No No: A Dockumentary (2014)
In the summer of 1970, Pittsburgh Pirates baseball pitcher Doc Ellis went to visit his buddy in Los Angeles during halftime. Over the course of several days, the guys spent their time consuming hallucinogens and stimulants, drinking alcohol, and listening to Jimi Hendrix records. Until one day Ellis realized that today – in the midst of an acid trip – there were two games waiting for him. He took the field and played a no-hitter, the best game of his career. That’s what the documentary focuses on.
Dare to Dream: The story of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team (2005)
A film about good old fashioned inspiration. Dare to Dream is a film about the winners of the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The teams of the United States and China made it to the finals. If you don’t get goosebumps the moment the national team bus reaches Meadowlands, you should check if you really care about sports.
“Minding the Gap (2018).
Documentary filmmaker Bing Liu has made a film about his friends, twenty-something guys living out their youth in Rockford, Illinois. We don’t want to spoil the viewing experience by revealing the plot, let’s just say that this film begins as a story of young people in love with skateboarding and ends with a sad panorama of domestic violence in a depressed post-industrial city.
“Andre the Giant” (Andre the Giant, 2018)
If you liked the way “The Last Dance” was filmed, chances are you’ll like “Andre the Giant,” too. The film tells the story of wrestling legend Andre, 2’24”, and his life – brilliant in the ring, and full of pain outside of it.
When We Were Kings, 1996
Dozens if not hundreds of documentaries have been made about Muhammad Ali, but none compare to this one. The film concentrates on Rumble in the Jungle — the legendary fight between Ali and George Foreman — and everything that went on around him. If you want to understand what it’s like to be in the same room as Ali, his boundless energy and will to fight, this is the film for you.
(Unforgivable Blackness, 2004.
The story of the rise and fall of Jack Johnson, the first African American boxer to win the world heavyweight boxing title. Any list of sports documentaries would be incomplete without this film.
More Than a Game, 2008
Another film about basketball focuses on the rise to the top of sports Olympus of a young LeBron James and his high school basketball teammates from Akron, Ohio. They broke into the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) league and swiftly worked their way to the top of youth basketball in America.
Jordan Rides the Bus, 2010
In late 1993 the great Michael Jordan announces that he is disillusioned with basketball and is quitting the sport, a decision that, according to the athlete, was pushed to him by the death of his father. Jordan Rides the Bus is a film about how the famed basketball player tried to make a career in baseball.
