‘Justified,’ ‘The Good Wife,’ ‘Men of a Certain Age’ honored with Peabody Awards

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FX’s’Justified,’ CBS’ ‘The Good Wife,’ and TNT’s ‘Men of a Certain Age’ were honored among a record 39 recipients of the 2010 Peabody Awards, the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication announced Thursday. Selected by the Peabody board as the best in electronic media, the winners were named in a ceremony on the University of Georgia campus.

Other awards went to HBO’s biopic ‘Temple Grandin’ and the World War II epic ‘The Pacific,’ Masterpiece/Mystery’s Sherlock Holmes update ‘Sherlock: A Study in Pink.’ Teen Nick’s ‘Degrassi’ was honored for its two-part episode ‘My Body Is a Cage,’ which focused on a transgender teenager.

Documentary honorees included Spike Lee’s chronicle of New Orleans’ post-Katrina recovery ‘If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise,’ the solar system showcase ‘Wonders of the Solar System with Brian Cox,’ the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird film ‘Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals,’ the Independent Lens documentary ‘Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian,’ and ’30 for 30,’ a collection of sports documentaries commissioned by ESPN for its 30th anniversary.

In the news categories, CNN was honored for its coverage of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

See the full list after the jump.

The complete list of Peabody Awards for television, with judges’ comments: ‘Justified’ (FX), FX Productions and Sony Pictures Television

Part morality play, part character study, this engrossing modern-day Western drama sets its showdowns in the wild, wild east of Appalachian Kentucky.

‘Great Performances: Macbeth’ (PBS), Thirteen for wnet.org, Illuminations Television

Director Rupert Goold takes Shakespeare’s bloody tragedy on location to the countryside and the trenches to riveting effect.

Coverage of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill (CNN)

The science, the economics, the politics, the toll on human livelihoods and animal lives -- CNN’s coverage of the Deepwater Horizon disaster defined comprehensive.

‘The Pacific’ (HBO), Playtone and Dreamworks in association with HBO Miniseries

The Pacific Theater of World War II proves to be gripping theater indeed in this richly detailed miniseries.

‘Sherlock: A Study in Pink’ (PBS), Hartswood Films for BBC CYMRU Wales, co-produced with Masterpiece

The venerable Victorian sleuth is audaciously updated for our high-tech times, and the game is afoot all the quicker.

‘LennoNYC’ (PBS), Thirteen’s American Masters, Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right, Dakota Group

A portrait of John Lennon’s life and work after he chose to make New York his home, it’s beautifully composed and lovingly rendered but not blind to his imperfections.

‘Burma VJ’ (HBO), Magic Hour Films with WG Film, Mediamente, Kamoli Films, Danish Film Institute and DR TV with HBO Documentary Films

The documentary chronicles the heroic ingenuity of underground video journalists (VJs) who captured the 2007 Burmese human-rights protests –- and the brutal government retaliation -- on handy cams and smuggled the video out to the web and the world.

‘Men of a Certain Age’ (TNT), TNT Originals

A series about three longtime pals, “regular” guys, navigating middle age, it’s comical, poignant and harrowing, sometimes all at once.

‘Bitter Lessons’ (WFAA-TV, Dallas)

The Dallas station’s investigation exposed abuses by government-funded “career” schools that provide poor training and sometimes leave desperate students deeper in debt than they started.

‘Independent Lens: Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian’ (PBS), Rezolution Pictures, National Film Board of Canada, CBC News Network, ARTE Germany, Documentary Channel Canada, Radio Canada, ARTV, Knowledge Network, APTN, AVRO, Independent Television Service (ITVS)

A Cree filmmaker takes an affectionate but nonetheless pointed look at how movies have portrayed and misrepresented Native Americans over many decades.

‘Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals’ (HBO), HBO Sports

Not your average sports biography by a long jump shot, it examines the different cultures from whence these NBA legends sprang, their unusually long rivalry and their unlikely friendship.

Covering Pakistan: War, Flood and Social Issues (NPR)

Islamabad-based correspondent Julie McCarthy goes beyond the headline disasters, making the country vividly individual with reports on topics such as child labor, blasphemy laws and the plight of war widows.

