Dig deeper into Olympic Games with these docos, podcasts and movies
Enhance your Paris Olympics experience with the best Games-related documentaries, movies and podcasts.
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From tomorrow morning’s Opening Ceremony, it’s going to be all Olympics all the time for the next 16 days. But for those sporting enthusiasts who want to dig a little deeper, here’s the best Games-adjacent documentaries, movies and podcasts to enhance your Olympics experience.
OLYMPICS DOCUMENTARIES
I AM SIMONE BILES
Netflix
By just about any metric you’d care to choose, Simone Biles is the greatest gymnast of all time (some would say the greatest athlete of all time), with a total of 37 Olympic and World Championship medals. But after suffering a bad case of “the twisties” – a potentially dangerous condition where a gymnast’s mind and body can’t quite sync – she withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics, where she was expected to add to her medal tally. This terrific new doco traces her journey back to the Paris Games, as she showed remarkable resilience and mental and physical strength to shrug off the haters and doubters and get back to what she does best.
SPRINT
Netflix
It’s going to be fascinating battle between current favourites American Noah Lyles and Jamaican Kishane Thompson for the men’s 100m, one of the most prestigious events of any Olympics. The flashy, charismatic Lyles is the reigning 200m world champ making an impressive run at the shorter event – but Kishane has the fastest time this year. This timely doco from the team behind Drive To Survive is a window into the world of elite sprinting, where the smallest of margins can determine success. With amazing access to some of the top names in the men’s and women’s events – plus former sprint greats including Michael Johnson and Ato Boldon – it follows their highs and lows in the lead-up to last year’s World Championships, as well as the ongoing rivalry between the US and Jamaican teams.
TRAILBLAZERS
Stan
After selling out 14 consecutive home games – with an average crowd of more than 50,000 – The Matildas are one of the best loved teams in the country heading into the Paris Games, where they are considered to be genuine medal chance. But it wasn’t always that way for women’s football in Australia, and this documentary, released in February, charts the bumpy rise from the first FIFA sanctioned game in 1979, through years of struggle and public indifference to their strike for equal pay in 2015 and beyond. Stirring stuff for an inspirational bunch of women.
I AM BOLT
Stan
One of the most striking aspects of the new Netflix documentary Sprint is just how large Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt still looms over the sprinting world. And, with the help of sport greats including Pele, Neymar and Serena Williams, this 2016 documentary explains why, tracing his journey from the Caribbean to the very pinnacle of world sport with nine gold medals – including being the only sprinter to win the 100m and 200m double at three consecutive Games – and a 100m world record of 9.58 that still seems as untouchable today as when he set it in 2009.
FREEMAN
Stan, ABC iview
It’s been voted the greatest moment in Australian sporting history, that famous night on September 25, 2000, when sprinter Cathy Freeman carried the weight of the nation on her shoulders at her home Olympics and stormed to victory in the 400m. In this documentary, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the race, Freeman looks back on her extraordinary career and the challenges she faced as a young Indigenous athlete as well as the impact that the timeless victory had on her and on Australia more broadly.
OLYMPICS MOVIES
CHARIOTS OF FIRE
Disney+, Stan
It’s the OG of Olympics movies, winning four Oscars including Best Picture, but still resonates more than 40 years later, especially seeing that the 1924 Games were also held in Paris. It focuses on the true story of two very different UK athletes, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, and their sprinting rivalry. Both bucked against the establishment, with the ambitious Abrahams experiencing anti-Semitism on his way to being accepted and the pious Scot Liddell refusing to compromise his Christian beliefs for the sake of glory.
THE BOYS IN THE BOAT
Prime Video
This sporting drama barely made a ripple when it sailed into cinemas this year, which is shame because it’s a solid underdog story. Set in 1936, it follows an unlikely and unheralded rowing squad from the University of Washington who defied convention and tradition to compete for the gold medal at the Berlin Olympics. The always reliable Joel Edgerton plays their dour, driven coach, who puts his reputation and job on the line to ensure they get their shot, and director George Clooney’s innovative racing footage practically puts the audience in the boat with the boys.
