15. Undefeated
Won: Best Documentary, 2012 One of the most under-appreciated Documentary Feature winners of recent years, Daniel Lindsay's and TJ Martin's Undefeated, the story of an underdog high-school football team who turn their luck around when coach Bill Courtney takes over, grabbed the award back in 2012, beating out the likes of Win Wenders' Pina in the process. The word "inspiring" is a terribly overused word these days - especially in relation to cinema - but, in Undefeated, the word is wholly justified, approaching something closer to its true and actual meaning: instruction, dictation, or stimulation by a divinity. If that seems like hyperbole, then know that, throughout the course of Undefeated, coach Courtney is like a God to the boys of his team, making them believe that they can be greater than their roots would ever have otherwise let them, inspiring them into action both on the field and off it, too, where he defies his status as a white outsider to become one of the only non-African American men that these boys can trust. Uplifting, tear-jerking, and absolutely inspirational, Undefeated, in its own understated way, is one of the best sports documentaries ever made.