‘Wonders of the Solar System with Brian Cox’ (Science Channel), Science Channel, BBC

In this amazing, simulated travelogue, the boyish physicist flies us to the moon and lets us play among the stars. And gawk.

‘Degrassi: My Body Is a Cage’ (TeenNick), TeenNick/Ncredible productions

True to its history, the durable high-school serial’s two-parter about a transgender teen neither trivializes nor overdramatizes its subject.

‘American Experience: My Lai’ (PBS)

The worst atrocity in American military history is given new meaning and significance in the documentary enriched by fresh interviews and never-before-heard audio made by the original Pentagon investigators.

‘For Neda’ (HBO), Mentorn in association with Antony Thomas Productions for HBO Documentary Films

A powerful portrait of Neda Agha-Soltan, martyr, and the larger Iranian struggle for freedom, this documentary was filmed on the sly and at great risk in Tehran.

‘12th & Delaware’ (HBO), Loki Films for HBO Documentary Films

A street corner in Ft. Pierce, Fla., where an abortion clinic and a pro-life center face each other, embodies the ongoing clash over reproductive rights in this thoughtful, fair documentary.

‘Elia Kazan: A Letter to Elia’ (PBS), Sikelia Productions, Far Hills Pictures in association with America Masters

Director Martin Scorsese reflects on the nature of art’s influence on artists and how the brilliant but controversial Kazan continues to inspire him.

‘If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise’ (HBO), 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks for HBO Documentary Films

Spike Lee’s team checks up on New Orleans five years after Katrina hit and the levees broke and documents the city’s successes and failures in a video patchwork by turns beautiful, depressing and optimistic.

‘Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children’ (BBC Four), True Vision

Filming undercover with great ingenuity and courage, Xoliswa Sithole and Jezza Newman documented the horrible conditions, especially for the young, in Zimbabwe.

‘William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible’ (PBS), Art21

The multifaceted Kentridge is creativity personified, a one-man seminar, and he gave filmmakers from Art21 a veritable all-access pass to his mind and work process.

‘30 for 30’ (ESPN)

Commissioned for the sports channel’s 30th anniversary, these 30 diverse documentaries about sports in America, well, they shoot, they score.

‘POV: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers’ (PBS), American Documentary, POV, ITVS

A fascinating true-life political thriller, Ellsberg’s remembrance of his historic actions is made even more compelling by the inventive presentation.

Report on a New Generation of Migrant Workers in China (Phoenix InfoNews Channel), Phoenix Satellite Television Co.

The report by Hong Kong’s Phoenix Satellite Television poses hard questions about the ramifications of China’s continuing urban migration.

‘Reality Check: Where Are the Jobs?’ (WTHR-TV, Indianapolis)

The Indianapolis station’s digging revealed the Indiana Economic Development Corporation’s job-creation claims were grossly overstated and that companies given tax-incentive to create employment had actually axed workers by the hundreds.

‘Temple Grandin’ (HBO), Ruby Films, Gerson Saines in association with HBO Films

Claire Danes is remarkable as the autistic animal-expert and author, and the biography is further enriched by visual creativity that lets viewer occasionally glimpse the world as Grandin experiences it.

‘The Lord Is Not On Trial Here Today’ (WILL-TV, Champaign Ill.), Jay Rosenstein Productions

A beautifully researched documentary by an Illinois station, it examines a 1st Amendment case critical to the establishment of separation of church and state in public schools.

‘Who Killed Doc?’ (KSTP-TV, St. Paul)

The St. Paul-Minneapolis station’s investigation of a Minnesota sailor’s ill-explained death in Iraq has the armed forces reexamining everything from shower safety to how families of the fallen are notified.

‘Frontline: The Wounded Platoon’ (PBS), Frontline, Mongoose Pictures

The documentary is a dark, troubling tale of a military health system overwhelmed by psychiatric casualties and of one platoon’s post-traumatic nightmare.

‘The Good Wife’ (CBS), Scott Free Productions, King Size Productions, CBS Productions

In this densely layered dramatic series, the dutiful wife of a disgraced politician resumes her legal career and finds satisfaction, self-worth and moral quandaries of her own.

-- Melissa Maerz