Four wild sports documentaries to watch ahead of Netflix’s ‘Untold’
Netflix‘s Untold has made a name for itself by returning to sporting stories that were supposedly finished with… All that, only to find that the version everyone remembers was never the whole of it. The result is rarely tidy, and that is basically the point.
Since releasing in 2021, the series has become a mainstay of Netflix’s sports output. It revisited public controversies and careers that went off course while allowing the people involved to explain matters in their own words. Sometimes those explanations settle things. Quite often, they make the story even stranger.
The new Untold films cover three people who could hardly be more different. Vince Young reflects on a football career that rose and unravelled just as publicly. Then we have Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn discussing the extraordinary response to her Olympic appearance, while Mr T looks back on the life behind a persona that became far bigger than the man himself.
Until then, Netflix has several sports documentaries operating in much the same territory. Here are four of the best.
Four sports documentaries to watch ahead of Netflix’s Untold:
Icarus (2017)
Bryan Fogel begins Icarus with what seems like a contained idea at first: find out how easily an amateur cyclist can take performance-enhancing drugs without getting caught. Perfectly normal hobby, obviously. Then, Russian scientist Grigory Rodchenkov enters the picture, and the whole thing goes spectacularly off-piste. Rodchenkov is not merely helping Fogel game the system; he is tied to Russia’s state-backed Olympic doping programme, which means this rather niche cycling experiment suddenly becomes an international scandal involving swapped urine samples and a whistleblower who has very good reason to fear for his safety.
It is tense and considerably bigger than the film first lets on. Much like the best Untold documentaries, Icarus understands that sport is really only the way in. What follows is a story about power and the enormous risk involved in telling the truth when powerful people would much rather you did not. No wonder it won the Academy Award for ‘Best Documentary Feature’.
Untold: Johnny Football (2021)
Johnny Manziel did not just become a college football star. For a while, he seemed to swallow the entire sport whole. Johnny Football charts his extraordinary rise at Texas A&M, where his style made him the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy. Off the field, however, another version of Manziel was taking shape: harder to control and far more interested in the mess that came with fame.
Through interviews with his friends and former coaches, the documentary looks at what happened when money and celebrity arrived before he had any idea what to do with them. His move to the NFL should have been the beginning of something enormous. Instead, his time with the Cleveland Browns became a very public collapse. Because this is an Untold film, the mythology is quickly peeled away. What remains is far less glamorous. Manziel speaks openly about addiction and the image of Johnny Football that became almost impossible to escape.
Schumacher (2021)
Schumacher takes a far more intimate route through the life of one of Formula One’s most formidable figures. The film traces Michael Schumacher’s journey from modest beginnings in German karting to seven world championships and global fame. Archive footage is paired with interviews from those closest to him, including his wife Corinna and his children Gina and Mick, his brother Ralf and even figures from the paddock who saw his relentless nature at close quarters.
The documentary covers the great triumphs, but it does not dodge the controversy that followed him. It revisits the harder edges of his driving and the years in which he helped turn Ferrari into an almost unstoppable force. Still, this is not simply a polished parade of trophies. The more interesting story lies beneath the helmet. Schumacher emerges as competitive and intensely private but also more vulnerable than his public image ever allowed.
Bad Sport (2023)
Bad Sport is the broadest recommendation here, and possibly the murkiest. Across six episodes, the series explores what happens when competitive sport and crime come together; nobody comes out looking noble. Each instalment focuses on a different scandal, told through the people who were directly involved. This includes athletes, officials, investigators and, in several cases, those who knowingly broke the rules.
The stories include basketball point-shaving, fraud in motor racing, drug smuggling, horse insurance schemes and the Calciopoli affair that sent shockwaves through Italian football. The series shows how quickly sporting institutions can become corrupted when the right pressure is applied. Once the people inside begin talking, the surface starts to crack rather badly. Start with one, naturally. Then discover that you have watched the entire thing.