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When it comes to learning about the history of certain sports, you won’t find a more immersive experience than watching some of the best sports documentaries out there. While there are too many to count, it’s still worth sorting through which ones are worth your time.
There are plenty of sports documentaries related to your favorite sport of interest, although only several fully capture the essence of the different talented players and teams that once existed. Of course, any list like this is subjective and no doubt people will argue for their own favorites. So for what it’s worth, we’ll share our choices for the top 25 sports documentaries of all time, counting down from #25 to #1, and you can decide how good a job we’ve done!
Rotten Tomatoes gives a good indicator as to how the critics felt about a particular documentary feature or series, so we have added the most recent score here. We also include the IMDb score and which streaming service you can watch on.
SPRINT is a track-based documentary series covering the mindsets and psyches of elite Olympians who train their entire lives to be the fastest. Get an exclusive look behind the scenes at some of the most famed track runners and what they must go through to attain glory. The stakes are high and the mental toughness required is unlike any other sport. With 10 episodes already, SPRINT shows viewers not just the upsides to being good at what you do, but the harsh struggles as well. This series is less about the physical training regimens of athletes, and more about the physics of each professional runner as they continue their conquest to become the fastest person on the planet.
Follow the passion and dream of hockey players in the NHL in their attempt to win the Stanley Cup. This six-episode series follows the best NHL stars and team rivalries, giving you a glimpse of how tough it is to be a top hockey player. If you want to get the inside scoop on the hardworking lives of NHL athletes in their pursuit to win one of the hardest-to-acquire trophies of all time, Faceoff: Inside the NHL is one of the only hockey documentaries that gives you this experience.
This newer 2023 docuseries is a crossover event with the Formula 1: Drive to Survive broadcast (part of The Netflix Cup). In this golf series, you’ll get a peek into the personal and professional lives of some of your favorite PGA golfers, including Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Rory Mcllroy, and more! Want to experience the daily struggles and accomplishments of a professional golfer in the PGA? Full Swing might be for you!
Is playing video arcade classic ‘Donkey Kong’ a sport? For the purposes of this list: Yes! Besides, this documentary is too much fun to leave out of our top 25. King of Kong follows the intense rivalry between two contrasting video-gamers – the quiet family man versus the flamboyant showman. Which will lay claim to the record score? You will just have to watch to find out. The subject matter might seem a little niche, but start watching this entertaining doc and you will be hooked after five minutes.
This four-part documentary series covers the never-before-seen inside life of David Beckham, one of the most iconic soccer stars on the planet. Follow the English soccer legend head first on his 30-year journey through professional soccer and experience his life with family, friends, teammates, and more. From humble beginnings to global football stardom, Beckham will have you glued to your seat to experience the rollercoaster career he had for the England national team and his club teams including Manchester United, Real Madrid and LA Galaxy. His was a glittering career with many more highs than lows, and this doc does a great job of giving the viewers an insight into the real David Beckham.
Another niche entry into our list, as this award-winning documentary takes us back to the birth of skateboarding in the 1970s, focusing on the maverick Zephyr Skateboard Team from LA. The fact that director Stacy Peralta was a member of this squad lends an insight that would not otherwise have been possible. The story of the raw and street-smart skaters of the time is wonderfully captured here, as is the world in which they grew up.
Riding Giants is an exhilarating documentary that explores the history and evolution of big-wave surfing, celebrating the pioneers who pushed the boundaries of what’s possible on the ocean and giving you a sense of the sheer scale of those monster waves. Coincidentally this movie is also directed by Stacy Peralta – the man behind Dogtown and Z-Boys – and here, his film combines breathtaking surf footage, engaging interviews, and a deep reverence for the sport’s culture. From the early days of riding massive waves at Waimea Bay to the cutting-edge feats at Mavericks and Teahupo’o, Riding Giants captures the thrill, danger, and beauty of big-wave surfing.
We go back to the ocean again for The Deepest Breath, where the subject matter this time is competitive freediving. This is one of the most dangerous sports in the world, as divers plunge to the depths without oxygen, and this film by Laura McGann captures the risks and rewards of this challenging sport. We follow the journeys of Italian champion diver Alessia Zecchini and her Irish safety diver, Stephen Keenan, as they push the limits of what is possible in the world of freediving.
Undefeated tells the story of the underdog Manassas High School football team in Memphis, Tennessee, as they try to overcome adversity on and off the field. The film by Daniel Lindsay and TJ Martin focuses on volunteer coach Bill Courtney, who inspires his struggling young team by a combination of tough love and fatherly care. This is one of those documentaries that gives you that warm glow as the final credits roll.
Speaking of heart-warming sports docs, Next Goal Wins is another which falls into that category. The American Samoa soccer team have just suffered a humiliating 31-0 loss to Australia, and turn to fish-out-of-water German coach Thomas Rongen for a solution. Filled with heart and humor, this is a thoroughly entertaining watch – but you can probably pass on the much inferior dramatized version of this story from 2023 which has the same name!
Not such a heartwarming tale here, but arguably a more important topic in terms of global sport. Icarus takes us on a journey with filmmaker Bryan Fogel as his attempt to explore the effects of doping in sports turns into an investigation into state-sponsored doping in Russia. With its thrilling twists, compelling interviews, and startling revelations, Icarus exposes the dark side of international competition while raising critical questions about ethics, power, and the pursuit of victory.
Two climbers – Joe Simpson and Simon Yates – attempted to climb the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes, and this is the incredible story of what happened to them there. Directed by Kevin Macdonald, the film combines gripping interviews with dramatic reenactments to vividly depict the duo’s perilous journey. With its stunning cinematography and raw emotional power, Touching the Void is an intense exploration of human resilience, the will to survive, and the unbreakable spirit of adventure. This is a visceral, edge-of-your-seat experience that stays with you long after the credits roll.
