Browse 244 movies from ESPN Films
A close look at two-sport athlete Bo Jackson and the creation of a legend. Even without winning a Super Bowl or World Series, Bo will forever be known as a cultural icon and one of the most famous athletes of all time. This film will examine the truths and tall tales that surround Jackson, and how his seemingly impossible feats captured our collective imagination for an all-too-brief moment in time.
Dec 2012
Details the intense rivalry between the Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche in the 90’s
Jun 2022
Director Steve James returns to his home town of Hampton, Virginia to tell the story of how the trial of a young basketball star left a city divided.
Apr 2010
Football is a religion to many people. But few know the depths of both faiths as well as Bill McCartney, the former head football coach of the University of Colorado and the founder of Promise Keepers, a Christian men’s ministry. “The Gospel According to Mac” tells the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story of Coach Mac’s controversial national championship run – two seasons that followed multiple arrests and strife between his mostly African-American players and the Boulder police, continued with McCartney’s own daughter becoming pregnant by the team’s quarterback before seeing that same quarterback struck by cancer, and culminated in consecutive Orange Bowl match-ups against Notre Dame. Bill McCartney’s passionate and often polarizing beliefs have made him many enemies and many admirers, but it’s difficult to deny that he embodies the essential issues facing football in America to this day.
Nov 2015
In 1989, the Buffalo Bills were a talented team full of big personalities, including future Hall-of-Famers Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed. Dysfunction and infighting ran as deep as the talent in their locker room, but the team known as “The Bickering Bills” would soon transform themselves into an elite force. From 1990 through 1993, the Bills went on an unprecedented run of AFC Championship victories, appearing in a record four straight Super Bowls. But what’s been remembered most is how those Super Bowl appearances played out, with the Bills losing all four. Along the way though, the Bills took part in some of the defining NFL moments of the era. Theirs is a heartbreaking tale, yet one that ultimately proves Jim Kelly and the Bills to be among the most perseverant group of players in NFL lore.
Dec 2015
By the mid-1980s Paul Westhead had worn out his welcome in the NBA. The best offer he could find came from an obscure small college with little history of basketball. In the same city where he had won an NBA championship with Magic and Kareem, Westhead was determined to perfect his non-stop run-and-gun offensive system at Loyola Marymount. His shoot-first offense appeared doomed to fail until Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, two talented players from Westhead’s hometown of Philadelphia, arrived gift-wrapped at his doorstep. With Gathers and Kimble leading a record scoring charge, Westhead’s system suddenly dazzled the world of college basketball and turned conventional thinking on its head. But then, early in the 1989-90 season, Gathers collapsed during a game and was diagnosed with an abnormal heartbeat. Determined to play, Gathers returned three games later, but less than three months later, he tragically died on the court.
On Oct. 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. PT, soon after Al Michaels and Tim McCarver started the ABC telecast for Game 3 of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics, the ground began to shake beneath Candlestick Park. Even before that moment, this had promised to be a memorable matchup: the first in 33 years between teams from the same metropolitan area, a battle featuring larger-than-life characters and equally colorful fan bases. But after the 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake rolled through, bringing death and destruction, the Bay Area pulled together, and baseball took a backseat.
Oct 2014
On October 15, 1988, Notre Dame hosted the University of Miami in what would become one of the greatest games in college football history. It was tradition vs. swagger, the No. 4-ranked Fighting Irish versus the No. 1-ranked Hurricanes, one coaching star, Lou Holtz, versus another, Jimmy Johnson. But the name still attached to the contest came from a t-shirt manufactured by a few Notre Dame students: “Catholics vs. Convicts.” As compelling as the tale of Notre Dame’s dramatic victory is—even losing quarterback Steve Walsh calls it “a helluva ballgame”—the backstory is just as riveting.
