On the Ropes (1999)

Directors:
Nanette Burstein, Brett Morgen

IMDB

Synopsis:
The dreams and struggles of three aspiring boxers and the trainer who works with them (at the same Bed-Stuy gym where Mike Tyson used to work out) form the basis of On The Ropes, a documentary that debuted at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Noel Santiago, a one-time gang member, has the skills to be a good boxer, but lacks the conviction to work through the struggles involved. George Walton, a Golden Gloves champ, had his shot at a professional career but lost it at the hands of a crooked manager and is looking for a second chance. Tyrene Manson, a fiercely determined female boxer, sees fighting as her best chance to escape poverty until she's arrested during a drug raid on her uncle's home. And trainer Harry Keitt, a former fighter himself who once sparred with Muhammad Ali, tries to live down a history of alcoholism and a stretch in prison as he walks a fine line between nurturing the talents of the young people he cares for and trying a grab a percentage of the money they could earn as champions.

Hoop Dreams (1994)

Director:
Steve James

IMDB

Review:
Originally intended to be a 30-minute short produced for the Public Broadcasting Service, it eventually led to five years of filming and 250 hours of footage. The film follows William Gates and Arthur Agee, two African-American teenagers who are recruited by St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominantly white high school with an outstanding basketball program. Taking 90-minute commutes to school, enduring long and difficult workouts and practices, and acclimating to a foreign social environment, Gates and Agee struggle to improve their athletic skills in a job market with heavy competition. Along the way, their families celebrate their successes and support each other during times of hardship. The film raises a number of issues concerning race, class, economic division, education and values in contemporary America. It also offers one of the most intimate views of inner-city life to be captured on film. Yet it is also the human story of two young men, their two families and their community, and the joys and struggles they live through over a period of five years.

Bigger Stronger Faster* (2008)

Director:
Chris Bell

IMDB

Review:
Finally an honest look into the steroid world. These days in order to compete with your peers/teammates, you almost have to take some sort of performance enhancing drugs. If you don't, you'll fall behind. Standard case of "keeping up with the Jones's". I feel it is very obvious to the world and sports fans that this is going on, but NO ONE is honest about it! And when one guy gets busted, he's looked down upon and singled out. Not fair to single them out and criticize when everyone else on the team is doing it.  This doc doesn't really detail team sports, but it is still the same concept. You finally get a good look into this world and a good look into why people do these types of drugs. Very informative, well done documentary. I am so glad to have seen it, and for anyone curious, it's worth watching.

A League of Ordinary Gentlemen (2004)

Director:
Christopher Browne

IMDB

Review:
Can one of America's least glamorous sports survive a media-savvy makeover...and can it survive without one? In the 1950s and '60s, bowling was one of America's most popular sports, with millions spending their spare time on the lanes and watching professional bowling on television. However, the game's popularity took a nosedive in the 1980s and '90s, and matters only got worse when network television dropped regular bowling coverage. Eventually, the Professional Bowlers Association was bought out by a group of Microsoft executives, who pumped five million dollars into the organization and hired former football player Steve Miller to give the game a PR makeover in hopes of attracting a new audience. In A League of Ordinary Gentlemen, documentary filmmaker Chris Browne follows four professional bowlers -- Pete Weber, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Chris Barnes, and Wayne Webb -- as they scrape out a living on the pro bowling circuit and try to make sense of Miller's attempts to give the game a higher profile, with the solid play of Williams, who has won the PBA championship a whopping 39 times, often overlooked in favor of the "bad boy" showboating of Webber.

Watermarks (2004)

Director:
Yaron Zilberman

IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405461/

Review:
Another one from my friend mkvtony.
Watermarks is the story of the champion women swimmers of the legendary Jewish sports club, Hakoah Vienna. Hakoah (“The Strength" in Hebrew) was founded in 1909 in response to the notorious Aryan Paragraph, which forbade Austrian sports clubs from accepting Jewish athletes. Its founders were eager to popularize sport among a community renowned for such great minds as Freud, Mahler and Zweig, but traditionally alien to physical recreation. Hakoah rapidly grew into one of Europe's biggest athletic clubs, while achieving astonishing success in many diverse sports. In the 1930s Hakoah's best-known triumphs came from its women swimmers, who dominated national competitions in Austria. After the Anschluss, the political unification of Nazi Germany and Austria in 1938, the Nazis shut down the club, but the swimmers managed to flee the country before the war broke out, thanks to an escape operation organized by Hakoah’s functionaries. Sixty-five years later, director Yaron Zilberman meets the members of the women’s swim team in their homes around the world, and arranges for them to have a reunion in their old swimming pool in Vienna, a journey that evokes memories of youth, femininity, and strengthens lifelong bonds. Told by the swimmers, now in their eighties, Watermarks is about a group of young girls with a passion to be the best. It is the saga of seven outstanding athletes who still swim daily as they age with grace.