diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 7d8724be..806397f4 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -13,10 +13,10 @@ RUN apt-get update \
 
 COPY requirements.txt .
 RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
+ENV NLTK_DATA=/app/nltk_data
 
 # Download standard NLTK data, to prevent unstructured from downloading packages at runtime
-RUN python -m nltk.downloader -d /app/nltk_data punkt_tab averaged_perceptron_tagger averaged_perceptron_tagger_eng
-ENV NLTK_DATA=/app/nltk_data
+RUN python -m nltk.downloader --exit-on-error -d /app/nltk_data punkt_tab averaged_perceptron_tagger averaged_perceptron_tagger_eng
 
 # Disable Unstructured analytics
 ENV SCARF_NO_ANALYTICS=true
diff --git a/Dockerfile.lite b/Dockerfile.lite
index e39e8431..ac42d32e 100644
--- a/Dockerfile.lite
+++ b/Dockerfile.lite
@@ -13,10 +13,10 @@ RUN apt-get update \
 
 COPY requirements.lite.txt .
 RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.lite.txt
+ENV NLTK_DATA=/app/nltk_data
 
 # Download standard NLTK data, to prevent unstructured from downloading packages at runtime
-RUN python -m nltk.downloader -d /app/nltk_data punkt_tab averaged_perceptron_tagger averaged_perceptron_tagger_eng
-ENV NLTK_DATA=/app/nltk_data
+RUN python -m nltk.downloader --exit-on-error -d /app/nltk_data punkt_tab averaged_perceptron_tagger averaged_perceptron_tagger_eng
 
 # Disable Unstructured analytics
 ENV SCARF_NO_ANALYTICS=true