MUNICH
Netflix, Stan
Steven Spielberg’s historical drama is a reminder of the dark side of the Olympics, following the events at the 1972 Munich Olympics when a Palestinian militant group carried out a terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of 11 members of the Israeli team. Erica Bana is in top form as Avner Kaufman, the Mossad agent tasked with leading a mission to avenge them by taking out 11 Palestinians allegedly involved in the murders. Also stars a pre-Bond Daniel Craig as South African wheelman, Steve.
FOXCATCHER
Prime Video, Stan, SBS On Demand
An unrecognisable Steve Carrell was a revelation playing millionaire and wrestling enthusiast John Du Pont in this 2015 biographical thriller, and was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for his efforts. Du Pont was obsessed with assembling a world-beating wrestling team in time for the 1988 Seoul Olympics and recruited 1984 gold-medal winning athletes Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and his older brother David (Mark Ruffalo, also Oscar-nominated) to help him do it. The pair become ensnared in Du Pont’s creepy, drug-fuelled schemes, with fatal consequences for one of them.
RICHARD JEWELL
Netflix, ABC iview
Clint Eastwood directed this 2019 biographical drama about the real-life figure who saved lives after alerting authorities to a bomb planted at a concert during the 1996 Olympics. Jewell, an overweight oddball who lives with his mother and dreams of a career in law enforcement, is initially hailed as a hero but is soon accused of planting the bomb himself to earn attention and respect for rescuing people from a situation he created himself. I Tonya star Paul Walter Hauser – who won an Emmy and a Golden Globe this year for Black Bird – impresses in the title role.
OLYMPICS PODCASTS
MATTY AND THE MISSILE IN PARIS
Former NRL player turned sports commentator and podcaster extraordinaire Matty Johns is getting into the Games spirit by dragging former World Champion swimmer and winner of three Olympic medals James “The Missile” Magnusson to the City of Lights. Magnusson has already spoken of the ups and downs of his own Olympic career and the “zoo” that is the athletes’ village in the launch episode and will drop new episodes daily in the Matty Johns podcast feed and will also have 22 minutes of highlights to run online and on the Sky and Fox Sports channels.
ROY AND HG: PEOPLE, MEDALS AND CHEESE
In Sydney 24 years ago, they gave the gymnastics world the battered sav, the double twinkle with sparkle and the hello boys as well as making a cult hero out of Fatso the Fat Arsed Wombat. For Rio in 2016, they came up with the revolutionary idea of awarding tin, wood and dung medals for fourth, fifth and sixth place to boost the medal tally. Quite simply, it just wouldn’t be an Olympics without Rampaging Roy Slaven and HG Nelson, who will present a Monday to Friday show across ABC radio at 11am, which is also available as a podcast.
THE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL HISTORY OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES
In its 128 year history, the Olympic Games has thrown up its fair share oddities and scandals and this fun, 20-part series takes a look at just a few, from the quirky to the hilarious to the horrifying. There’s episodes devoted to cheats and sore losers, the oldest and youngest competitors, the rise of the Paralympics and how the Games went from amateur to professional. And there’s five whole episodes dedicated to the bonkers 1900 games, which featured live pigeon shooting, cannon shooting, angling and firefighting.
TWO GOOD SPORTS: GREEN AND GOLD EDITION
Channel 7’s Abbey Gelmi and The Project’s Georgie Tunny have been tackling the big issues in sport every week for close to a year now, so it makes sense for the pair to turn their combined talents to the Olympics. Starting on Monday, Gelmi and Tunney will present a daily wrap of the overnight events and human interest stories from Paris, aiming to cater to sports nuts like themselves as well as the more casual fans.
OLYMPICS.COM PODCAST
This podcast has all the access and information you’d expect from an IOC affiliated release and also features some of the biggest name athletes and experts from around the world. Adventurer Alex Honnold (of Free Solo fame) stops by to talk about the fast rise of sports climbing, there’s a deep dive into the 37-strong Refugee Olympic Team, a chat with Aussie BMX Freestyle rider Sarah Nicki, and a primer on the funniest French sports expressions to memorise before proceedings get underway.
Originally published as Dig deeper into Olympic Games with these docos, podcasts and movies
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