must-watch Netflix – With NBA playoff season heating up, Netflix is pulling viewers into everything from Lamar Odom’s near-fatal overdose story and the Portland Trail Blazers’ “Jail Blazers” era to Olympic heartbreak, soccer greatness, and even the rise-and-fall of the original XF
Playoff season has a way of turning even the most casual sports watcher into someone who wants more—more lore, more drama, more stories behind the highlights. In June 2026, Netflix’s sports documentary ranks are showing just how much appetite there is for that deeper dive.
Untold has two new entries near the top: Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom. revisiting one of the NBA’s biggest stories from more than a decade ago. and Untold: Jail Blazers. which goes back even further and has already cracked the top 10 movies on Netflix. If you’re looking for a full binge slate. here’s a set of must-watch sports documentaries currently streaming on Netflix.
Untold: Jail Blazers (2026)
The Jail Blazers nickname was given to the Portland Trail Blazers in the early 2000s after the team’s players earned a reputation for trouble with the law. Rasheed Wallace and Damon Stoudamire’s marijuana possession is one part of the story. But the documentary also points to Qyntel Woods’ dog fights and Ruben Patterson’s sexual assault conviction.
Untold: Jail Blazers gives some of the so-called Jail Blazers a chance to tell their own side, with memories that track how a once-supportive Portland swung the other way as the legal problems mounted. The result is a specific, uneasy chapter in team history that likely won’t be repeated.
Untold: Jail Blazers is streaming on Netflix.
Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom (2026)
Lamar Odom’s basketball rise to prominence is clear on the record—he won two NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers. He also became even more famous after marrying Khloé Kardashian. But the documentary frames what came next as the beginning of something far bigger than sports.
Netflix’s Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom premiered Tuesday, March 31. The film follows Odom’s life leading up to his marriage to Kardashian, and then the period after their nuptials. Kardashian, in the documentary, offers a candid interview about Odom’s “monstrous” drug use, his infidelity, and their divorce.
The documentary also revisits Odom’s infamous overdose in a brothel that nearly killed him. Over a decade later, he’s still telling his story.
Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom is streaming on Netflix.
Koshien: Japan’s Field of Dreams (2020)
Japan’s baseball obsession traces back to the late 19th century. and the documentary leans into that cultural weight. Koshien: Japan’s Field of Dreams follows two high school baseball coaches—Hiroshi Sasaki and his mentor. Tetsuya Mizutani—as they compete to lead their respective teams to the 100th annual Koshien baseball tournament.
Sasaki, previously a coach for all-star players like Shohei Ohtani, is willing to break with some of Japan’s rigid baseball traditions. Still, both coaches and their players treat the game with a gravitas that feels rare beyond major-league stadium lights.
Koshien: Japan’s Field of Dreams is streaming on Netflix.
Muscles and Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators (2023)
American Gladiators started as something less straightforward than a pure competition show—sports-adjacent. in the way early extreme sports could be. with teams of ordinary athletes recruited to test themselves against the “gladiators.” Those gladiators were physical specimens built for outlandish games. and the format took off in the ’90s.
Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators looks back at how the public-facing stars grew. and how the productions pushed back when more gladiators were needed. It also confirms what many fans suspected: drug-fueled and steroid excesses that drove people to push their bodies to the limit.
Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators is streaming on Netflix.
Miracle: The Boys of ’80 (2026)
In the United States, the 1980 Winter Olympics event is remembered for the Miracle on Ice. Team USA’s college players defeated the Soviet Union’s team of professionals and then went on to win the gold in the final round.
Miracle: The Boys of ’80 is Netflix’s look back at that snapshot in time—sports first, but also the nation around it. Coach Herb Brooks had died more than two decades before the documentary was made, but his children help paint a portrait of a man driven to beat the Soviet team “at all costs.”
The players remain front and center with their first-hand accounts of what it was like to be part of the moment. With Team USA’s Men’s Hockey team recently winning the Olympic Gold medal, the documentary has new relevance.
Miracle: The Boys of ’80 is streaming on Netflix.
Glitter and Gold: Ice Dancing (2026)
A scoring controversy erupted at the 2026 Winter Olympics. The French team of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron upset Team USA’s Madison Chock and Evan Bates to take the gold medal.
Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing follows the backstory behind those pairs—told in a way that turns a moment on the world stage into something with context and consequences. The documentary is laid out in three episodes. with Chock and Bates presented as a married couple likely competing in their last Olympics. and Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron as a more recent pairing. The French team’s other skeletons in the closet are also touched on.
Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing is streaming on Netflix.
Elway (2025)
John Elway was the first quarterback to lead his team to five Super Bowl appearances. He was also mocked for coming up short in the first three before his career ended with back-to-back NFL Championships.
In Elway, the quarterback tells his own story, moving from the highs to the lows. Former teammates and contemporaries add their perspectives, but the film saves a deeper look for later, when Elway opens up about the toll his competitive drive took on himself and his family.
Elway is streaming on Netflix.
Scotty James: Pipe Dream (2025)
For a snowboarding documentary, it’s hard to imagine a better fit than one centered on Scotty James, especially when the film is built around a rise to glory and what may be his final Winter Olympics as a professional.
The documentary shows James’s close relationship with his siblings, and also highlights his wife, Chloe Stroll, and their son, Leo. The support system is a major through-line—clear, heartfelt, and tied to the film’s message that James likely wouldn’t have reached the same heights without them.
Scotty James: Pipe Dream is streaming on Netflix.
Untold: Shooting Guards (2025)
Untold: Shooting Guards takes its title from a December 21. 2009 incident involving Washington Wizards teammates Javaris Crittenton and Gilbert Arenas. During a heated argument in the locker room. the two pulled guns on each other—an episode that remains one of the most shocking incidents in NBA history.
The documentary features interviews that shed new light on what happened that day and on what came after. Neither man is presented as walking away completely unscathed, but only one later faced accusations of murder and stood trial on a charge that could send him away for decades.
Untold: Shooting Guards is streaming on Netflix.
Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist (2022)
No matter what Manti Teʻo does in his post-football life, the fake girlfriend story still follows him. Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist retells it—and then turns it inside out.
When Teʻo was a favored college prospect to make the NFL, he told the media and the entire world that his girlfriend was dead and that he was dedicating his season to her. The twist: the girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, wasn’t dead because she wasn’t alive—because she was never real.
The ruse was created by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo. Teʻo believed he had a girlfriend called Lennay, and the documentary shows how that one catfishing scheme spiraled out of control.
Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist is streaming on Netflix.
America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys (2025)
Who made the Dallas Cowboys America’s team? Not Jerry Jones, who purchased the organization in 1989. The documentary instead ties that nickname to his era, and then lays out how his tenure began.
America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys is a multi-episode documentary chronicling Jones’ time as owner, beginning with the controversial firing of Coach Tom Landry. Jones then hired his college teammate, Jimmy Johnson, to replace him.
The series largely lets Jones shape the narrative about the earliest years running the team. along with his falling out with Johnson despite winning two Super Bowls together. It isn’t presented as objective. but it remains packed with footage of Cowboys team action with Hall of Fame legends like Troy Aikman. Emmitt Smith. and Michael Irvin.
America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys is streaming on Netflix.
Who Killed the Montreal Expos? (2025)
The trailer for Who Killed the Montreal Expos? frames the question like a game of Clue: “Lots of motives. Lots of suspects.”
The story itself starts with the mid-’90s when the Montreal Expos fielded one of the best teams in baseball. Then, it all went downhill. The documentary also covers the business pressure on the franchise: in the battle to keep baseball alive in Montreal. MLB collectively owned the Expos before what was left of the team moved to Washington. D.C. and rebranded as the Washington Nationals.
Former Expos players Vladimir Guerrero Sr., Larry Walker, Pedro Martinez, and others in and around the organization appear with first-hand looks at the team’s downfall. The film lands as a cautionary tale in sports, with the question of whether the owners involved actually learned the lessons.
Who Killed the Montreal Expos? is streaming on Netflix.
SEC Football: Any Given Saturday (2025)
College football and the NFL may share the same sport, but college brings its own brand of drama and personalities. SEC Football: Any Given Saturday works as a primer more than a full explanation of what the season entails.
