That famous quote from American Football coach Vince Lombardi, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” is usually plastered on gym walls, emblazoned on changing room floors, and referenced by coaches and athletes alike. It’s the modern-day gladiatorial pre-game recital, the rousing speech to the war-readied troops as they prepare for battle. While the likes of Lombardi will have you believe sport is a pointless exercise in the absence of victory, today’s great sporting documentaries often tell another story.
Whether they be about the underdog, the scandal, or the political permutations of sporting outcomes, sport documentaries often serve as a lesson in response to loss, adversity, and the true nature of what winning really means. While we are all suckers for a zero-to-hero, success story, the real triumph is commonly found in the journey behind the victory.
With rising subscription rates, Netflix has had their fair share of criticism recently. However, the streaming platform most definitely compensates with its output of extraordinary sports documentaries in the form of The Last Dance and Sunderland ‘Til I Die. Here are some of Netflix’s best sports documentaries…
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6 Formula 1: Drive To Survive
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5 The Last Dance
Besides the vast fortunes of the Chicago Bulls, perhaps the main take-away was that Michael Jordan took everything personally, or so the saying goes. The Last Dance provides never-seen-before behind-the-scenes footage of the Chicago Bulls, and offers a truly magnificent portrait of a basketball team at the height of their powers, and of an athlete at the peak of his glittering career. The docuseries follows Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippin, Dennis Rodman and company throughout their 97-98 season and their hunt to become the NBA’s greatest. The 10-part documentary was released in the midst of the pandemic in 2020, quickly rising to critical acclaim, becoming a social reference point like its protagonist-turned-antagonist, Jordan.
4 The Dawn Wall
The beauty of sports documentaries is that they possess the ability to bring a sport to an entirely new audience. Engaging a previously untapped demographic is exactly what 2017’s The Dawn Wall achieved, following free-climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson’s attempted ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, California, a 3,000-foot rock face. The Sierra Nevadan mountain had claimed the lives of over 30 seasoned climbers between 1905 and 2018; the nature of the free-climb meant that for Caldwell and Jorgeson any wrong-footing, or slip of the hand would result in almost inevitable death. The minute margin for error makes for excruciating yet truly captivating viewing, and The Dawn Wall is a great installment in the lineage of extreme sports documentaries.
3 Sunderland ‘Til I Die
North-East England, a region built on its industry. Famous for its shipyards, collieries, and at its very epicenter, its football clubs. An area brought to its knees by the hard-nosed conservatism of Thatcher’s government in the 80s, and (more recently) the demise of one of its great institutions in Sunderland Football Club, under the Short and Donald regimes. The story of blind allegiance is all too familiar for the fans of Sunderland. Sunderland ‘Til I Die documents the story of a fallen giant of English football.
Having suffered back-to-back relegations from the Premier League, and Championship respectively, over the course of two seasons, the Black Cats find themselves lying dormant in England’s second (season 1) and third tier (season 2). Over 2-seasons, the documentary follows the teams bid to climb back up the football pyramid and re-establish themselves as a Premier League side. As the title hints, the club is the lifeblood of the community, and Fulwell 73’s detailed exploration offers a deeper insight into its meaning in the people of Sunderland’s lives. It’s simply one of the best Netflix documentaries.
2 14 Peaks
Many have attempted, many have failed, and several have tragically lost their lives while trying, yet in the case of mountaineer Nims Purja, he came, he saw, he conquered. The eye-opening Netflix documentary 14 Peaks follows Nepalese climber Nims, and his team of fearless accomplices who attempt to complete the arduous 14 peak challenge of all 8,000 meter mountains in an unprecedented and seemingly impossible seven months.
The ever-constant threat of danger posed by the perilous mountainous terrain, barbarous elements, and potentially life-ending consequences of making a simple mistake remain so painfully palpable throughout 14 Peaks. The documentary is a great meditation on the power of perseverance, human-resolve, and how an insatiable appetite for challenging oneself in extreme circumstances can serve as a lesson in self-discovery.
1 Icarus
Systemic Russian scandal? Who’d have thought! Away from Putin’s current barbarities in Ukraine, 2017’s Icarus lifts the lid on another Russian impropriety. This time in the form of a state-sponsored doping program, that saw widespread drugs cheating within the Russian Olympic team during the 2012 London Olympics and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Grigory Rodchenkov was no ordinary scientist, he was the head of the Russian national anti-doling laboratory, and under his crafty supervision he oversaw the entire doping program. With unprecedented access, director Bryan Fogel and his team sit down with Rodchenkov and inadvertently uncover the nationwide scandal that was about to rock the sporting and political world. Now under witness protection in the US, whistleblower Rodchenkov was the catalyst for a tidal wave of doping discoveries. At the 90th Academy Awards, Icarus won the award for Best Feature Documentary.
