The World Cup fever is among us and what better way to spend our time between matches than learning more about football? This is a list of recommended football movies, both fiction and non-fiction, that showcases incredible football feats, social issues within the industry, or simply remind us of the power of the sport to unite people. Let’s get the ball rolling.
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Baggio: The Divine Ponytail
Roberto Baggio is an Italian football legend whose acclaimed career as a prolific striker for teams such as Fiorentina, Juventus, Brescia, and the Italian National Team, is often reduced to one unfortunate event: his penalty kick miss at the 1994 World Cup final. Directed by Letizia Lamartire, the highly entertaining and crowd-pleasing biopic Baggio: The Divine Ponytail goes beyond the famous mistake to examine the icon’s life and celebrate his career. Besides being a must for any Seria A fan, this is a film that will entertain any audience looking for an inspiring story, or that simply wants to learn more about the enormous passion Italians have for the sport.
Available on Neflix.
Captains of Za’atari
This gorgeous under-the-radar documentary is all about the magic of football. Director Ali El Arabi follows Fawzi and Mahmoud, two young Syrian friends and footballers who live in a refugee camp in Za’atari, Jordan. Due to their talent, they are selected to participate in an international tournament hosted in Qatar that could open many doors for their career.
Captains of Za’atari is an extraordinary movie about football, friendship, and dreams that showcases how this wonderful sport can create opportunities and lift people regardless of their background, social status, or economic conditions. And it does so by always reminding us of the cost of the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
Diego Maradona
After delivering outstanding documentaries about Ayrton Senna and Amy Winehouse, Academy Award winner Asif Kapadia turned his attention toward one of football’s greatest icons: Diego Maradona.
Kapadia got access to hundreds of hours of unprecedented never-before-seen footage of the Argentinian footballer, which allowed him to build a compelling, astonishing, and thorough tragic portrait of a humble man from Villa Fiorito becoming a God in Naples. Whether you like or dislike Maradona, or even if you’ve never heard of him before, this film will keep you glued to your seat watching the rise and fall of an icon.
Available on HBO Max.
Escape to Victory
The next up for football movies is an oldie but goodie. This 1981 set in the midst of World War II follows a team of Allied prisoners forced to play an exhibition match against a Nazi team. This is a crowd-pleasing blend of football, star power, and cheese that features an incredible cast composed of movie icons Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, and Max von Sydow, as well as football greats Pelé, Tottenham legend Osvaldo Ardiles, Polish midfielder maestro Kazimierz Deyna, and one of the sport’s greatest defenders, Bobby Moore (among others).
Available on iTunes, Prime Video, YouTube, and Vudu.
King Otto
A football movie for the nostalgics. Although a tad straightforward, King Otto is an electrifying documentary about one of the most extraordinary true underdog stories of all time: Greece’s unbelievable win at the 2004 Euros. Whether you know the story or not, you will have a blast learning about coach Otto Rehhagel’s plan and the struggle to find the right cultural balance, and living (or reliving) the team’s remarkable triumphs over the likes of France, the Czech Republic, and Portugal to deliver one of football’s greatest fairy tales.
Available on Peacock, Roku, Tubi, and other places.
LFG
After the United States men’s team advanced to the Round of 16 in Qatar 2022, a piece of information started circulating the web: thanks to the equal pay agreement in US Soccer, both the United States men’s and women’s teams would receive at least $6.5 million each. This sum is more than what the women’s team received for winning the last two World Cups combined. Why was the USWNT receiving so little money despite being the best in the world? What is the equal pay agreement? How did the footballers manage to reach such an important milestone in gender equality? These questions are answered in the HBO Max documentary LFG which follows the fight of the American soccer players, led by legend Megan Rapinoe, against their own federation to obtain equal pay.
Available on HBO Max.
Pelé
As I type these words, Brazil is still the favorite to win the 2022 World Cup. It would be their sixth World Cup win; three of them were achieved between 1958 and 1970 with the help of who is widely considered the best football player of all time: Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pelé. Although it lacks a bit of punch and is scared of truly delving into politics, Ben Nichols and David Tryhorn’s biographical documentary of the same name is a good way to learn about the life, career, and legendary achievements of O Rei, as well as the complex relationship between football and politics in Brazil.
Available on Netflix.
Shaolin Soccer
Football is awesome, but do you know how we can make it even better? By introducing martial arts. And that’s exactly what Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer does. This insane Hong Kong film follows a kung-fu student who joins forces with a former football star to create a martial arts football team. It features players defying Newton’s laws, astonishing choreographies, and lots of dumb fun football action. Not even Mbappé can match the skills of these football kung-fu monks.
Available on Paramount+.
Nefta Football Club
When you go through Oscar-nominated short films, whether it’s documentary or live action, you often find sad, tough, and miserable stories, so back in 2019 when I hit play on “Nefta Football Club,” I was pleasantly surprised by an awesome comedic story of childhood innocence and football passion. This 17-minute short film follows two Tunisian brothers who randomly come across a lonely donkey with headphones and bags of mysterious white powder on its back. Where does the magic of football come in? You’ll have to watch it to find out, and believe me: the laughs will be worth it.
Watch on Vimeo
What Do We See When We Look at the Sky
I must warn you this is no conventional film nor is it exactly about football, it’s an odd, challenging, and profoundly beautiful piece of art. With What Do We See When We Look at the Sky, director Aleksandre Koberidze brings us a precious symphony of moments, landscapes, and feelings about the little pleasures of life. Its story follows doctor Lisa and football player Giorgi, who after meeting and falling in love, wake up in different bodies and with no memory of their professions. Will they be able to meet again?
This premise is only an excuse for Kobaridze to appreciate everything around them, particularly the small things that give a special flavor to life: having an ice cream outdoors, birds singing, meeting with your pals at the bar to support your favorite football team, the stray dogs that never miss a football match in the local restaurant, or that moment where you are so deeply in love that you forget about your favorite player and your favorite team to spend time with that special someone. It also features a magical football scene edited to the rhythm of Un’estate italiana, the official theme of the 1990 World Cup.
Available on MUBI.
Do you have favorite football movies you’ve wanted to watch in-between World Cup matches? Let u know what your favorite football movies are on social media.
