Film

The Trials of Muhammad Ali

Name: The Trials of Muhammad Ali
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2013
Cast: Muhammad Ali, David Susskind, Eamonn Andrews, Louis Farrakhan, H. Rap Brown

Biopic

A rigorous documentary charting Muhammad Ali's refusal to be drafted into the Vietnam War and the legal and social firestorm that followed. Using archive footage and contemporary interviews, it examines how personal conviction, religious faith, and racial politics collided in one man's defiant stand. Essential viewing for anyone interested in sports, activism, or how America treats dissent.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you care about how sport, religion and the draft collided with the civil rights era, and want the story told through archive footage and the voices of the people who lived it.

Skip it if you came for a fast, crowd-pleasing sports documentary; this is a measured, talky account of a legal fight, and the boxing arrives only in glimpses.

What it asks of you: Settle in for about an hour and a half of patient, mostly sit-down storytelling, where the pace is deliberate and the weight of the subject does the work.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Hoop Dreams1994

A sweeping documentary about two basketball players chasing NBA dreams that asks hard questions about race, class, and whose stories get told. Like Ali, it refuses to sentimentalise its subjects or simplify their choices.

But At three hours, it demands real attention, and the ending doesn't provide the catharsis some viewers expect from a sports story.

The Two Escobars2010

A taut 90-minute documentary interweaving the lives of a Colombian footballer and a drug lord, both named Escobar, to explore how sport and violence tangled in 1990s Colombia. Restrained, sharp, and genuinely unsettling.

But It's darker and more nihilistic than The Trials of Muhammad Ali—no redemption arc, no clear moral victory.

Free Solo2018

A documentary about a rock climber ascending El Capitan without ropes, exploring obsession, risk, and the cost of singular conviction. Like Ali's story, it's about a man choosing his path despite overwhelming pressure to stop.

But Some find the protagonist's recklessness alienating rather than inspiring, and the film never fully justifies why we should care about his dream.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Trials of Muhammad Ali

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Ballad of Little Jo1993

Both are about people forced to choose between their identity and their survival, and both films refuse to treat that choice as simple or costless.

A Western about a woman who disguised herself as a man to survive on the frontier—a historical true story about someone forced to abandon their identity to exist safely. Like Ali, it's about the price of living authentically in a system that won't allow it, but told through a completely different register and era.

But It's a period piece shot in a deliberately unglamorous way, and the Western's slow pace will frustrate viewers expecting narrative drive.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye2021

A sympathetic portrait of a woman destroyed by religious scandal and public scrutiny. Like Ali's story, it's about someone whose faith and public identity became inextricable from their ruin.

But The saccharine tone and Hollywood framing feel at odds with the real suffering documented, and some viewers find it manipulative.

The American2010

A quiet, patient documentary following a retired Afghan war photographer coming to terms with complicity and conscience. It asks what responsibility comes with bearing witness—a thematic echo of Ali's refusal to participate.

But Deliberately paced to the point of slowness, and the philosophical questions it raises don't resolve into anything concrete.

Bowling for Columbine2002

Michael Moore's polemical doc about gun violence and American mythology uses archive and testimony to dismantle official narratives. Rough energy and genuine anger at power structures, like The Trials but angrier.

But Moore's showboating sometimes overwhelms the subject, and some of his rhetorical moves feel cheap in retrospect.

13th2016

Ava DuVernay traces the 13th Amendment and American incarceration from slavery onward, situating Ali's generation's resistance in centuries of Black struggle. Broader canvas than The Trials but the same moral clarity.

But Its thesis is deliberate and unyielding—if you're not already primed to hear it, the relentlessness can feel didactic.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball2014

A crowd-pleaser about an unofficial baseball team that pulled off the impossible. It has the underdog spirit of a sports doc but lighter, funnier, and more purely joyful than The Trials' heavier moral weight.

But Almost aggressively feel-good in a way that sidesteps any real difficulty or ambiguity about its subjects' lives.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball poster

Gomorrah2008

Both films treat institutional power (legal system, organized crime) as something that crushes individuals, and both refuse to sentimentalize their subjects' resistance or complicity.

An Italian crime drama following interlocking lives in Naples under Camorra control. It's a documentary-style narrative film that watches systemic corruption and violence with the same unflinching eye as The Trials, but through fiction and a completely different world.

But It's brutally bleak with no heroes, minimal dialogue, and a refusal to explain anything. English subtitles, and long stretches of ordinary life that don't feel like a story.

The Act of Killing2012

Both films examine how power systems evade justice and how individuals justify actions that break faith with their conscience. The difference: Ali refused; these men complied—and the film makes you witness to the full psychological weight of that choice.

A Peruvian documentary asking death squad executioners to reenact their killings. It's a formal nightmare about conscience, impunity, and how societies live with mass atrocity. Structurally radical, morally uncompromising, and genuinely disturbing.

But The reenactments are grotesque and often unwatchable. Some viewers find the ethical premise troubling—whether you should give such people a platform, no matter how you film it.