The incredible stuff about sports documentaries is that the real conclusions of the games continually take a backseat to the stories of the players affected. While the final scores matter, it pales in comparison when put against the players, coaches, and fans encompassed in the result. Naturally, we want the stories and not just the games, victories, and scoreboards. We want to celebrate the underdog and watch in awe as athletes perform at a level millions of people will never reach. In no specific arrangement, here are the best sports documentaries that many people may never have heard of.
1. Hoop Dreams (1994)
- Director: Steve James
- Ratings: Stacker Score – 100, Metascore – 98, IMDb – 8.3
- Runtime: 170 minutes
- Where To Watch: Netflix
Late Pulitzer Prize-winning American film critic Roger Ebert ranked “Hoop Dreams” as the best film of the 1990s. One of the real classics of the sports doc genre, Steve James’s “Hoop Dreams” examines William Gates and Arthur Agee, two Chicago youths aspiring to make it to the NBA. James spent years with Gates and Agee, telling their similar stories of hype, setback, triumph, and survival.
The time the film was shot dates back to an era when teenagers like Gates and Agee didn’t walk around with cameras in their pockets. The duo (Agee and Gates) were just being themselves and were in no way acting as an athlete just “doing it for the Gram and popularity”.
The original plan for the 1994 sports documentary was a 30-minute short film for PBS. Five years and over 250 hours of footage later, the result was an approximately three-hour film that won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival. Neither Gates nor Agee managed to attain a place in the NBA (or even especially close), but the film furnishes a window into the world of amateur basketball and what it’s like to comprehend that basketball is one’s way out of bad situations.
2. Murderball (2005)
- Directors: Henry Alex Rubin, Dana Adam Shapiro
- Rating: Stacker score – 90.6, Metascore – 87, IMDb – 7.7
- Runtime: 88 minutes
- Where To Watch: Netflix
Henry Alex Rubin’s “Murderball” analyzes the full-contact quadriplegic rugby teams as they go to compete in the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens. The sport itself is amazingly violent, and Rubin’s film does not shy away from any trait of the competitor’s lives: we discover the physical and emotional agony of dealing with their injuries, the complication with their sex lives, the interpersonal dilemmas of the team, their competitive dream and the awful events that forever confined them to wheelchairs for the rest of their lives.
It’s a movie that fits because it shows a world we don’t usually see, with all its superiority and its warts—it’s a powerful film and the sport itself is crazy to watch on screen.
Murderball will prompt athletes of all categories to quiz the intensity of their training while imbuing gratitude for the capacity to do things such as walking and running that many people take for granted.
3. Undefeated (2011)
- Director: Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin
- Rating: IMDB Rating – 7.7
- Runtime: 113 minutes
- Where To Watch: Netflix
Having never won a playoff game, the Manassas Tigers and the senior class endeavor to turn over the school’s image as quitters and losers. Perhaps it’s the best football documentary ever filmed. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Undefeated observes the Manassas Tigers and coach Bill Courtney in inner-city Memphis. Courtney is a volunteer coach striving to put a winning team on the field while keeping his players off the streets and out of trouble. He steers the team to their first winning season in years after being a yearly thrashing bag for other football systems in the state.
“Football doesn’t build character. It reveals the character,” Courtney cues his players during one scene, a line that feels like a scene from Friday Night Lights but is transmitted with enthusiasm and eagerness.
Undefeated will inevitably move spectators to tears in more than a few scenes. It’s simple to overlook that Courtney is a business owner in town, working as a coach and mentor out of the compassion of his heart and not for a weekly wage.
4. No No: A Documentary (2014)
- Director: Jeff Radice
- Rating: IMDB – 7.2
- Runtime: 100 minutes
- Where To Watch: Netflix
George Bradley registered the first official no-hitter acknowledged by Major League Baseball back in 1876. Since then, 312 no-hitters have been tossed by big-league pitchers. But probably none are as amazing as the 1970 “no-no” hurled by Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The former All-Star doesn’t recollect much from that performance. He admitted to being under the influence of LSD during the game after a night of partying and getting his start days mixed up.