Each episode puts the focus on a team from the SEC, one of the top divisions in college football. Coaches drive much of the narrative, while behind-the-scenes footage and game clips keep the week-to-week football fix coming.
SEC Football: Any Given Saturday is streaming on Netflix.
Celtics/Lakers: The Best of Enemies (2017)
Rivalries exist across the NBA, but the Celtics and Lakers are different—rooted in decades of history, and fueled by long stretches of domination from Boston with era-defining victories from Los Angeles.
Celtics/Lakers: The Best of Enemies is a 30 for 30 three-part documentary series. Donnie Wahlberg narrates the Boston side, while Ice Cube handles the Lakers story, and both trade barbs along the way. Much of the series focuses on the famous battles between Larry Bird’s Celtics and Magic Johnson’s Lakers. but the documentary also looks beyond individual players—portraying how the two teams set the tone for roughly the last 40 years of basketball.
The series still resonates because, even today, they’re hated rivals.
Celtics/Lakers: The Best of Enemies is streaming on Netflix.
The Last Dance (2020)
The Chicago Bulls of the late ’90s had larger-than-life personalities that few sports films can ever replicate. The documentary’s cast includes coach Phil Jackson. Scottie Pippen. Dennis Rodman. and the iconic Michael Jordan—along with a personal nemesis in Bulls General Manager Jerry Krause. who declared the 1997–98 season would be their final run together.
The Last Dance focuses primarily on the Bulls’ final championship campaign, with frequent flashbacks to the history of Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, and other players and coaches tied to the team. The film’s impact still holds up three decades later.
The Last Dance is streaming on Netflix.
This Was the XFL (2016)
Wrestling fans know Vince McMahon didn’t exactly knock it out of the park in ventures outside sports entertainment. But in 2001, McMahon and NBC—after NBC had been jilted by the NFL—teamed up to take on football with the XFL.
This was the XFL, a league that incorporated elements that echoed WWE’s over-the-top style. The documentary chronicles the disaster that followed and the league’s demise after just one season.
Because this documentary was made in 2016, it doesn’t cover McMahon’s second XFL launch in 2020, which is described as an even bigger bust than the original.
This Was the XFL is streaming on Netflix.
Pelé (2021)
If soccer ever needed an answer to Michael Jordan, it’s Pelé. The documentary centers Edson Arantes do Nascimento—better known simply as Pelé—capturing the leap from a name few Americans knew to an international figure who was a three-time World Cup winner for Brazil.
Pelé attempts to convey why the subject mattered so much, covering a broad period of his life. It includes his childhood and the last chapter of his career working with the New York Cosmos MLS team. The film frames him as more than a player—an ambassador who transcended sports. If you’ve never seen him handle a ball or score, the documentary leans heavily on the archival footage.
Pelé is streaming on Netflix.
This Magic Moment (2016)
Shaquille O’Neal didn’t start his NBA championship run in Los Angeles. Before coming to the Lakers, he was drafted by the Orlando Magic and was paired with Penny Hardaway in 1993.
Together, they were meant to spark something special on the East Coast. This Magic Moment revisits their time as teammates, including the high hopes everyone had for their shared success. It also returns to how the 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.
Netflix sports documentaries Untold The Death & Life of Lamar Odom Untold Jail Blazers sports docs June 2026 Miracle: The Boys of ’80 Glitter & Gold Ice Dancing Elway Scotty James Pipe Dream Pelé The Last Dance America’s Team The Gambler and His Cowboys
Netflix really loves turning everything into a drama doc huh.
I watched the Lamar Odom one but I swear it was way more intense than I expected. Like I don’t even follow the NBA and I still got sucked in. Is the Portland one gonna be just as dark or what?
Wait so the “Jail Blazers” thing was literally about them going to jail during the playoff season? I thought it was just a rumor they made up for ratings. Also didn’t Netflix already do an Odom doc like last year? Feels like they recycle the same stories.
18 documentaries is a lot, but I’m confused because the article jumps around like Olympic heartbreak and soccer greatness… are those even real sports docs or like fake motivational stuff? If it’s all “Untold” I mean okay, but I wish they’d focus on the actual games not the behind-the-scenes drama. Still, I’ll probably binge it anyway because that’s what they want.