8 Inspirational Sports Documentaries That Could Change Your Life
It's never just a game.
Sport has a way of getting under the skin of its fans (they aren't called fanatics for no reason): it offers a microcosmic portrait of life in a couple of hours, capturing the adulation of success, the tumbling devastation of failure and the inherent tribal instinct to feel that drives all of life. It appeals for exactly the same reasons that people spend billions of dollars chasing the perfect cinematic experience every years.
But even in that world, some sporting stories inspire more than others. Some stand out on the shoulders of giants, offering life lessons and affirmations that transcend the supposed limits of the sport, laughing in the face of those who say things like "it's just a game". That's also why there are so many sports movies: each of them trying to capture that same magic (sometimes to mainstream success as with The Blind Side) and sometimes not, but they're built on the same principles and the same emotional truth.
Inevitably, you can't get more truthful than fact, so there's a special place reserved in film for sports documentaries. The ones that truly resonate tell stories bigger than their sports, but inherently linked to them, and offer emotional, inspirational or affirming stories from the heart of sporting excellence.
It may sound like a cliche, but they're never just games or leisure activities - sometimes they offer insights into the world and into human endurance and perseverance that could change your life...