Finding good cycling documentaries has gotten complicated with all the streaming platforms fighting over content. As someone who’s been watching these films since VHS tape trading was the only option, I learned everything there is to know about what’s actually worth your time. Today, I will share it all with you.
Sometimes you just want cycling without committing to a four-hour stage broadcast. Docs give you concentrated storytelling — drama, history, personalities — all compressed into 90 minutes or less.
Netflix Options
Tour de France: Unchained (Multiple Seasons)
This behind-the-scenes series has become essential viewing for any serious fan. Following teams throughout July, it shows the drama, pressure, and personality clashes that TV coverage never captures.
Season one covered the 2022 Tour and Vingegaard’s breakthrough victory. Later seasons expanded access with more teams participating and cameras getting into increasingly intimate moments.
The team meetings where directors strategize against specific rivals are fascinating. Riders breaking down emotionally after bad stages. The logistics nightmare of managing eight riders across three weeks. That’s what makes this series endearing to us cycling obsessives — you finally see what happens when the cameras aren’t officially rolling.
Watch this if you want to understand the human dynamics beyond racing — team tensions, the emotional toll of Grand Tour competition, all of it.
Icarus (2017)
Started as a personal experiment in amateur doping and accidentally became one of the most important pieces of sports journalism ever produced. Director Bryan Fogel’s investigation led him straight to Grigory Rodchenkov, the Russian scientist at the center of state-sponsored doping.
Not exclusively about cycling, but the implications are enormous. Understanding systemic doping infrastructure helps explain how the sport’s darker eras actually operated at the institutional level.
Watch if you want to understand doping beyond the simple “cheaters gonna cheat” narrative.
Amazon Prime Video
The Least Expected Day (Multiple Seasons)
Amazon’s answer to Netflix’s Tour series, but focused on the Giro d’Italia and specific teams. Production quality holds up well, and the Giro’s inherent chaos provides different storytelling opportunities than the more controlled Tour.
More focus on individual rider stories here. Less corporate polish means rawer emotional moments. Great for understanding team approaches to the Giro specifically.
Worth watching if you’ve exhausted the Netflix series and want more behind-the-scenes Grand Tour content.
Eat. Race. Win.
Different angle entirely — this one focuses on the nutrition side of professional cycling, following the EF Education team’s chef during the Tour. If you’re into the marginal gains approach, it’s genuinely fascinating stuff.
Probably should have led with this section, honestly. The food content is more engaging than it sounds.
YouTube (Free)
Team-Produced Content
Teams increasingly make their own documentary content now. INEOS Grenadiers and EF Education have released substantial behind-the-scenes stuff on their channels. Quality varies, but access is often better than third-party docs because teams control their own footage.
EF Education’s alternative content — like their coverage of lesser races — often captures genuine moments that corporate documentaries completely miss.
GCN Archive Material
GCN has produced documentary-style content on cycling history, specific races, and rider profiles over the years. Lower production budget than Netflix, obviously, but the cycling knowledge runs deeper.
Their Monument race histories and rider retirement retrospectives are particularly well done.
Classic Race Uploads
Full broadcasts of historic Tours, Classics, and other races exist on YouTube in various legal gray areas. Want to watch Pantani attack on the Galibier in 1998 or Kelly win Paris-Roubaix in 1984? Searching usually works.
Specialty Streaming Finds
A Sunday in Hell (1976)
The greatest cycling documentary ever made, and it’s over 45 years old now. Danish filmmaker Jorgen Leth followed the 1976 Paris-Roubaix with unprecedented access, creating 110 minutes of pure cycling cinema.
Cobblestones, suffering, mechanical failures, the drama of racing across northern France in unpredictable weather — all captured in beautiful film footage.
Worth hunting for across whatever streaming services are available in your region.
Hell on Wheels (2015)
Follows the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team through a racing season. Captures the brutality of European professional cycling without the glossy production of more recent efforts.
Watch if you want unvarnished reality of team racing, including the less glamorous moments.
Quick Mentions
Slaying the Badger (2014): Documentary companion to the book, covering the LeMond-Hinault rivalry.
Rising from Ashes (2012): Rwandan cycling team story that goes beyond typical sports doc formula.
Blood Road (2017): Mountain biking documentary, but compelling adventure cycling content regardless.
What’s Still Missing
Surprisingly, there’s no definitive Eddy Merckx documentary that matches his historical significance. The Armstrong era got covered extensively but rarely well. The Pantani story remains largely unexplored in English-language form.
Cycling documentary space has plenty of room for growth. Until then, this list should keep you occupied through any off-season.
