Netflix has a very deep bench of documentary series and movies, especially when it comes to sports.
Almost all of the major sports have some documentaries on Netflix, but you’ll find that football and basketball documentaries far outnumber the rest.
That’s especially true this month in the Watch With Us team’s updated picks for the must-watch Netflix sports documentaries.
Our latest selections include a show that puts the spotlight on college football, as well as an in-depth look at one of the greatest rivalries in the history of the NBA.
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‘SEC Football: Any Given Saturday’ (2025)
College football and the NFL may share the same sport, but the former has enough drama and compelling personalities of its own. You should consider SEC Football: Any Given Saturday as a primer for college football, rather than a complete look at what it entails. But it’s enough to step into a world that can be even harder to follow than the National Football League.
Each episode of Any Given Saturday puts the focus on a team from the SEC, one of the top divisions in college football. The coaches seem to be driving most of the narrative, but there’s also a lot of behind-the-scenes footage and game clips to give fans their football fix during the week or off-season.
SEC Football: Any Given Saturday is streaming on Netflix.
‘Celtics/Lakers: The Best of Enemies’ (2017)
There are plenty of rivalries in the NBA, but few with the history of the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. Over the decades, the Celtics have largely been dominant over their West Coast counterparts. But the Lakers have had some era-defining victories of their own.
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30 for 30’s three-part documentary series, Celtics/Lakers: The Best of Enemies, adds an interesting wrinkle by having Donnie Wahlberg narrate the Boston side and Ice Cube handling the Lakers’ story while trading a few barbs at each other. Most of this series explores the famous battles between Larry Bird‘s Celtics and Magic Johnson‘s Lakers, but the history between them goes beyond any particular players. These two teams arguably set the tone for the last 40 years of basketball, and they’re still hated rivals to this day.
Celtics/Lakers: The Best of Enemies is streaming on Netflix.
‘The Last Dance’ (2020)
The Chicago Bulls of the late ’90s had a collection of larger-than-life characters that most movies could only dream about. Coach Phil Jackson, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and the incomparably iconic Michael Jordan ruled basketball courts like few other teams ever had. This group even had a personal nemesis in Bulls General Manager Jerry Krause, who declared that the 1997–98 season would be their final run together.
The Last Dance primarily focuses on the Bulls’ final championship campaign, with frequent flashbacks to the history of Jordan, Pippen, Rodman and other players and coaches associated with the team. It’s mesmerizing viewing, especially if you loved watching Jordan put on a show. There may never be another team as riveting as these Chicago Bulls, and their story still resonates three decades later.
The Last Dance is streaming on Netflix.
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‘This Was the XFL’ (2016)
Almost any wrestling fan can tell you that former WWE owner Vince McMahon has never succeeded in any venture outside of sports entertainment. But in 2001, McMahon and NBC — which had recently been jilted by the NFL — teamed up to take on America’s favorite pastime with the XFL, a football league that incorporated some of WWE’s over-the-top elements.
This Was the XFL chronicles the disaster that followed, and the XFL’s subsequent demise after only a single season of play. Because this documentary was made in 2016, it doesn’t touch upon McMahon’s second XFL launch in 2020, which was an even bigger bust than the original one. But the story was far more interesting the first time.
This Was the XFL is streaming on Netflix.
‘Pelé’ (2021)
If you’ve ever wondered if soccer has an answer to Michael Jordan, it’s Pelé. Few fans in America knew Edson Arantes do Nascimento by his given name, but Pelé achieved international fame for the skills that made him a three-time World Cup winner for his native Brazil.
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Pelé takes on the daunting task of attempting to convey just how important its subject is to soccer. It covers a wide period of Pelé’s life, including his childhood and the last chapter of his career working with the New York Cosmos MLS team. Pelé wasn’t just a soccer player; he was an ambassador for the game who transcended sports. If you’ve never seen Pelé handle a ball or score, then you’re in for a treat. The archival footage of his games is a blast.
Pelé is streaming on Netflix.
‘This Magic Moment’ (2016)
Before Shaquille O’Neal came to the Los Angeles Lakers to win three out of his four NBA championships, he was drafted by the Orlando Magic and nearly started a dynasty on the East Coast. In 1993, Shaq was paired with Penny Hardaway, a gifted player who seemed destined for superstar status. Together, they made the Magic one of the most exciting teams of the mid-’90s.
This Magic Moment takes a look back at Shaq and Hardaway’s time together as teammates and explores the high hopes that everyone had for their shared success. The documentary also revisits the way their partnership dissolved and how the Magic’s dream of a dominant NBA championship run never came to pass.
This Magic Moment is streaming on Netflix.
