The Best Sports Documentaries of All Time

Since the 1897 flick The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight documented an entire boxing match for Victorian audiences to watch, sports docs have definitely come a long way. While the entire field owes a huge debt of gratitude to landmarks such as The Endless Summer, it was the father/son team of Ed and Steve Sabol that really elevated the genre. Their NFL Films, rich with grand paradigmatic music and the thunderous tones of announcer John Facenda, brought the sports documentary from bruising gridiron battlefield to a kind of fine art form, and no doubt had much to do with football’s ensuing explosion in popularity. With the advent of ESPN’s 30 For 30 series, and even legitimate sports news programs like HBO Real Sports and 60 Minutes Sports, the very nature of sports and athletes as subject for serious examination, especially as documentary fodder, is thriving. That is not to say that there were not memorable documentaries prior to 30 For 30—there were, and many are included here—but the level of the form has been undeniably elevated, and the bar raised, making it a golden age for both sports fans and non-sports fans alike. And now, with the monumental, near 8-hour O.J.: Made in America capturing last year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary, it’s official: The sports documentary has grown up.

As with all great films, the top sports documentaries both echo and comment on the social issues surrounding a sport, how the times affect the sport, and how the sport affects the times. While it once was pretty easy to narrow down the best 25 in the genre, the task has become (thanks to the aforementioned) increasingly difficult. The following is a quarter-century’s worth of the best sports documentaries of all time.

The Fab Five (2011)

Director: Jason Hehir

The Fab Five tells the story of five freshman that did the unthinkable. Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson became the first freshman starting five to make it to the NCAA National Championship game. With bald heads, black socks, and baggy shorts the Fab Five played with attitude and their cultural impact can still be felt 'til this very day.

The U (2009)

Director: Billy Corben

The Miami Hurricanes started this gangsta shit. The U documents the Miami college football teams that won a bunch of national titles between 1983 and 1991. Director Billy Corben talks to head coaches Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, and Dennis Erickson as they try to explain their approach to winning and how their recruiting techniques changed college football forever.

Undefeated (2011)

Director: Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin

The winner of last year's Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, is proof that resonant characters and honest emotions can trump familiarity—even more so if those characters are real-life people.

Directed with non-intrusive, observational clarity by first-time documentarians Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin, Undefeated follows the Manassas Tigers, a high school football team in Memphis, TN, coached by a great man named Bill Courtney. Over the course of one particularly dramatic season, the Tigers achieve excellence both on the gridiron and off, despite many negative forces.

The Endless Summer (1966)

Director: Bruce Brown

Not only is this the definitive surf movie, but it also changed the doc game by eschewing the the formal, straightforward style in favor of something more casual and personal. Yup, this movie is most def wavy—hold ya head Max.

I Hate Christian Laettner (2015)

Director: Rory Karpf

Unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Blue Devils fan, you do—or have—at one time hated Christian Laettner, the Duke basketball legend whose career was capped by an impossible dream shot, most certainly the most dramatic in NCAA Tournament history (even Michael Jordan will cop to that). Handsome, cocky, white, playing for privileged Duke and Coach K, stomping on the chest of a downed opponent, all may be reasons you can’t stand him, but the truth is very different from reality, and some of your perceptions about Laettner—in fact most of them—may prove very wrong. Hardly a product of privilege, playing in the era before the one-and-done, the four-time All American, 6’11” Laettner had arguably the greatest college career of all time (Bill Walton and Kareem notwithstanding) and it is no accident he remains Coach K’s favorite player he ever coached. He may not become your favorite player but you will see him and your own feelings toward him in a new light.

9 Innings to Ground Zero (2004)

Director: Ousie Shapiro

Post-9/11, in the city which lost over 3,000 of its citizens, a little miracle was happening in its most northern borough, the Bronx. The often reviled, formerly mighty New York Yankees were on a highly improbable ride into the postseason. People who were never Yankee fans before (or in fact were likely Yankee haters) found themselves suddenly swept up into the emotional tide. In the stands alongside Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a longtime Bombers fan, were relatives of those lost in the Towers. The ride was never smooth; the Yankees were saved on two consecutive nights by walk-off home runs by third baseman Scott Brosius off the same pitcher. Unstoppable closer Mariano Rivera carried a lead into the ninth inning, a lead he couldn’t hold, a series victory the Yankees couldn’t win, but achieved a victory far greater than they ever could have imagined: returning hope and a bit of normalcy to a city and country that desperately needed it.

