Spirit of the Games

May 1, 1996

2h 0m

★ 5.0

Overview

Documentary examines the history and evolution of the Olympic Games, taking a close look at the Olympic charter, oath and ideals. Also featured are rare home movies and interviews with Olympic athletes and the oldest known color footage of the Olympic Games from Berlin in 1936.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Black Canyon Productions

HBO

HBO Sports

Spirit of the Games Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Himself

Bob Mathias

Himself

Bob Richards

Himself

Al Oerter

Herself

Mae Faggs

Himself

Bob Kurland

Himself

Sammy Lee

Herself

Patricia Mccormick

Narrator

Liev Schreiber

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

6.7

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty

Jun 2, 1938

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.

6.0

13 Days in France

Sep 27, 1968

This colorful documentary chronicles the events of the 1968 Winter Olympics in France. The events made international celebrities of skater Peggy Fleming and skier Jean-Claude Killy for their gold-medal performances. The camera accurately catches the speed of bobsleds and downhill racers and ski jumpers as they race for the gold. President Charles DeGaulle is shown observing the action over 13 days, which saw France earn the best performance to date in the winter games.

5.8

Prinzessinnenbad

May 31, 2007

A film about three teenagers - Klara, Mina and Tanutscha - from the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. The trio have known each other since Kindergarten and have plenty in common. The three 15-year-olds are the best of friends; they are spending the summer at Prinzenbad, a large open-air swimming pool at the heart of the district where they live. They're feeling pretty grown up, and are convinced they've now left their childhood behind.

0.0

Berlin Utopiekadaver

Apr 25, 2024

A taxi drives through the city of Berlin. Its driver is a punk, left and a well-known figure in the autonomous scene. The stations of his trip are the most important places of the autonomous scene: all in the struggle for survival. The last evictions have not yet been processed and the next ones are coming right up.

0.0

I Don’t Want to Be Just a Memory

Feb 16, 2024

Berlin queer community members mourn the substance abuse-related loss of their friends by sharing memories and rituals. Resembling glow-in-the-dark fungi, they radiate light together as a network of support and care.

10.0

Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony

Feb 28, 2008

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.

4.2

Marathon

Jan 1, 1993

A documentary covering the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

6.0

Becoming Black

Oct 9, 2019

In the 1960s, a white couple living in East Germany tells their dark-skinned child that her skin color is merely a coincidence. As a teenager, she accidentally discovers the truth. Years before, a group of African men came to study in a village nearby. Sigrid, an East German woman, fell in love with Lucien from Togo and became pregnant. But she was already married to Armin. The child is Togolese-East German filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain. In interviews with Armin and others from her childhood years, she tracks the astonishing strategies of denial her parents, striving for normality, developed following her birth. What sounds like fieldwork about social dislocation becomes an autobiographical essay film and a reflection on themes such as identity, social norms and family ties, viewed from a very personal perspective.

6.3

Fight Without Hate

Dec 31, 1948

A documentary covering the 1948 Olympic Games in St. Moritz.

6.1

XIVth Olympiad: The Glory of Sport

Sep 19, 1948

A documentary covering the 1948 Olympic Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and London, England.

5.0

The VI Olympic Winter Games, Oslo 1952

Oct 30, 1952

A documentary covering the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway.

5.0

Where the World Meets

Nov 28, 1952

A first part of a documentary on the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki.

5.0

Gold and Glory

Mar 19, 1953

A second part of a documentary covering the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki.

5.0

Memories of the Olympic Summer of 1952

Jan 1, 1954

Documentary footage from the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki.

6.0

White Vertigo

Dec 31, 1956

A documentary covering the 1956 Olympic Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

6.1

Olympic Games 1956

Dec 31, 1956

A documentary covering the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne and Stockholm.

4.6

People, Hopes, Medals

Mar 14, 1960

A documentary covering the 1960 Winter Olympic Games in Squaw Valley, California.

5.2

IX Olympic Winter Games, Innsbruck 1964

May 30, 1964

A documentary on the 1964 Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria.

7.0

Tenório and the Dreams of Judo

Jul 8, 2021

Antônio Tenório and the Brazilian Paralympic Team are invited to a rare training camp in Japan. Passing through the main temples of Judo, our visually impaired athletes face the many challenges of training in an unknown country. The encounter with their Japanese hosts generates strangeness and difficulties, but also discoveries and joys. Step by step, these situations strengthen our athletes, who find themselves increasingly united. Led by the charisma and sensitivity of champion Tenório, a new generation of judo is revealed and inspired.