Dec 2016
The world couldn't keep its eyes off two athletes at the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer - Nancy Kerrigan, the elegant brunette from the Northeast, and Tonya Harding, the feisty blonde engulfed in scandal. Just weeks before the Olympics on Jan. 6, 1994 at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Kerrigan was stunningly clubbed on the right knee by an unknown assailant and left wailing, "Why, why, why?" As the bizarre "why" mystery unraveled, it was revealed that Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, had plotted the attack with his misfit friends to literally eliminate Kerrigan from the competition. Now two decades later, THE PRICE OF GOLD takes a fresh look through Harding's turbulent career and life at the spectacle that elevated the popularity of professional figure skating and has Harding still facing questions over what she knew and when she knew it.
Jan 2014
The Class That Saved Coach K is a 90-minute documentary that tells the story of Duke Basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski, and how his 1982 recruiting class overcame a bumpy start to change the narrative -- turning the Blue Devils around and setting its coach on an historic course.
Aug 2019
In the fall of 1962, a dramatic series of events made Civil Rights history and changed a way of life. On the eve of James Meredith becoming the first African-American to attend class at the University of Mississippi, the campus erupted into a night of rioting between those opposed to the integration of the school and those trying to enforce it. Before the rioting ended, the National Guard and Federal troops were called in to put an end to the violence and enforce Meredith's rights as an American citizen.
Oct 2012
Back in the day, jai-alai players were celebrities that would ceremoniously march out to salute crowds of 15,000 fans, but after a disastrous 1988 strike the game became nothing more than a cultural afterthought.
Aug 2016
NFL Hall of Famer Reggie White was known as much for his dogmatic religiosity as for his devastating sacks at the time of his tragic death in 2004 at 43. However, during a little-known interview shortly before his passing, White questioned his indoctrination and revealed his journey to discover the meaning of his faith. Including intimate interviews with his son, Jeremy, the superstar defensive lineman’s story deftly explores the cultural complexity of evangelical Christianity.
Nov 2023
The meteoric ascension of the Big East conference, and how in less than a decade, it became the most successful college basketball league in America.
Mar 2014
The NFL has staged 48 Super Bowls. Four photographers have taken pictures at every one of them. In KEEPERS OF THE STREAK, director Neil Leifer tells the story of this exclusive club, made up of John Biever, Walter Iooss, Mickey Palmer and Tony Tomsic. With their cameras, they have captured football's biggest game of the year for almost five decades.
Jan 2015
Back in the 1980s, the road to the Olympics was long and hard for an amateur wrestler. But then along came John du Pont, an eccentric heir to the family fortune with a passion for wrestling. His 800-acre Foxcatcher Farm outside Philadelphia became the hub of the sport, with state-of-the-art training facilities, free accommodations, generous stipends and the support of America’s best freestyle wrestlers, brothers Mark and Dave Schultz. It all seemed too good to be true – and tragically it was, with a savage ending. Featuring fresh testimonials and never-before-seen footage, “The Prince of Pennsylvania” is the story of a paradise lost to the madness of its creator, a man who had the means to buy anything except for the one thing he truly wanted.
Oct 2015
In this hour-long investigation, ESPN’s E60 looks at the roots of those allegations, the crises they sparked for the NWSL, and the future of the league. Through a series of in-depth interviews with players, coaches, and executives, reporter Lisa Salters presents an unflinching look at one of the most sobering episodes of abuse and mismanagement in recent sports history.
Oct 2022
Dive into the inner workings of one of the sports world's most unlikely partnerships: Mike Francesa and Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, the voices that launched a thousand sports radio imitators. The hosts, their colleagues, and a who's-who of sports heavyweights tell the story of their surprise rise to stardom and 19 years as the iconic voices of New York sports.
Apr 2017
20 years after Dale Earnhardt's death in the 2001 Daytona 500, ESPN explores the legacy of the legendary NASCAR driver in an E:60 documentary airing just prior to the 2021 running of the event.
Feb 2021
The incredible true story of Dude Perfect, a group of five Texas A&M alums whose trick shots made them famous across the globe.
Aug 2024