The best sports documentaries

“The Endless Summer” is one of the first, and certainly most seminal, sports documentaries. That’s despite the fact that it’s about surfers you’ve never heard of. The film tells the story of two surfers who travel the world to always be where the surfing is good. They can’t imagine a life without surfing. Obviously, the film looks nice — surfing rarely happens in bland locales — making the movie even better to watch.

No less a film criticism luminary, Roger Ebert absolutely loved “Hoop Dreams.” The story of two promising young black teenagers who have been recruited to play at a predominantly white high school in Chicago is a truly iconic documentary, sports or otherwise. It’s a gripping story about many serious issues that go way beyond basketball.

When a sports movie wins Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars, you know it’s probably worth seeing. The skill it took from the filmmakers to properly shoot “Free Solo” is truly impressive. After all, the directors were chronicling climber Alex Honnold’s attempt to perform a “free solo” climb on El Capitan — that is to say, climbing it without a rope or any sort of safety harness.

Stacy Peralta, the director of this film, was one of the people at the forefront of skateboarding, so he was the perfect choice to tell this story. He, along with all the other members of the Zephyr skateboard team, helped popularize skateboarding, first in Southern California then eventually across the globe. Having footage from the ‘70s certainly helps.

This doc is a perfect complement to Netflix’s comedy “GLOW,” so it makes sense that the streaming giants picked up the rights to this movie around the time its show debuted. “GLOW,” the documentary, tells the story behind the scrappy, campy ‘80s wrestling promotion, featuring many of the women who were there. It’s funny but also occasionally moving. Even if you aren’t a wrestling fan, it’s worth watching.

Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian Formula 1 driver, was a tremendous talent, and if you followed Formula 1 racing in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, you were familiar with him. Of course, that also means you are aware of his untimely death in a race in 1994. However, the movie is about so much more than that, and it’s also quite well crafted.

"Diego Maradona," like "Senna," was directed by Asif Kapadia. He found himself an even more compelling subject in this story of one of the all-time great soccer players but also one of the all-time combustible personalities in sports history. This is no hagiography. It is a depiction of Maradona in full, which means all the glory on the pitch...and all the demons off it.

Who doesn’t love a story about a bunch of ragtag underdogs? That’s why “Major League” was made. These aren’t made-up characters, though. The Portland Mavericks were an actual independent minor league baseball team. It doesn’t hurt that one of the players on the team was Kurt Russell. Yes, the Kurt Russell.

“Pumping Iron” is about bodybuilding, which isn’t terribly exciting. What makes this doc worth watching, though, is two of the people who were in it. Before they were famous, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno were both competing for bodybuilding glory. Don’t you want to see a young Arnold?

“Free Solo” may have won Best Documentary Feature at the 2018 Oscars, but many people think “Minding the Gap” was the better film. It’s about skateboarders, but it’s more about how skateboarding helped give them purpose. “Minding the Gap” is a human story that happens to take place within the realm of sports.

Pro wrestling may not be sports in the purest sense, but it is sports entertainment. Plus, the damage done to the bodies of wrestlers is no different than in “real” sports. This is on display, in all its stark glory, in “Beyond the Mat.” It’s bleak, but it gets to the heart of just how much pro wrestlers give of themselves to entertain their fans.

In the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was the king of hockey. That’s why when the United States beat the USSR in 1980 it was called “The Miracle on Ice.” However, it wasn’t all great for the athletes in Russia. This documentary on the Red Army is told mostly through the eyes of Slava Fetisov, who went from captain of the Red Army team in the ‘80s to a defector plying his trade in the NHL.

Dock Ellis reportedly threw a no-hitter on LSD. This is the one thing that most sports fans know about the '70s pitcher, who spent the bulk of his career with the Pirates. Of course, there was so much more to him, including his addiction issues, which led to him to try to help other addicts until he passed away in 2008. Yes, the no-hitter comes up as well, and it remains an entertaining story.

As boxing fades further and further from popularity, the title “When We Were Kings” becomes increasingly nostalgic. The film is about the Rumble in the Jungle fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. It’s a reminder of a time when Ali was the biggest athlete in the world, and boxing was able to garner massive attention. It took the director 22 years to edit this film, but it was worth it.

“Icarus” started as a bit of silly stunt journalism where filmmaker Bryan Fogel played to research doping so that he could win an amateur cycling race. In the process he accidentally stumbled upon a massive doping scandal that almost took down the Russian sports machine. At lthe 2018 Olympics, the Russian athletes were only allowed to compete as “Olympic Athletes from Russia.” “Icarus” played a part in that.

“Touching the Void” may be too intense for some viewers, because, well it’s crazy intense. Two mountain climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, set out to climb a previously unclimbed mountain in the Peruvian Andes. They actually succeed in reaching the summit…and that’s when things go wrong. Really, spectacularly, terrifyingly wrong.

For years there's been a move to get soccer to click in the United States. Recently it’s been happening as the MLS grows, and of course nowadays we can all follow European soccer leagues if we choose. However, in the ‘70s soccer became a huge, smash sensation in New York City. The Cosmos captured imaginations and hearts in a time before the MLS even existed. Of course, the fact Pele was on the team certainly helped.

Since “The Fab Five” is the first of several ESPN "30 for 30" films on this list, it should be noted what a boon that series was for the sports documentary. Not all of them are good, but they covered a ton of ground and gave sports fans a lot of doc fodder. It’s obvious what this film is about by the name, the Fab Five from the University of Michigan, but it’s a fascinating look at their brief run. Jalen Rose is particularly engaging as a talking head.

The story of the Miami Hurricanes was so overwhelming that “The U” got a sequel. Now that one is hit-or-miss, but this story of the glory days of the program, when it was brash and filled with big personalities, is an often fun watch. Things were really crazy in the ‘80s and ‘90s at The U.

In the early days of "30 for 30," ESPN gave noted director Barry Levinson a chance to tell a story personal to him and to the city of Baltimore. The Baltimore Colts had a marching band, but then, of course, the Colts bolted for Indianapolis. This is the story of that band, that move and that city. It’s way more gripping and emotional that you would imagine.

It’s not surprising that this movie is emotional. After all, it’s about the friendship between Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic, two basketball stars from Eastern Europe. Then Drazen met a tragic end, dealing a huge blow to many basketball fans around the world — and, of course, to Vlade.

Andre Roussimoff, better known as Andre the Giant, was larger than life. This was true of his celebrity as a pro wrestler, one of the first true international superstars of sports entertainment, but also as a human being. Alas, being a genuine giant has its drawbacks, and "Andre the Giant" does an excellent job capturing not just the wrestler but also the human who grew too big for this world.

Here’s a film that was parodied on the IFC show “Documentary Now.” If you watch that show, you probably have a sense of what to expect from this documentary. It tells the story of four professional bowlers, as the PBA is being revamped by a hotshot new marketing guru.

When you are a young, promising baseball player in Latin America, things can get sketchy. That’s on full display in this documentary, which follows two prospects from the Dominican Republic. One of them is Miguel Sano, who became a major leaguer — not without a lot of turmoil though.

Somewhat incredibly, the Buffalo Bills lost four Super Bowls in a row. That’s almost more impressive than winning one. It makes for an interesting tale, as the Bills lost all four in different ways and with differing levels of heartbreak.

Sure this is about video games, but it’s strikingly close to being a sports documentary. After all, it’s about two gamers competing to set the record for the highest score on “Donkey Kong.” One of them is Billy Mitchell, a fascinating character who seems almost too good to be true. This is more about video games resembling sports, but it’s also a really good movie.

Climbing Mount Everest is insane. To do it is to challenge the limits of the human body. So imagine being somebody who tries to ski down Everest. That’s exactly what Yuichiro Miura did, and this is the story of what happened.