There is never a shortage of great storytelling in sports. The ultra-competitive nature of many star athletes leads to intense rivalries, heartbreaking failures, and inspiring redemption arcs. It can also lead to outright criminality, as more than a few people in the sports world have broken the law and gotten caught, or worse yet, gotten away with it.

Netflix has become the go-to streaming service when it comes to nonfiction storytelling in sports. Among their best offerings are 2 Oscar winners, some addictive binge-worthy docuseries, and even a couple of hilarious underrated gems. These are the 9 best sports documentaries you can watch on Netflix right now.

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1. The Last Dance

the last dance poster michael jordan

No sports docuseries, with the possible exception of O.J.: Made in America, had such an immediate impact on popular culture like The Last Dance. The film features unearthed footage of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls’ 1997-98 season coupled with modern-day interviews with MJ and his contemporaries. The memes were nearly instantaneous: MJ holding an iPad and laughing as other players meekly attempt to talk trash about him, MJ declaring, “And I took that personally.” Then, one of MJ’s security guards beating him in a game of dice and then mockingly shrugging at the camera. The series is packed with memorable moments, even beyond the dramatic playoff victories and old heated rivalries. There is no sports doc more entertaining or addictive than this one.

2. Undefeated

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Image via Lantern Entertainment

Any list of great sports documentaries needs a Cinderella story and Undefeated certainly delivers one. This Oscar-winning film is about a high school football team in Memphis with a remarkably long history of losing, led by a volunteer head coach doing his best to cobble together a half-decent football program for inner-city kids. The focus increasingly shifts towards the lives and futures of the players and their coach’s desperate efforts to send them down a better path in life. Like many sports documentaries that use athletic competition to shed light on other issues, Undefeated is just as much about football as it is about wayward young men in need of a father figure. Their unexpected success on the field, therefore, feels like the strengthening of a profound bond. A final embrace towards the end of the film between the coach and one of his players has to be one of the most moving moments in documentary history.

3. Formula 1: Drive to Survive

Formula 1: Drive to Survive Netflix
Image via Netflix

It’s hard to think of a docuseries that has had a more profound impact on its sport than Formula 1: Drive to Survive. The series has dramatically increased F1’s popularity in the States and ignited heated debate over its sometimes sensationalistic storytelling. But it serves a very practical purpose as well: getting ordinary people to understand F1. Perhaps aptly thought of as “a thinking man’s NASCAR,” F1 tends to strike many autosports fans as a bit too nerdy, pretentious, and *shudder* European. But it is by far the premier motorsport in the world with a long, treasured history. Drive to Survive provides an intimate look at F1 as we’ve never seen it before.

4. Icarus

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Image via Netflix

Documentaries have a long history of exposing crimes, uncovering corruption, and righting past wrongs. Sports documentaries are no exception. Icarus won an Academy Award for Best Documentary by sharing with the world the story of Grigory Rodchenkov, formerly Russia’s anti-doping guru. Rodchenkov revealed that Russia had been covering up the illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs, leading to international condemnation and reprisal. The film plays like a hypnotizing conspiracy thriller, as director Bryan Fogel goes deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. The extent of corruption here is shocking and is presented in a way that even the scientifically illiterate can easily understand. In an age of seemingly endless amounts of content, Icarus proves that one film can still have an enormous impact on the world.

5. Cheer

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Image via Netflix

Hoop Dreams used basketball to tell the story of ambition and injustice in Chicago and has become a widely imitated, but never equaled, classic sports documentary. Cheer is in the same wheelhouse but turns the camera towards the sidelines, placing the cheerleaders of Navarro College in Texas front and center. These are not just kids mindlessly shaking pom poms, these are tenacious athletes with a ferocious appetite for success. Cheer goes in many unexpected directions and the less said of them, the better. But it can be said that the series offers poignant portraits of young people struggling to become adults, find their way in the world, and live up to their full potential. It’s an exhilarating, heartbreaking, and profound series.

6. The Battered Bastards of Baseball

A screengrab from The Battered Bastards of Baseball.

Minor league baseball is one of the great unheralded pastimes of American life and few films capture the zaniness of the minor leagues quite like The Battered Bastards of Baseball. Directed by Chapman Way and Maclain Way, who went on to direct the wonderful Wild Wild Country, this film is about the now-defunct Portland Mavericks who played ball for five magnificent years in the 1970s. Imagine Major League meets The Bad News Bears, and you’re somewhere in the territory of this doc that profiles lots of oddballs and underdogs (oh, and Kurt Russell). This is about as much fun as baseball can be without actually being at a ballpark.

7. Athlete A

A screengrab from Athlete A (2020).
Image via Netflix.

The sexual assault allegations against Dr. Larry Nassar and the subsequent cover-up of those allegations by USA Gymnastics shocked the country. It was difficult for many Americans to accept that a sport often portrayed as pure and wholesome was, in fact, hopelessly corrupt. Athlete A does a remarkable job of not only giving voice to the survivors of Dr. Nassar and USA Gymnastics, but also unveiling the journalistic process that exposed these shocking crimes to the world. Athlete A is a meticulously reported documentary that serves as a potent warning to the rest of the sports world and perhaps even society at large.

8. Screwball

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Image via Greenwich Entertainment

This film from director Billy Corben (Cocaine Cowboys) fell under the radar a bit but is a hilarious and wholly unique story about the biogenesis scandal in Major League Baseball, told primarily through the eyes of guys who seem like they should be supporting characters in Goodfellas or The Sopranos. A profoundly Flordia Man story in the best possible sense, Screwball notably uses child actors in its recreations. It’s an odd choice that pays off, providing plenty of humor and of course commenting on the outrageously immature actions of the people involved. Despite being relentlessly fun, Screwball is also a searing indictment of some of the most prominent people in baseball, including Alex Rodriguez and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. This one cannot be recommended enough.

9. Team Foxcatcher

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Image via Netflix

The nonfiction version of Bennett Miller’s magnificent Foxcatcher, this doc tells the very strange story of John du Pont, the heir to a mighty family fortune who funded and trained an Olympic wrestling team. It’s a compelling portrait of an eccentric and disturbed individual whose delusions and paranoia ultimately turned him into a monster. It’s fascinating to compare this film with Miller’s narrative version to see which aspects of the true story make it into one film but not the other. Team Foxcatcher probably does a better job of allowing the audience to fully understand who du Pont was by emphasizing more of his uglier characteristics and prejudices. Aside from a portrait of madness, it’s also a heartbreaking film about the talented wrestlers who were manipulated and controlled by du Pont, for no reason other than wanting to be Olympic champions.