In 2000, Stekler and Daniel McCabe received the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for the three-hour documentary "George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire." Based on Dan Carter's Wallace biography, The Politics of Rage, about the four-time candidate for the presidency and Alabama governor for nearly two decades, it aired as a two night American Experience special. The film was called “stunning and probing,” “stunning and probing,”and “boisterous” by The New York Times, “a full-blown Shakespearean saga... riveting” by the Houston Chronicle, “a brilliant achievement" by the Memphis Commercial Appeal, “a remarkable documentary” by the National Journal, “mesmerizing” by the Boston Globe, and a “gripping documentary, fluent, explosive… swift-paced and seamless” by the Toronto Star. Newsday said it “sets the television on fire,” while the Wall Street Journal wrote that the film was a “documentary filled with enough drama and dark comedy, wry twists of fate and fortune, corruption of the spirit and of the body politic, sin and salvation to make fans of ‘The Sopranos’ forget for a while.” And the Texas Observer wrote that the film was “an epic political biography... makes most fictional films seem thin and lifeless by comparison.” The film won an Emmy and was included as one of the films in the 2001 Academy Awards Oscar Night “Tribute to Documentaries."