Film

Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator

Stoked traces Mark 'Gator' Rogowski's vertical rise to skateboarding stardom in the 1980s and his catastrophic fall. It's a portrait of genius, addiction, and recklessness, built from interviews with the scene that knew him. Gripping and uncomfortable, it asks hard questions about talent, consequence, and redemption.

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The Fourth Protocol1987

A smart, tense thriller about surveillance and espionage in the Cold War's endgame. Michael Caine is at his best, and the moral questions about power and loyalty are genuinely complex.

But It's deliberately slow-burn and cerebral rather than action-packed, and the Soviet angle feels historical now in a way that dulls the immediacy.

The Fourth Protocol poster

Pumping Iron1977

The definitive documentary about bodybuilding's golden age, with young Arnold Schwarzenegger's personality is mesmerising. It captures obsession, ambition, and the culture around a niche sport with humour and respect.

But Extended shots of muscled bodies flexing aren't everyone's idea of compelling cinema, and the 70s production values feel dated.

Pumping Iron poster

The Crash Reel2013

A powerful documentary about snowboarder Kevin Pearce's recovery from a traumatic brain injury. It's intimate, moving, and as much about identity and purpose as it is about sports.

But The injury footage is genuinely difficult to watch, and the emotional weight can feel heavy for what you might expect from a sports doc.

The Crash Reel poster

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Before the Flood2016

Both are documents of 1980s skateboarding's peak, but Before the Flood captures the scene Gator dominated as it actually was—unguarded, chaotic, free of the redemption narrative that comes later.

A verité documentary following skateboard culture in Los Angeles in the early 80s, capturing the scene, the streets, and the genuine community before it became monetised. It's the uncurated reality Gator inhabited.

But There's no narrative arc or character study, just observation. The low video quality and loose structure feel more like raw footage than a finished film to some viewers.

Before the Flood poster
More like this (8)

Sunset Boulevard1950

Billy Wilder's masterpiece about a fading silent film star and the man she manipulates. Darkly funny and deeply tragic, it's the definitive story about fame's cruelty.

But It's a noir from 1950, so the pacing is deliberate and the worldview bleak. It's not here to comfort you.

Sunset Boulevard poster

The Battered Bastards of Baseball2014

A scrappy, joyful documentary about an independent baseball team made up of a family. It's David versus Goliath with real stakes, funny, warm, and genuinely inspiring.

But It's slight compared to grander sports documentaries, and the low-budget production shows. If you want lush cinematography, look elsewhere.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball poster

Hoop Dreams1994

A raw, three-hour examination of two basketball players and the systems that exploit young Black athletes. It's patient, complex, and devastating in its refusal to simplify.

But The length and structural ambition can feel slow, especially if you're looking for narrative closure rather than living observation.

Hoop Dreams poster

The Thin Blue Line1988

Errol Morris's elegant, hypnotic investigation into a murder conviction. It reinvented the documentary form and proves that storytelling can be both artistic and urgent.

But The style—rotoscoped animations, interviews, repetition—is mannered and takes getting used to if you want straightforward exposition.

The Thin Blue Line poster

Touching the Void2003

A mountaineer's account of surviving a crevasse fall in the Andes, told through interviews and dramatisation. The suspense is unbearable and the human will to survive is extraordinary.

But If heights make you queasy, the vertigo shots are genuinely unpleasant. Some find the dramatised sections disrupt the authenticity.

Touching the Void poster

The Last Waltz1978

Martin Scorsese's concert film of The Band's final show, capturing a specific moment in rock history with reverence and style. Beautiful to watch and hear.

But It's a music documentary from 1978, so if you don't connect with The Band or that era, the three-hour runtime tests patience.

The Last Waltz poster

Raging Bull1980

Both follow a natural athlete at the height of their power undone by their own nature—obsession, violence, and the inability to live outside the intensity that made them brilliant. Neither offers easy answers about genius and damage.

Scorsese's black-and-white portrait of boxer Jake LaMotta is brutal, beautiful, and unflinching about talent twisted by rage and self-destruction. It's cinema as art, not comfort.

But It's bleak, violent, and offers no catharsis. The black-and-white cinematography and glacial pacing are not for everyone. Jake LaMotta is repugnant throughout.

Raging Bull poster

The Punk Singer2013

Both Stoked and The Punk Singer examine countercultures at their moment of peak intensity, driven by charismatic figures whose personal trajectories become inseparable from the movement itself. The difference is medium and message, not structure.

Sini Anderson's documentary about Kathleen Hanna and Riot Grrrl captures a cultural moment when music and politics were inseparable, feminism was punk, and a movement changed everything from the underground up.

But If punk and 90s feminist politics bore you, it will feel remote. The film is affectionate rather than critical, and never interrogates its own mythology.

The Punk Singer poster

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