Football Documentaries: A Watchlist with a load of Premier League

A football trip to the Premier League is something special. But even when no matches are being played, no one has to miss out on the unique magic of England’s top tier, founded in 1992. In recent years, the world's strongest league has also caught the attention of TV producers. This has led to the creation of some truly remarkable football documentaries about England, other leagues, and legendary players. Perfect for a TV marathon, not just during international breaks. 

As a Sky viewer, I prefer to watch Premier League broadcasts in the original English commentary. It just feels more authentic. 

But even otherwise, my first click on the TV remote goes to Sky Premier League. The broadcaster for Germany and Austria regularly airs new football documentaries about England’s top league, which are also featured in the program during off-season periods.

“Premier League Stories” with Klopp and Co. 

These “Premier League Stories” (25 minutes) by Sky are truly worth watching, for example, “Klopp’s Champions – A Liverpool Love Story” about the first PL championship of the Liverpool Football Club in 2020, “Rovers Return – The House that Jack Built” about the sensational title win of the Blackburn Rovers in 1995 with investor Jack Walker, “Building a Home” with Daniel Levy and the construction of the impressive Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, or “Last Gasp,” about my personal greatest Premier League moment in 23 years, covering the last-minute championship of Manchester City in 2012 (“Oh no, he’s missed, no!”, Paul Merson / "Look at the frustration here!"). 

The first episode of “Sunderland Till I Die” begins in a sacred tone, a highly acclaimed football documentary on Netflix. 

“Merciful God,” the Anglican priest swears in the faithful, who, dressed in their red-and-white AFC jerseys, attend the service, “help us understand what football means to our community.”

The documentary provided the answers, produced from 2018 to 2024 in a total of three seasons, focusing, among other things, on the collapse of the ‘Black Cats’ from the Premier League to the third-tier Football League One. 

With deep emotion, striking images, and gripping match clips. “Sunderland – absolutely shattered,” feared the reporter after the 1-2 loss against Charlton Athletic in the 2019 playoff final for the Championship at Wembley. 

The football documentaries produced by Netflix—covering players like Ángel Di María, who was once pushed out of Real Madrid through the back door and moved to Manchester United, or Argentina’s idol Diego Armando Maradona (†2020) and his bizarre final coaching job in Mexico, or “World-Class Captains” at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar—utilize the subtle power of visuals. Cinema is therapy for the soul. 

Football Documentaries on Netflix about David Beckham – Past and Present

The same goes for the four-part Netflix football series from 2023 about one of the greatest English players of all time: David Robert Joseph Beckham, who will celebrate his 50th birthday on May 2, 2025. 

Just the first episode, “The Kick,” revives the magic of the Premier League in the 1990s, when this league, thanks to established stars like Eric Cantona or Alan Shearer, but also young wild talents like Beckham or Liverpool’s Michael Owen, saw a meteoric rise to become a massive fan favorite. 

That “The Kick” made it into the BBC Evening News was not commonplace in 1996. Of course, “The Kick” refers to the goal that instantly turned David Beckham into a star—on August 17, 1996, at the season opener for FC Wimbledon (3-0) at Selhurst Park Stadium in London, from a distance of 50 meters. “I looked over at the coach (Sir Alexander Chapman Ferguson, back then not yet a ‘Sir’, ed.),” Beckham recalls on Netflix, “because if you try something like that—like Jordi Cruyff did before—and it doesn’t work, you knew he was going to kill you.” He didn’t. David Beckham, then still a mischievous kid, later grinned cheekily from his parents’ brick row house, Ted and Sandra. 

Music from Primal Scream underscores Beckham’s formative years—making this English football documentary not just a trip down memory lane for nostalgic fans. 

Football Documentary Recommendations: All or Nothing with Pep Guardiola 

Bringing us back to the present is "All or Nothing," one of the best football documentaries on Amazon Prime, which followed the Premier League heavyweights Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur for an entire season.

Manchester City and Pep Guardiola not only won the Premier League title in 2017/2018 but also set the points record with 100 points and scored 106 goals. 

When Guardiola, in the locker room like a star conductor, wildly gestures and explains tactics in his charming English, stars like Ilkay Gündogan, Vincent Kompany (now coach at Bayern Munich), or Leroy Sané watch him in disbelief, as if he were a magician. 

And you quickly realize what his biographer Guillem Balagué meant in 2013 with the title of his book Another Way of Winning. Sometimes, winning alone is not enough! 

Perhaps the Guardiola biography as a reading tip for your vacation, the series as an "Editor's Pick," a recommendation from our editorial team. 

It thrives on the filmmakers' incredible proximity to Pep Guardiola and his team. The cameras are even rolling when Guardiola abandons refined Spanish vocabulary ("You're exhausted? F*** you!"). And of course, no documentary about Manchester City would be complete without the ultimate "Cityzens" superfan, musician and Oasis founder Noel Gallagher ("City was my first love, even before music, before my wife, before my kids."). 

Welcome to Wrexham: Lower-League British Football Meets Hollywood

New among these documentaries is "Welcome to Wrexham" (Sky / Disney+). The premise: "We’re buying a football club and aiming for the Premier League."

Actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney acquired a 95% stake in the Welsh club AFC Wrexham in November 2020—a club that had seen far better days. In the 1976 European Cup Winners' Cup, the Welsh underdogs reached the quarterfinals before being eliminated by eventual winners RSC Anderlecht (1-2 on aggregate), who then defeated West Ham United (4-2) in the final in Brussels. 

That was a long time ago. Today, the club from the North Welsh mining town of Wrexham plays in the third-tier Football League One, but in the age of streaming, viral marketing, and social media, things are different. "The first 18 episodes have turned the club into a global phenomenon," wrote Kicker Sports Magazine in October 2023, when the second season was being filmed.

Wrexham is cult. Also because a lot is shown in an unfiltered YouTube-style manner. For example, some of the fans’ insults, who aren’t too happy with the fourth-tier situation. "They call me the redheaded w****r," revealed former Wrexham midfielder Christian Dibble. "We’re not cutting that out—this is football, after all…"

The two Hollywood stars also take the film crew to their roots in US sports, visiting reigning Super Bowl champions Philadelphia Eagles, where Rob McElhenney ("It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia") has been a regular in the stands since childhood. 

Speaking of stands, David Beckham also joins the Wrexham owners at a cup match in Wembley Stadium—and looks surprised when Reynolds, unfamiliar with the rules, celebrates an offside goal…

By the way, Rob McElhenney got into football through the recommendation of "Sunderland 'Til I Die"—and was immediately captivated by the story.