No No: A Dockumentary reexamines his no-hitter against the San Diego Padres and covers the right-hander’s fruitful career, his outspokenness for Black players’ rights in the Major Leagues, and his obsessions with booze and amphetamines. In the film diaries, Ellis struggles to help other addicts get healthy right up to his passing at age 63 in 2008.
5. I Am Bolt (2016)
- Directors: Benjamin Turner, Gabe Turner
- Ratings: Stacker Score – 74.6, Metascore – 64, IMDb – 7.1
- Runtime: 107 minutes
- Where To Watch: Netflix
A handful of athletes have seized the imagination like Usain Bolt, who is generally considered the fastest man on the planet. “I Am Bolt” cuts back the tiers of this mythical model, illustrating the drawbacks (slight pun intended) of training and the extra moments alone at home. Meetings and questions from family members, trainers, and friends contributed more insight into the eight-time Olympic gold medalist.
6. The Armstrong Lie (2013)
- Director: Alex Gibney
- Rating: Stacker Score – 77.3, Metascore – 67, IMDb – 7.3
- Runtime: 124 minutes
- Where To Watch: Netflix
A lot of articles, films, and books have been written about the former Tour de France champion since he was caught using performance-enhancing drugs. “The Armstrong Lie” explores Armstrong’s life and depicts a man much more unique than the one who advertisers propped up as a symbol of hope through much of the 1990s and early 2000s.
7. Pumping Iron (1977)
- Directors: George Butler, Robert Fiore
- Rating: Stacker Score – 80.7, Metascore – 72, IMDb – 7.4
- Runtime: 86 minutes
- Where To Watch: Netflix
Focusing on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s goal of the Mr. Olympia title, “Pumping Iron” is an illustrative movie about bodybuilding. Lou Ferrigno, who also went on to attain some movie prestige, is featured opposite Schwarzenegger, but it was the prospective Terminator who had the star turn with his honest and entertaining knowledge.
Pumping Iron was without question the film that turned Arnold from niche athlete and D-list actor to one of the most recognizable faces, accents, and pair of biceps on the planet. It focuses on the 1975 Mr. Olympia competition.
8. Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee (1969)
- Director: William Klein
- Rating: Stacker Score – 84.5, Metascore – 77, IMDb – 7.6
- Runtime: 94 minutes
- Where To Watch: Netflix
In 1969, Muhammad Ali was protected from fighting for his declination to be recruited into the Vietnam War. Director William Klein broadcasted “Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee,” a periodically artsy, always illuminating look at the young, boisterous, incredibly attractive heavyweight champ. Klein shot an additional chapter about his 1974 brawl against George Foreman in Zaire, and broadcasted the updated film as “Muhammad Ali, The Greatest.” Klein is well known for his fashion photography for Vogue—and it demonstrates how beautifully the film was shot.
9. The Class of ’92 (2013)
- Directors: Benjamin Turner, Gabe Turner
- Rating: Stacker Score – 82.3, IMDb – 8.0
- Runtime: 99 minutes
- Where To Watch: Netflix
Director Benjamin Turner knew well that if you’re going to concentrate on a documentary on someone, it should be hard to take your eyes off when they are on screen. “The Class of ’92” tells the tale of a young, ultra-gifted group of Manchester United soccer players who rose to the limelight together from 1992 to 1997. Five of those players (Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, and Phil and Gary Neville) are intriguing and extraordinary talents—the sixth, a young David Beckham, brings in a captivating watch to the movie. The story concentrates on the exploits on the pitch but also gets into the relationships between the young stars, which promotes it as a film.
10. Sunderland ‘Til I Die (2018)
- Executive Producers: Leo Pearlman, Ben Turner
- Rating: IMDb – 8.1
- Running Time: 37–42 mins
- Where To Watch: Netflix
After the 2016-2017 season, Sunderland FC was demoted from the Premier League to the Championship, one of the biggest defeats for any top-tier English soccer club. But they would spend the next season fighting against an even worse defeat. A story more about a city than a club, Sunderland pursues one of soccer’s most fervent fanbases. Contemplate this series as the Friday Night Lights of English football.
