021)

2021: Once Upon a Time in Venezuela (dir. Anabel Rodríguez Ríos)
2020: Landfall (dir. Cecilia Aldarondo)
2019: For Sama (dirs. Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts)
2018: Minding The Gap (dir. Bing Lu)
2017: Quest (dir. Jonathan Olshefski)
2016: NUTS! (dir. Penny Lane)
2015: The Look of Silence (dir. Joshua Oppenheimer)

Herzfeld Competition Award (2009-2019)

2019: The Hottest August (dir. Brett Story)
2018: Hale Country, The Morning This Evening (dir. RaMell Ross)
2017: Rat Film (dir. Theo Anthony)
2016: The Fits (dir. Anna Rose Holmer)
2015: No One’s Child (dir. Vuk Ršumović)
2014: The Tribe (dir. Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy)
2013: War Witch (dir. Kim Nguyen)
2012: Crulic–The Path to Beyond (dir. Anca Damian)
2011: Nothing’s All Bad (dir. Mikkel Munch-Fals)
2011: Somewhere Between (dir. Linda Goldstein Knowlton)
2010: A Brand New Life (dir. Ounie Lecomte)
2010: My Perestroika (dir. Robin Hessman)
2009: Munyurangabo (dir. Lee Isaac Chung)

Milwaukee Music Video Award (2016-2019)

2019: Saebra & Carlyle – “Rabbit Hole” (dir. Brian Klewin)
2018: Amanda Huff – “Gravetalking” (dir. Kristin Peterson)
2017: IshDARR – “Locals” (dir. Damien Blue)
2016: WebsterX – “Lately” (dirs. Cody Laplant and Damien Klaven)

Mohamed Amin Courage in Filmmaking Award (2019)

2019: For Sama (dirs. Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts)

Women in Film Audience Award (2018-19)

2019: Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins (dir. Janice Engel)
2018: Science Fair (dirs. Darren Foster and Cristina Costantini)

Milwaukee Film Festival Awards

Audience Awards

Jury Awards

Archived Awards

Proudly Supported by Associated Bank