The origins ofactionsportslay in the work of stunt performers of yesteryear, as performers like Evel Knievel gave way to a new generation combining board sports, climbing, and skydiving into some of the world’s most dangerous feats. By the 1970s, skiing, snowboarding, parachuting and climbing were allmoving into uncharted territories— and the necessity to document these pursuits became paramount in bringing them to the masses. In the process, filmmaking innovators have hoisted their cameras up mountainsides, dangled from helicopters, and dipped underwater to examine these disciplines.
As a burgeoning industry has emerged from a wider interest in activities like skateboarding and snowboarding, icons have emerged to levels of fame once reached only bytop athletes in major team sports. Luminaries like Tony Hawk, Travis Pastrana, and Alex Honnold have utilized new avenues like the X-Games, a massive economy built by energy drink companies, and a public thirst for stunts that are bigger, faster and more perilous than ever before. In the process, they’ve provided perfect fodder for documentary filmmaking, often because of the breathtaking outdoor environments inhabited by action sports practitioners. As a result, film audiences may have benefited more than anyone from this newfound glory.
The following are eleven thrilling action sportsdocumentaries.
11Sunshine Superman
The life and dramatic exploits of one Carl Boenish are covered in the 2014 documentarySunshine Superman. Boenish, considered the father of BASE jumping, sets off on a record setting career in the film, leaping from sheer cliff faces everywhere from Yosemite National Park to the death-defying precipices of the Troll Wall in Norway. All the while Boenish is innovating aerial cinematography, and his own footage provides a visual feast for audiences.
Director Marah Strauch reminds the viewer throughout the film of a looming catastrophe, and by the film’s final act, an unsettling feeling begins to usurp the exhilaration of one of the most life-threatening pursuits in all of action sports.
10Dear Rider
If you grew up in the 1980s and spent time around ski resorts, you know how abhorred the presence of snowboards once was in these privileged climes. Ever the maverick, Jake Burton Carpenter — founder of the now-ubiquitous Burton Snowboards — sets off on a mission to bring the excitement of surfing and skateboarding to the slopes inDear Rider. At first his laminated creations are quite clunky and run into plenty of opposition, even outright banishment in some places.
Undeterred, Burton begins a rivalry with another action sports pioneer, Tom Sims, to make a single plank the preferred mode of descent on snowy mountains the world over. By the turn of the century, Burton Snowboards has grown into an empire, as the skiers gradually become the ones who are outnumbered. For all his achievements,Burton still faces his greatest challenge late in life — cancer.
As if extreme skiing and BASE jumping weren’t dangerous enough on their own, Shane McConkey thought he’d go ahead and combine the two — plotting insane stunts that involve skiing off sheer cliff faces then deploying a parachute in ways that nobody had, at the time, ever attempted.
InMcConkey, Red Bull Media House explores the insatiable desire of certain action sports athletes to push the envelope — with Shane weighing the risks of attempting these death-defying feats with a family at home. The film takes a deep dive into that duality, interviewing the likes of action sports luminaries Tony Hawk and Travis Pastrana to examine why these athletes have so much trouble hanging up their careers as they enter middle age.
8Dogtown and Z-Boys
As much as some skaters would rather not acknowledge it — skateboarding comes from surfing. The link between the two came in the 1970s, as skateboarding pioneers like Tony Alva and Jay Adams emulated the unique style of surfer Larry Bertlemann by finding asphalt embankments on the schoolyards of Los Angeles and using them like waves.
Skateboarding legend Stacy Peralta examines this transitional period inDogtown and Z-Boys,complete with narration from Sean Penn, showing how a small group of teenagers from Venice and Santa Monica brought surfing to the street — and then to empty swimming pools. In the process, their impact on all facets of West Coast culture and style becomes the stuff of legend, as skateboarding grows from an outlaw pursuit to what it is today — one of the largest action sports industries on Planet Earth.
7The Art of Flight
Another breathtaking submission from Red Bull Media House,The Art of Flightcombines groundbreaking cinematography, inspirational music from M83, and the deft snowboarding skills of Mark Landvik, Bjorn Leines, and Scotty Lago to create an immersive film experience.Heli-snowboarding Alaskan glaciers? Check. Battling avalanches in remote areas where rescues are near-impossible? Check. Enjoying lives more intrepid than most normal earthlings will ever hope to experience? Check.The Art of Flighthas it all — not only a great introduction to snowboarding for anyone interested in the endeavor, but a documentary film that pushes the limits of where a camera can go.
6Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator
Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gatorcenters around the life of Mark “Gator” Rogowski, who comes to prominence at the height of skateboarding’s 80s popularity. Gator becomes an iconic presence in the sport, leading a rock star lifestyle and traveling the world, as sales from his popular pro model board first make him rich, then fuel a lifestyle rife with substance abuse and danger. As skateboarding’s popularity wanes, so do Gator’s skills as his lifestyle begins to sppin out of control. At Gator’s lowest point, the documentary turnsfrom cautionary tale to true crime— as Gator commits an unspeakable crime and goes on the lam.
An enormous part of all action sports is pushing the limits of what is possible — usually risking injury or death in the process.Meruis a 2015 documentary film chronicling the first ascent of the “Shark’s Fin” route on Meru Peak in the Indian Himalayas. Climbing legend Jimmy Chin and his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi document the enormous planning effort and attempted execution of these intrepid feats.
Chin and his climbing partners Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk make two attempts at the ascent in the film, battling life-threatening consequences and a few catastrophes along the way. The cinematography is next level, leaving the viewer often scratching their head as to how some of these shots were achieved under such dire conditions. For his efforts, Chin won the U.S. Audience Documentary Award at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
4Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off
When the Birdman talks, be sure to listen — as Tony Hawk has been at the forefront of action sports since 20 years prior to the first X-Games. HBO’s doc,Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off, examines how a tempestuous relationship with his father, Frank Hawk, drove the skateboarding icon to become the sport’s greatest vertical innovator. Hawk overcomes his small, lanky frame — as well as unrelenting bullying at contests and skateparks — to become the crown jewel in the Bones Brigade.
As the sport takes a downturn in the 90s and Hawk has a family to feed, he nearly fades into obscurity, before the X-Games and his white whale skate maneuver, the 900, launch him to global fame.An enormously popular video game makes him a fortune, but that isn’t enough to assuage his desire to still skate — as he’s now spinning above the coping into his late-fifties — often with concussive consequence.
3Free Solo
Alex Honnold has become the preeminent free climber of the 21st Century through sheer will and a complete lack of capacity for fear.Free Solopeers into his launch from unknown man-in-a-van in the Yosemite Valley to a climber notching off one record speed climb after another. Honnold appears to be a real life Spider-Man, but that doesn’t stop his climbing colleagues and loved ones from fearing that Honnold might suffer the same fate as some of his forebears — as the danger of climbing without ropes needs no explanation.
2The Alpinist
Even Alex Honnold has climbers that he is completely in awe of — and the subject ofThe Alpinist, Marc Andre Leclerc, may be the most dumbfounding of them. Unlike Honnold, Leclerc shies away from the camera — as his solo climbs (which often combine ice climbing and rock climbing) become the stuff of legend.
The film traces his origins from a single parent household in Canada to a mainstay in Yosemite’s climbing scene, before disappearing to remote regions to make unfathomable climbs. Along the way Marc falls in love with a fellow climber,and brushes with death on numerous occasions— as when a snowstorm batters an ice peak while he’s sleeping in a suspended tent mid-climb. The film does well to examine the completely different brain-wiring of these types of athletes, and the pitfalls of toying with death.
