The best boxing stories have always been bigger than the fights themselves. Poverty, race, redemption, corruption, the weight of being the baddest man alive — all of it lives in the documentary record of this sport. These are the boxing documentaries worth your time, and where to find them right now.
When We Were Kings (1996)
The gold standard. Leon Gast’s Oscar-winning film covers the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. It took Gast over 20 years to finish it. The result is the greatest sports documentary ever made — not just boxing, all of sports. Ali’s rope-a-dope strategy, the cultural context of two Black American heavyweights fighting in Africa, the concert featuring James Brown and B.B. King, and the sheer audacity of Ali’s belief that he could beat a man who’d destroyed Joe Frazier and Ken Norton. If you’ve never seen it, start here.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video (rent/buy), Apple TV, YouTube (rent/buy)
Tyson (2008)
James Toback lets Mike Tyson tell his own story — no interviewer, no narrator, just Tyson talking directly into the camera. The result is uncomfortably intimate. Tyson’s childhood in Brownsville, his relationship with Cus D’Amato, the destruction of his career and personal life, and the raw self-awareness of a man who understands exactly what he became. Whether you love Tyson or hate him, you’ve never heard him like this.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video (rent/buy), Apple TV, Tubi (free)
Assault in the Ring (2008)
The darkest boxing documentary ever made. On June 16, 1983, at Madison Square Garden, Luis Resto upset Billy Collins Jr. in a 10-round unanimous decision. After the fight, Resto’s gloves were found to have the padding removed. Collins suffered career-ending eye injuries. Nine months later, he was dead in a car accident. Resto and trainer Panama Lewis went to prison. Director Eric Drath — a former boxing manager — tracked down Resto decades later and got him to admit on camera that his hands had been wrapped in plaster of paris. The footage of Resto confronting Collins’ family is almost unwatchable. This is the documentary you show someone who thinks boxing corruption is just bad judging.
Where to watch: Tubi (free), Amazon Prime Video (rent/buy), Apple TV
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004)
Ken Burns directs this four-hour film about Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight champion of the world. Johnson won the title in 1908 and spent the next decade being hunted by a country that couldn’t accept a Black man who fought white men, dated white women, and refused to be humble about any of it. The Mann Act conviction, the racist violence that erupted after Johnson beat Jim Jeffries on July 4, 1910, and the way America systematically destroyed a man for being unapologetically himself. Essential viewing for understanding how boxing and race have been inseparable from the start.
Where to watch: PBS (free with PBS app), Amazon Prime Video (rent/buy)
Muhammad Ali (2021)
Ken Burns again, this time a four-part miniseries covering Ali’s entire life. Eight hours. 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is the most comprehensive Ali documentary that exists — not just the fights, but the Nation of Islam, the draft refusal, the exile years, the comeback, the decline, and the Parkinson’s. It doesn’t mythologize Ali the way most films do. It shows the full man, including the parts that were hard to watch.
Where to watch: PBS (free with PBS app), Amazon Prime Video
Champs (2015)
Director Bert Marcus profiles three fighters — Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, and Bernard Hopkins — through the lens of poverty, race, and what the sport takes from the men who give everything to it. Mark Wahlberg, Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, 50 Cent, and Mary J. Blige all appear. The film’s real argument is that boxing exploits its fighters the same way America exploits its poorest citizens. Heavy subject matter made accessible by three men who lived it.
Where to watch: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video (rent/buy)
Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen (2025)
Netflix’s six-episode docuseries produced by Box to Box Films — the same team behind Formula 1: Drive to Survive. Cameras follow Eddie Hearn and the Matchroom Sport empire with full access. Anthony Joshua, Conor Benn, Katie Taylor, and appearances from Luke Littler and Ronnie O’Sullivan. It’s the first real behind-the-scenes look at how a modern boxing promotional company actually operates — the deal-making, the family politics, the pressure of putting on mega-events. If you want to understand the business side of boxing in 2025, this is it.
Where to watch: Netflix
No Más (2013)
The story behind one of the most famous moments in boxing history — Roberto Durán quitting on his stool against Sugar Ray Leonard in the eighth round of their 1980 rematch. “No más.” Two words that defined a fighter’s legacy forever. Director Eric Drath (same director as Assault in the Ring) reconstructs the fight, the rivalry, and the cultural war between Leonard’s polished American charisma and Durán’s Panamanian ferocity. What actually happened in that corner? Durán’s explanation, decades later, is more complicated than the legend.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video (rent/buy), Apple TV
CounterPunch (2017)
A Netflix original that follows three fighters at different stages — a teenager just entering the sport, an amateur chasing Olympic gold, and a former world champion trying to come back. Director Jay Bulger, a former amateur boxer himself, uses these three stories to paint a picture of what boxing looks like in modern America. The neighborhood gyms closing, the money drying up, the kids choosing football and basketball instead. It’s not about legends. It’s about the sport right now.
Where to watch: Netflix
The Good Son: The Life of Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini (2013)
Ray Mancini fought to fulfill his father’s dream of a world title. He won the WBA lightweight belt and became one of the most popular fighters of the 1980s. Then he fought Duk Koo Kim. Kim died from injuries sustained in the fight. That tragedy — and its aftermath, including Kim’s mother’s suicide — changed boxing forever. Championship fights went from 15 rounds to 12 because of what happened that night. Mancini carried the weight of it for decades. Sugar Ray Leonard, Mickey Rourke, and others provide commentary, but this is Mancini’s story, told with the kind of honesty that only comes from a man who has spent a lifetime processing grief.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video (rent/buy), Apple TV
I Am Durán (2019)
A feature-length documentary on Roberto Durán’s life and legacy, from the streets of Panama to four world titles across four weight classes. Cameos from Oscar De La Hoya, Robert De Niro, and Sylvester Stallone. Durán’s story is one of the greatest in combat sports — he went from stealing mangoes as a kid in Chorillo to becoming one of the most feared fighters who ever lived. The film covers his entire arc, including the “No Más” fight and the comeback that followed.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video (rent/buy), Apple TV
Klitschko (2011)
The story of Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko — brothers raised as sons of a Soviet military officer, trained across multiple countries after the collapse of the USSR, and eventually both heavyweight world champions. The documentary covers their childhood near Chernobyl, their journey from Ukraine to global stardom, and the bond between two brothers who agreed never to fight each other. Larry Merchant and Lennox Lewis appear. Even if you’re not a Klitschko fan, the human story is compelling.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video (rent/buy), Apple TV
Ali-Frazier I: One Nation… Divisible (2000)
An HBO documentary focused specifically on the first Ali-Frazier fight at Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971 — the Fight of the Century. The film goes beyond the boxing to examine what the fight meant to America. Ali represented liberals, anti-war activists, and Black militancy. Frazier represented the establishment, the working class, and anyone who thought Ali was a draft-dodging loudmouth. The country literally divided itself along those lines for one night. The boxing was historic. The cultural context made it seismic.
Where to watch: Tubi (free, via HBO Boxing FAST channel), Max
Legendary Nights: The Tale of Gatti-Ward (2013)
HBO’s retrospective on the Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward trilogy — three fights between 2002 and 2003 that produced some of the most brutal, entertaining rounds in boxing history. These weren’t title fights. These were two tough guys who refused to go down. The first fight is regularly cited as the best fight of the decade. Gatti-Ward is the trilogy you show someone who asks why people watch boxing.
Where to watch: Tubi (free, via HBO Boxing FAST channel), Max
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston (2019)
Sonny Liston’s story might be the most tragic in boxing history. A man born into poverty with a violent upbringing, controlled by the mob, and hated by a public that saw him as a thug. He won the heavyweight title and nobody celebrated. He lost it to Ali and became a punchline. He died alone in Las Vegas under circumstances that have never been fully explained. This documentary tries to give Liston the humanity he was denied in life.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video (rent/buy), Apple TV
The Free Library
You don’t need a subscription to watch great boxing content. HBO’s fight library — including episodes of the 24/7 series and classic bouts from World Championship Boxing and Boxing After Dark — is now available as a free FAST channel on Tubi. DAZN Ringside runs boxing documentaries and highlights on Tubi as well. ProBox TV streams boxing content free around the clock. And YouTube remains one of the best sources for full fight replays, press conferences, and archival footage from DAZN, Golden Boy, and PBC.
The sport’s documentary record is as deep as its fight record. These films tell you something the scorecards can’t.
