The rise of sports documentaries is reflected in how they have been treated by the Academy Awards. In the first 52 years after the Documentary (Feature) category was created in 1944, only two sports or sport-adjacent films took home the golden statue, but in the past 25 years there have been seven winners. Here are all nine:
The Horse with the Flying Tail (1960)
This is a Disney-produced retelling of the life and career of the show horse Nautical. The film portrays him as a difficult ranch horse that becomes a top performer on the U.S. Equestrian Team. Nautical won awards throughout the late 1950s, including team gold at the 1959 Pan American Games, and in 2013 was inducted into the Show Jumping Hall of Fame.
Watch: Available for rent
The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975)
Japanese mountain climber Yuichiro Miura used a parachute to slow his death-defying ski descent from Everest’s summit, a feat captured by acclaimed Canadian filmmaker F.R. “Budge” Crawley. The expedition cost six team members their lives, and Miura himself just narrowly survived the plummet. Miura has twice since set the record as the oldest person to climb Everest, most recently reaching the summit in 2013 at 80 years old.
Watch: Sling TV
When We Were Kings (1996)
The 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” heavyweight title bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman is arguably the greatest sports event in history, and filmmaker Leon Gast spent more than two decades producing the definitive tale of the tape. The film not only captures the fanfare and the fight, but it also includes interviews with luminaries like music stars James Brown and B.B. King and writers George Plimpton and Norman Mailer.
Watch: Hulu, Amazon Prime Video
One Day in September (1999)
Few docs are as intense as this investigation of the 1972 Munich Olympics terror attack that left 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team dead. Director Kevin Macdonald’s deeply researched film, which includes interviews with members of the slain athletes’ families as well as the lone living terrorist, then hiding in Africa, ultimately points a spotlight on the German officials for their bungled rescue efforts and allegedly staged plane hijacking that allowed the surviving terrorists to escape.
Watch: Vudu
Man on Wire (2008)
A high-wire walk is not a sport, but in director James Marsh’s retelling of Philippe Petit’s illegal dance between New York City’s Twin Towers in 1974, we see many of the traits often associated with elite competition: high stakes, detailed preparation, extreme physical and mental strength, overcoming long odds and a dramatic conclusion. The Frenchman spent 45 minutes performing before he was arrested, though charges were later dropped in exchange for a free performance in Central Park.
Watch: Available for rent
Undefeated (2011)
This South By Southwest debut chronicles the 2009 season of the Manassas Tigers, an inner-city Memphis high school football team. Directed by Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, and executive produced by Sean “Diddy” Combs, “Undefeated” gives viewers an inside look at the lives of some of the underfunded team’s players and the efforts of its volunteer head coach as they vie to win the first playoff game in their school’s 110-year history.
Watch: Netflix
O.J.: Made in America (2016)
In the flood of films about O.J. Simpson, there may not be a more comprehensive examination of the cultural backdrop against which Simpson gained both fame as a football player and infamy as a murder suspect. Across nearly eight hours of runtime, director Ezra Edelman tracks Simpson from his college days at USC through later life, along the way investigating the roles that race, wealth and celebrity played in his arrest, trial and post-verdict life. The five-part doc is the crown jewel of ESPN’s “30 for 30” library and the longest film to ever win an Oscar (the Academy later barred multipart series from eligibility).
Watch: ESPN+
Icarus (2017)
Amateur cyclist Bryan Fogel’s initial plan was to document the effects of performance-enhancing drugs and demonstrate cycling’s insufficient testing standards. Instead, Fogel wound up in the midst of a massive international scandal when his doping adviser, Russian anti-doping lab head Grigory Rodchenkov, revealed Russia’s expansive state-sponsored athlete doping program. Fearing for his life, Rodchenkov fled stateside and turned whistleblower, and a World Anti-Doping Agency investigation eventually led to dozens of athletes being sanctioned and Russia being suspended from the 2018 Olympics.
Watch: Netflix
Free Solo (2018)
Directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi go behind the scenes of what is maybe history’s single most incredible athletic achievement: Alex Honnold’s free solo climb of Yosemite’s El Capitan. The heart-stopping film examines not just the once-unthinkable feat, but also the emotional toll on Honnold’s loved ones and the challenge of documenting someone climbing one of the world’s biggest walls without a rope.
Watch: Hulu, Disney+