Murderball (2005)

Director(s): Henry Alex Rubin, Dana Adam Shapiro

Murderball follows quadriplegics on the U.S. national wheelchair rugby team as it prepares for the 2004 Paralympic Games. The filmmakers earned a Oscar nomination by wisely depicting the players as legit athletes rather than victims as they face extraordinary struggles. Need a reason to get up, get out, and do something? Watch this movie.

Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos (2006)

Director(s): Paul Crowder, John Dower

For a short time in the 1970s, New York and the nation at large went soccer crazy— in particular, Cosmos crazy. Filled with a lineup of international superstars, from Italian Giorgio Chinaglia, West German Franz Beckenbauer, mustached, Jew-fro’ wearing goalie Shep Messing, to the greatest player in the world, Brazilian legend Pelé, the North Atlantic Soccer League team was like a real version of the movie Victory (which featured Pelé as well). New York was a practically bankrupt city, filled with blackouts, garbage-strewn streets, and graffiti-filled subways, but it was also a sports fan’s paradise, filled with bold play, wild personalities, booze, women, and the craziness of the ‘70s. The Cosmos remained the league’s strongest franchise for over a decade, and did much to precipitate the growth of soccer in the country.

Catching Hell (2011)

Director: Alex Gibney

Alex Gibney, no stranger to the darker side of the human condition, from the bloodsuckers of Enron to former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, shows us one of the uglier sides of fandom—in this case, the Chicago Cubs. Perennial losers, noticeably absent from the World Series winners circle for nearly a century, the 2003 team was one win away from a series berth when a twist of fate altered that reality in the form of fan Steve Bartman, who unintentionally interfered with a ball that practically landed in his lap. The Cubs would go on to lose the game and blow the next game, and rather than rightly blaming their own team they would unfairly and cruelly scapegoat the unsuspecting Bartman, essentially ruining the guy’s life. It puts sports teams and our attachment to them into perspective. It took a World Series win for the Cubs to give Bartman have his life back.

The Two Escobars (2010)

Director(s): Jeff and Michael Zimbalist

The Zimbalist brothers present a fast and furious film that captures the heart and soul of Colombia. During a time of unrest in the region, all the Colombian people had was their national soccer team. It just so happened that they were funded by cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. Their best player, Andres Escobar, made a mistake during the 1994 World Cup that turned out to be fatal. After committing an "own goal" in a game against the US, Andres was murdered on the streets of his own country.

Survive and Advance (2013)

Director: Jonathan Hock

Anyone who saw Lorenzo Charles “catch” Dereck Whittenburg’s “pass” shot in the final seconds of the 1983 NCAA championship game and score the winning basket over one of the most dominant teams to ever hit the college hardboard, the Phi Slama Jama Cougars, won’t forget that or the image of Wolfpack coach Jim Valvano running around the arena, as if looking for someone to hug, as stunned and elated as anyone watching, ending one of the most improbable runs in tournament history. Survive and Advance takes viewers through Valvano’s tenure at the school, a New York transplant making his way into very unfriendly territory. Valvano would subsequently be dealt a tragic hand, which he would face with true courage and class. The reunion of the team is marred not only by the loss of Jimmy V, but also of game hero Charles, killed in a bus crash at the same age as his coach, whom he is buried only feet away from. It is a sobering but life-affirming look at a team and at friendship.

Touching The Void (2001)

Director(s): Kevin MacDonald

Synopsis: Two mountain climbers struggle to survive after a disastrous attempt to scale the Siula Grande.

Think documentaries are boring? Then check out this flick. This true account of survival against all odds as two mountain climbers struggling to survive after a disastrous attempt to scale the Siula Grande, is more thrilling and suspenseful than most of what Hollywood has to offer. Yeah, it's about two dudes and a mountain, but trust us, this might be the realest shit you ever seen.

Beyond the Mat (1999)

Director: Barry Blaustein

While most of us loved pro wrestling during at least one point in our lives, we never knew how much went on behind the scenes to provide entertainment. This doc is so raw and real that Vince McMahon himself refused to promote the film when it was released. The moves might be fake but the pain, sacrifice, and betrayal is all too real. Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler is only half the story...

Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)

No Crossover (2010)

Director: Steve James

Steve James wrote and directed what many consider to be not only one of the greatest sports documentaries, but great documentaries period with Hoop Dreams (see #2). With No Crossover, James gives us another basketball story, taking on a “fucked up situation”: the story of Allen Iverson, whose stellar career almost never happened. AI, a prep star from the director’s own hometown, got into a fracas—one between his black friends and a group of white kids—at a bowling alley, which nearly landed him a prison term. Sentenced to 15 months, the film covers the trial, conviction, and pardon but cannot help but trod on far more important issues of race and the fragility of community.