After the white-knuckle ride of Into the Void, here’s a laughter-filled doc about the independent Portland Mavericks baseball team. The team was founded by Bing Russell, and his movie-star son Kurt – who played for the team – is one of the main interviewees here. This is the story of a bunch of misfits taking on Big Baseball and the traditional corporate structures, and there’s no doubt who you’ll be rooting for by the end of this film.
Netflix is home to some fantastic documentary series’, and Last Chance U deserves to rank up there with the best of them. Each season of the documentary follows a Junior College Football (and later Basketball) program, as players who have come off the rails in one way or another try to earn a spot on a Division I college squad. The football seasons are a lot better than the basketball ones, and some of the coaching is mind-boggling in the extreme, making this a hugely watchable show.
The director of Last Chance U, Greg Whitely, also helms Cheer, the story of the Navarro College cheerleading team from Corsicana, Texas. While cheerleading may rank low on the list of sports consumed by your average fan, this turned out to be a truly engrossing view of a sport often lazily derided as being lightweight. While a third season seems unlikely to materialize, fans can check out America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders by the same director.
Now on season four (and with more to come), Welcome to Wrexham is one of the most popular soccer documentaries you can find that isn’t covering a top-division team. With celebrities Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buying their first professional soccer team, Welcome to Wrexham had no trouble reaching the hearts of fans from all over during its debut in 2022. If you’re into the day-to-day life of two new owners learning the sport and trying to turn their team into a major success, Welcome to Wrexham may just be the perfect sports documentary for you to watch.
The Untold series on Netflix has earned rave reviews for its in-depth exploration of lesser-known stories in sports, covering a wide range of topics. Season 4 featured episodes such as “The Murder of Air McNair,” “Sign Stealer,” and “Hope Solo vs. U.S. Soccer”, with more episodes expected in the years to come. Some of the most popular episodes to date have covered topics like the infamous brawl between fans and players during a Pacers v Pistons NBA game, and the catfishing of college star football player of Manti Te’o.
In this Netflix-produced documentary series, you’ll get a deep dive into the behind-the-scenes world of F1 drivers of the Formula One World Championship. With a total of 6 seasons already in the bag, this docudrama may as well be one of the top racing documentaries out there. While the show has plenty of rivalries and racing drama, some of which was criticized by famed drivers such as Max Verstappen, the series aims to encourage onlookers to watch the real sport and has done wonders for growing the F1 audience in the States.
Tune into the life of one of the most legendary soccer players of all time: the late great Diego Maradona. Find out the full story behind the famed Argentina national team legend and his career for S.S.C Napoli in the 1980s. Directed by Asif Kapadia, the documentary has cameos from Maradona himself, Dalma Maradona and Brazilian soccer legend Pele. Available on HBO MAX and Prime video channels, this documentary dissects the heartfelt journey of over 500+ hours of never-before-seen footage of one of the most influential soccer players of all time.
When We Were Kings is the Oscar-winning documentary which tells the story of the legendary ‘Rumble in the Jungle’; the heavyweight fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. The fight took place in the unusual location of Zaire in 1974, which the showman Ali adapted to far more readily than his taciturn opponent. This documentary brings the story to life through archive footage and interviews, and helps the modern-day viewer to understand how Ali shone so bright in his heyday.
Next up, is a thrilling free-climb documentary that throws you right into the environment of free climber Alex Honnold as he attempts his lifelong dream of climbing the 3,000 ft El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. The kicker… he uses no ropes to support his climb. Of course, throughout this 2018 documentary, his success in the climb is apparent, although not without putting you right onto the edge of your seat. If you like the sound of an extreme athletic heart-pounding adventure that is nothing less than true, Free Solo is the climb for you.
Hoop Dreams is a groundbreaking documentary that set the standard for others to follow. The cameras follow two teenager basketball players with dreams of making it to the NBA. As the years pass we see the challenges that confront them in their lives and the pressures on them to succeed and find a way out of poverty in inner-city Chicago. After all this time, this is one sports doc that still packs a punch.
Some people will be familiar with director Asif Kapadia’s Oscar winning ‘Amy’ documentary about singer Amy Winehouse, or the Maradona doc mentioned above in this list. Senna was his first, and arguably best, documentary built around a famous person. This film uses archive footage and interviews to tell the story of Senna’s meteoric rise, his fierce rivalry with Alain Prost, and his tragic and untimely death on the track. F1 fans who only came to the sport via Drive to Survive need to check out this celebration of a motor-racing icon.
Another Oscar winner on our list, O.J.: Made in America traces Simpson’s journey from a celebrated football star and cultural icon to his infamous 1995 trial for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. The film takes almost 8 hours over 5 hours to tell the story, and like many of the best sports docs it is about much more than sport. Besides telling the story of the rise of one of the country’s greatest sportsmen, it also covers the trial that stopped a nation in its tracks, while offering a broader commentary on American society at the time as a whole. If that makes it sound ‘worthy but dull’ then nothing could be further from the truth, as this is a truly bingeable series.
Our selection for the best sports documentary of all time, The Last Dance covers the inspiring life of Michael Jordan and some of the tragic events that happened to his family. By the mid-1990s, Jordan was a Chicago Bulls legend, all of which is captured in this meaningful heartfelt documentary covering one of the best basketball players to ever touch a ball and the final season of that special Bulls dynasty. Available on Netflix since 2020, The Last Dance has 10 separate episodes that detail the full life of Michael Jordan and the Bulls’ success in conquering the NBA.
Finally, let’s pay tribute to some excellent sports docs which didn’t quite make our top 25.
Ross has been writing about sports for over a decade, spcecializing in the NFL, soccer and boxing. His written work has appeared on a number of online publications over that time.