Football delivers the thrill of violent competition and brotherly love all wrapped into one weekly package for sports fans. Whether it’s NFL or college football, the gridiron is the setting for the most popular sport in America. Football is a complex game, though. Its history, players, teams, and stories are convoluted and like solving one big puzzle.
For sports geeks who enjoy how the game got to where it is today, watching the best football documentaries gives insight and perspective to the sport. Some filmmakers focus on off-the-field personalities who contributed to the game’s lore, while other directors focus on what happened on the field. These are the films that football fans will cherish and rewatch to fall in love with the sport all over again.
Year of the Scab (2017)
Year of the Scab tells the forgotten story of the men who played for the Washington Redskins during the 1987 NFL strike. Fans often forget that professional sports are labor, and when disputes between companies and employees erupt in front of the public eye, it leads to consequences for the fans who watch at home. The replacement players on the Redskins helped keep the team afloat during the first part of the season until the strike ended, but they were sneered at by union advocates and fellow football players. The film shows the difficulty of chasing sports success despite what others think about you.
All Madden (2021)
There isn’t anybody who embodies the spirit of football more than John Madden. The legendary coach and announcer did everything one could ask for in a sport, but it was his infectious personality behind a microphone that helped people at home learn the game and love it as much as he did. All Madden is an entertaining and informative look at Madden’s life, how he turned into football’s iconic voice, and how he still impacts those in the sport. Fans who only know him as the namesake for the video game franchise should definitely watch this film to learn about the man behind the myth.
A Football Life (2011)
A Football Life is NFL Network’s incredible biography series that focuses on the lives and careers of some of the league’s biggest personalities. Each episode dedicates itself to one specific individual, with legends like Bill Belichick, Kurt Warner, Tom Coughlin, Barry Sanders, Don Shula, Vince Lombardi, and so many more featured since the debut of the docu-series in 2011. Interviews with the subject of each episode and their closest friends and family members gives a complete picture of the person and how football shaped their personality.
Hard Knocks (2001)
Hard Knocks gives fans an inside look at the training camp of a specific NFL team each summer before Week 1 begins. Behind-the-scenes action and wired interviews that show players and coaches interacting with each other in their most authentic settings give the audience an immersive reality television experience. The show has expanded to include more than one team per season, including regular season and off-season segments.
Happy Valley (2014)
Penn State was once synonymous with college football dominance. That all went up in smoke after the scandal that revealed Jerry Sandusky, an assistant coach for the team for decades, was sexually assaulting children with the help of his charity and sometimes right on the campus. Happy Valley looks at the perspective of the students who grapple with the guilt of the charges against their program and figuring out whether it’s still right to root for the Nittany Lions. Those who lived through this story will remember the atrocities and the trauma associated with this university.
Untold: Johnny Football (2023)
Johnny Manziel was a phenomenon at Texas A&M during the early 2010s. As the best quarterback in the nation, Johnny Football transformed into a pop culture sensation, but the NFL was a rude awakening for him. Untold: Johnny Football looks at why Manziel couldn’t carry his collegiate success into the professional football ranks, how his life resembled a roller coaster off the field, and whether the former athlete is doing any better in retirement. This film is part of the Untold series on Netflix that includes documentaries about the Malice at the Palace, Tim Tebow’s football career, and Caitlyn Jenner’s success on the track, among other subjects.
The '85 Bears (2016)
The ’85 Bears documents the entirety of the best season in Chicago Bears history. Armed with one of history’s most intimidating defenses, the team coached by Mike Ditka never gave their opponents an inch and lost only a single game the entire season. Chicago hasn’t even come close to matching this level of success in the nearly 40 years since this year.
Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez (2020)
Aaron Hernandez should have been an elite tight end in the NFL for years. Instead, he gave into the violence living within his soul and was charged with murder. Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez gives the inside scoop of the late criminal and what made him tick. The series fits well alongside all of the other true crime dramas on Netflix that have come out in recent years.