Freedom’s Fury (2006)

Director(s): Colin Gray, Megan Raney​

Less than a month after the Soviet Union crushed the 1956 Hungarian people’s revolt, teams from Hungary and the USSR would face each other in a semifinal Olympic men's water polo knockout match, in a pool at the Melbourne Olympic Center. Facing one’s oppressors, in a bout that represented national pride and potential retribution, the subsequent contest was a vicious one that left both emotional and physical scars and came to be known as the “Blood in the Water” match. With production contribution by Quentin Tarantino, the doc not only shows us the events leading up to the conflagration, but also a very uncomfortable reunion between both sides 50 years post blood.

One Day in September (1999)

Director: Kevin Macdonald

September of 1972 marks the exact time when sports and news became one entity, as ABC anchor Jim McKay became the voice of the coverage of the kidnapping and subsequent murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. These were supposed to be the Olympic Games that showed off a new Germany (though half of it was still controlled by the Communist Eastern Bloc), but as the documentary, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2000 (itself embroiled in controversy) showed, old habits die hard.

Straight Outta L.A. (2010)

Director: Ice Cube

If you ever saw the Raiders play at the L.A. Coliseum, you’d know to never wear an opposing team’s jersey to the game. This writer wore a Jets jersey to the 1983 AFC Championship Game there and barely got out alive—thankfully a well-timed Lance Mehl interception saved the Jets’ hopes and stunned Raider Nation just long enough for me to get my ass out of there. Straight Outta L.A., a killer documentary directed by L.A.’s own Ice Cube, tells of this time in history when the Oakland Raiders were transplanted to South California, the impact the move had on the city and the rise of gangsta rap, and the interwoven connection between them, both embodied and strengthened through Cube’s group N.W.A. It’s a fascinating symbiosis between a sports team and the population it serves.

The Best That Never Was (2010)

Director:Jonathan Hock

Pumping Iron (1977)

Director(s): Robert Fiore, George Butler

A seminal behind-the-scenes doc that really introduced Austrian-expatriate bodybuilding champion Arnold Schwarzenegger to the world. (To be fair, he had co-starred with Arnold Stang in the never-seen Hercules in New York, though his voice was dubbed!) The film overly inflates—pumps up, perhaps?—a rivalry between the Austrian Oak and 6’7” American Lou Ferrigno as they compete for the title of Mr. Olympia, which Arnold would go on to win a record seven times on his way to even bigger things, like the most improbable movie superstardom, California governorship, and now trying to save the world. Though it focuses on other bodybuilders and the world of lifting weights, the star is Schwarzenegger, who fuels the film and the screen with an undeniable charisma, charm, and ambition.

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004)

Director: Ken Burns

Documentary legend Ken Burns (see: No. 3: Baseball) takes on the story of Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion of the world (though some may lay that claim to Tom Molineaux, a former slave who fought for the title a century earlier). Like all great docs, it is not merely a biography of a powerful figure, it is also a reflection on the deep-seated racism of post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow America, whose societal mores Johnson not only resisted but openly flouted—marrying three times, all to white women, never shrinking from view, continuing to fight into his 60s, and voicing open resistance to social inequality. A top-notch cast, including Samuel L. Jackson voicing Johnson and Keith David providing voice over (anyone who hears David’s sonorous baritone will recognize and appreciate it right away), this doc rightly won itself, Burns, and David much deserved Emmys.

When We Were Kings (1996)

Director: Leon Gast

Through awesome footage and interviews (and some incredible musical performances), this Academy Award-winning doc perfectly captures the emotions, significance, and hoopla of one of the most memorable boxing matches of all time, when underdog Muhammad Ali took on George Foreman during the famous "Rumble in the Jungle." Sidebar: Before he was pitching burger grills, George Foreman was one scary muthafucka...

Baseball: A film by Ken Burns (1994)

Director: Ken Burns

Ken Burns makes documentaries about America. Baseball—some say it’s too slow, too long, passe, full of privileged, overpaid prima donnas—has always been firmly interwoven into the American fabric. Burns treats it as it is, and how it remains: our national pastime. This may not be the World Series of sports docs but it is the definitive American series.

Hoop Dreams (1994)

O.J.: Made in America (2016)

Director: Ezra Edelman

ESPN’s sterling, comprehensive, intense, Academy Award–winning documentary (can you say 7 hours and 43 minutes of documentary?) chronicles the rise, fall, and even further fall of football legend O.J. Simpson. Directed by Ezra Edelman, it is everything one could hope it to be and more, actually making the (arguably) most famous American murder trial, and one of the most famous figures in American history, timely and compelling, frustrating and stunning yet again.