Film

Diego Maradona

Asif Kapadia's archive-only style turns five hundred hours of raw footage into a Greek tragedy in football boots. No narration, no talking heads — just Maradona's own voice over a soundtrack that makes Naples feel like both paradise and cage. Exhilarating and uncomfortable by turns, it's a portrait of genius consumed by the fame it created. For football obsessives, and anyone drawn to stories of brilliance eating itself alive.

TMDb rating7.4

If you liked this

Senna2010

Same director, same technique — immersive archive footage with no narration, following another doomed genius behind the wheel. This is the film that invented the language Kapadia perfected here, gentler but no less devastating.

But Racing may not grip you the way football does, and its pacing is calmer than Maradona's volcanic story.

Senna poster

Amy2015

Kapadia's other masterpiece, tracing Amy Winehouse's rise and collapse with the same unflinching intimacy and refusal to look away from the wreckage fame leaves behind.

But It's sadder still, with none of Maradona's on-pitch euphoria to offset the fall — a heavier watch overall.

Amy poster

The Last Dance2020

Ten hours of Michael Jordan at his most competitive and complicated, told with the same fly-on-the-wall access and myth-making energy, if friendlier to its subject.

But Jordan had final cut approval, so it flatters where Maradona is brutally honest — expect polish over rawness.

The Last Dance poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Raging Bull1980

Both are portraits of a self-destructive sporting genius told at operatic scale — Raging Bull is the fictional blueprint for the tragic arc Kapadia later builds from real footage.

Scorsese's black-and-white opera about boxer Jake LaMotta got there first — a genius devoured by his own appetites, shot with the same operatic intensity Kapadia brings to Naples decades later.

But It's scripted drama, not documentary, and De Niro's LaMotta is even less likeable than Maradona at his worst.

Raging Bull poster
More like this (8)

O.J.: Made in America2016

An epic, forensic study of a sporting god turned national reckoning, asking the same question about how fame curdles into catastrophe, at even greater scale.

But Nearly eight hours long, and the subject matter turns considerably darker and more legally fraught.

O.J.: Made in America poster

Icarus2017

Starts as a personal doping experiment and spirals into a geopolitical thriller about Russian sports corruption — the same institutional rot lurking behind sporting glory.

But It's colder and more about systems than psyche; there's no single tragic figure to mourn.

Icarus poster

Free Solo2018

Different sport, different obsession, same underlying question: what does it cost to be the best in the world at something impossible?

But Suspenseful rather than tragic — the danger here is physical, not the slow burn of self-destruction.

Free Solo poster

Weiner2016

Extraordinary access to a public figure's collapse in real time, the same vertiginous feeling of watching someone destroy themselves while the cameras keep rolling.

But Politics instead of sport, and the subject is far less sympathetic — there's no genius here to grieve for.

Weiner poster

Whitney2018

A companion piece to Amy — another superstar consumed by the machine around her, built from the same unsparing archival approach and aching sense of inevitability.

But Structurally very close to Amy; watched back to back, the format starts to feel familiar.

Whitney poster

The Two Escobars2010

Football and cartel violence collide in Colombia, echoing the Camorra shadows around Maradona's Naples years — the same uneasy marriage of the beautiful game and organised crime.

But It's more concerned with a country's entanglement with crime than with one man's inner unraveling.

The Two Escobars poster

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present2012no page yet

Both examine what happens when a person becomes inseparable from their own myth, facing a crowd that needs them to keep performing greatness on demand.

Swap the pitch for a gallery and the crowd's worship for artistic devotion, and you get the same story: a performer who turns their whole life into spectacle, and the loneliness that follows.

But No football, no drugs, no scandal — if you're after more of Maradona's specific chaos, this quieter art-world story won't scratch that itch.

Beyond the Mat1999

Same subject in a trashier register — performers ground down by the very spectacle that made them adored, minus the prestige budget or the reverence.

A trashier, scrappier cousin — pro wrestling's own unvarnished documentary about broken bodies, addiction, and the terrifying gap between the character and the man wearing it.

But Rougher production values and a far less glamorous world; this is DIY documentary-making, not Kapadia's polished archival craft.

Beyond the Mat poster

People

Cast

Directing

Production

Recommended by