10. The Armstrong Lie (Alex Gibney, 2013)
Sport: Cycling
Team / Country: US Postal Service
Focus on: Lance Armstrong
Armstrong is a bastard because he fucking cheated. An interesting insight into Armstrong’s ‘fake’ but sometimes cleverly handled professional cycling career.
9. The Opposition (Ezra Edelman / Jeff Plunkett, 2014)
Sport: Soccer
Team / Country: Chile
During Pinochet’s military coup, Santiago’s National Stadium was being used as a concentration camp where people got tortured, raped and killed. In 1974, Chile hosted the World Cup at this place…
8. Hillsborough (Daniel Gordon, 2014)
Sport: Soccer
Team / Country: Liverpool
Another tragedy in a stadium. Due to organizational failure, the worst happened in 1989. See people getting squashed to death at a Liverpool game. Quite horrible really, only to make it even more scandalous when you see the police trying to cover up everything by blaming this awful event on the supporters themselves.
7. Catching Hell (Alex Gibney, 2011)
Sport: Baseball
Team / Country: Chicago Cubs
Focus on: Steve Bartman (Cubs supporter)
Few supporters are so lucky to bring home a baseball of a match with their favorite team. In 2003, this Bartman was not so lucky. He catched one he wasn’t supposed to. This is the story of how an unknown guy suddenly could become the most hated person of Chicago.
6. June 17th, 1994 (Brett Morgen, 2010)
Sport: American football, Golf, Soccer, Ice hockey, Basketball
Team / Country: USA
Focus on: O.J. Simpson
Like you probably have read in my list of the best crime documentaries of the 2010s, this is an interesting summing-up of sports facts, happening on the 17th of June in 1994. Of which the most important being the flight of American hero O. J. Simpson after killing his wife and boyfriend. Millions watched that police chase on their television. A giant leap for ‘Reality TV’.
5. Once Brothers (Michael Tolajian, 2010)
Sport: Basketball
Team / Country: Yugoslavia, USA
Focus on: Vlade Divac (Serbia) & Dražen Petrovi? (Croatia)
How politics can have an influence on sports. Once close, the Yugoslav wars in the nineties broke the friendship between the great Petrovi? and Divac, the first European basketball players to become stars in the States.
4. Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks (Dan Klores, 2010)
Sport: Basketball
Team / Country: Indiana Pacers vs New York Knicks
Focus on: Reggie Miller (vs Spike Lee)
Known for his trash talk and provoking gestures but even more for his great basketball in the nineties, Reggie Miller made a great winning team out of the Indiana Pacers. He is too cool for Spike Lee though. As a Knicks fan and supporter, we get to see the filmmaker’s effect on the competitiveness of Reggie. Really funny actually.
3. Senna (Asif Kapadia, 2010)
Sport: Formula 1
Team / Country: McLaren Honda, Williams Renault
Focus on: Ayrton Senna
Really great documentary about hero Senna, his life, his winning of three world championships, his rivalry with Alain Prost in the eighties and his fatal death. Even if you don’t know anything about Formula 1, you will certainly like it. I did.
2. The Class of ’92 (Gabe Turner / Benjamin Turner, 2013)
Sport: Soccer
Team / Country: Manchester United
You know David Beckham, right? That retired big shot that’s married to Victoria Beckham, a.k.a. Posh Spice. Believe it or not, once, he was just an ordinary lad from London who got signed to join the Manchester United youth team. Together with a bunch of other ordinary lads, they call them ‘the class of ’92’. Playing fabulous football, they got on top of the world. In the season of 98/99, they won the Premier League, the FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League. Through successful years, they did not lose themselves to their egos. Today, they figure out to be a group of extremely likable guys, telling us with great feeling about their incredible life story. Ryan Giggs is extremely cool, the Nevilles very charming, Scholes a little strange but great as well and even Beckham seems to be a very nice guy.
Manchester in the nineties was a wonderful city, not only in terms of soccer, culture was booming as well. The Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, New Order, Inspiral Carpets, The Charlatans, Oasis, they are only a couple of the great bands coming out of 90s Manchester. The makers of this documentary didn’t neglect that. Next to a couple of great songs, Mani of the Stone Roses and Danny Boyle, director of Trainspotting (1996) give their commentary and praise in this immensely enjoyable watch.
1. Bones Brigade: An Autobiography (Stacy Peralta, 2012)
Sport: Skateboarding
Team / Country: Bones Brigade
“Hey ho, let’s go!” Did you ever grind on a bar whereafter you did a kick-flip into manual to continue your combo and all that to the sounds of the Ramones? If you do not know what I am talking about, just skip to number two on the list. I can be biased by nostalgia of playing Tony Hawk’s Pro skater too many times but I really loved this documentary. It follows Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen and friends through their skating adventures in the eighties and nineties, popular culture à volonté. They had an enormous influence on youth culture, fashion, music, etc. and seemed to have made skateboarding one of the most popular sports in the world.
