Film
The Crash Reel
The Crash Reel follows snowboarder Kevin Pearce's attempt to return to competition after a traumatic brain injury nearly ends his life. It's a tender, unflinching look at athletic ambition, family, and what recovery means when your identity is wrapped up in a sport. Gorgeously shot, emotionally intelligent, never maudlin.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you are drawn to personal documentaries where one athlete's struggle to recover becomes a close, unflinching look at ambition, rivalry and the cost of chasing a dangerous dream.
Skip it if you want sport kept at arm's length, since its story leans hard on one family's painful arguments and its closeness can feel heavy.
What it asks of you: Settle in for just under two hours of patient, close-up material, where the pace is measured and the mood often sombre, with the thrills of the sport alternating with quieter, harder scenes.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Murderball2005
Documents wheelchair rugby athletes training for the Paralympics with the same intensity and dark humour as able-bodied competitors. Challenges every assumption you hold about disability and sport.
But The subject matter can feel heavy-handed in places, and some viewers find the tone uneven between celebration and soberness.
Free Solo2018
A climber prepares to scale El Capitan without ropes. Unbearable tension paired with genuine intimacy—you'll feel the vertigo and the relationship strain equally.
But If heights terrify you, entire sequences are difficult to watch. The obsession on display can feel self-destructive rather than inspirational.
The Two Escobars2010
A Colombian footballer and a drug lord share a name and a country's chaos. Complex, beautifully structured, asks hard questions about talent, circumstance, and complicity.
But Violence and corruption are central. It's not uplifting, and the moral landscape stays murky throughout.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Crash Reel
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Sopranos1999
Both use a central figure's neurological and psychological crisis to examine how identity is constructed and maintained. Both argue that getting better requires unburdening yourself to someone you trust.
Tony Soprano's therapy sessions are the inverse of Kevin's journey—a man who cannot admit damage, cannot ask for help, spirals instead of climbs. Same structural intelligence about identity and family, opposite emotional register.
But It's a 86-hour commitment. The violence is graphic and the tone oscillates between comedy and brutality in ways that can feel jarring.
More like this (8)
Pumping Iron1977
Arnold Schwarzenegger competing for Mr. Olympia, vain and charming and deadly serious about his body. A window into obsession before social media made it the default state.
But The film hasn't aged past its attitudes toward women and sexuality. It's campy in a way that sometimes undercuts the actual stakes.
Man on Wire2008
Philippe Petit's secret plot to walk a tightrope between the Twin Towers is reconstructed with playful precision. Heist film energy, genuine wonder, perfect pacing.
But The tone is lighter than The Crash Reel—it may feel trivial by comparison if you want weight and consequence.
The Queen of Versailles2012
A real-estate magnate and his wife's mansion project collapses mid-construction. Dark comedy about American excess, shot with empathy even when the subjects are unsympathetic.
But The humour comes partly from mocking people at their lowest. That can feel mean-spirited depending on your tolerance.
Hoop Dreams1994
Two basketball players' paths from childhood through college recruitment. Three hours that move like a thriller, layered and humane, the definitive documentary about American sport.
But It's long and requires patience. The outcome may depress you more than inspire you.
Senna2010
Formula One driver Ayrton Senna's rivalry with Alain Prost, told entirely through archive footage and interviews. Gorgeous editing, genuine suspense, no narration.
But If you don't care about racing, the obsession with lap times and strategy will feel technical and excluding.
Touching the Void2003
A climber falls, breaks his leg, and must descend a mountain alone. Survival story told with reenactments and interviews, genuinely gripping and humbling.
But The reenactments can feel gratuitous, and the first-person account structure limits perspective and nuance.
The Act of Killing2012
Both documents the moment when someone confronts what their body has done and cannot undo it. Both are structured around the possibility—maybe—of change.
Indonesian death-squad leaders reenact their own murders for the camera. Surreal, horrifying, uncomfortably intimate. Asks what happens when you force someone to witness their own cruelty.
But It's genuinely disturbing. The reenactments are stylised but the atrocities are real. This is not entertainment.
Koyaanisqatsi1983
Both are interested in how a body moves through a world that wasn't built for what it wants to do. One is intimate; one is cosmic. Both leave you breathless.
No dialogue, just Philip Glass and images of American landscape and industry and people. Hypnotic, overwhelming, makes you feel the weight of living in late capitalism without explaining it.
But No plot, no characters, no answers. If you need narrative scaffolding, this will feel pointless and tedious.
People
Cast
- Kevin PearceHimself
Shaun WhiteHimself- Scotty LagoHimself
Jake BurtonHimself- Mason AguirreHimself
- Jack MitraniHimself
- Danny DavisHimself
Directing
- Lucy WalkerDirector
Writing
- Lucy WalkerWriter
- Pedro KosWriter
Production
- Jenny RaskinCo-Producer
- Dan CoganExecutive Producer
- Geralyn White DreyfousExecutive Producer
- Julian CautherleyProducer
- Lucy WalkerProducer
Recommended by
Murderball, Sweet November, Recovery Boys, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, Rising Phoenix, Cupertino, Stealing Charlie Chaplin, Being Mortal, The Race, The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off, Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator