Television series

Cheer

A Netflix docuseries that follows Navarro College's cheer squad through the brutal, injury-strewn grind toward the Daytona national championship, under coach Monica Aldama's exacting eye. It's equal parts underdog sports story and tender character study, lingering on the hard lives these athletes escaped through tumbling. Thrilling, occasionally devastating, and complicated in hindsight by the real-world scandal that followed.

TVMaze rating5.4

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Last Chance U2016

Same director, same DNA — Greg Whiteley's other juggernaut about junior college football players fighting for a second chance, with equally unglamorous locker rooms and equally ferocious camera access.

But Football rather than tumbling means less visually thrilling sport, and the seasons can feel repetitive by year three or four.

Last Chance U poster

Friday Night Lights2006

Fictional but soaked in the same small-town-Texas gospel of sport-as-salvation, with a coach as morally complicated and beloved as Monica Aldama, and losing seasons that feel like the end of the world.

But Five seasons of slow-burn drama is a bigger commitment than Cheer's tight run, and it takes a while to hook you.

Friday Night Lights poster

Dance Moms2011no page yet

Trade tumbling mats for dance studios and Monica's calm authority for Abby Lee Miller's screaming, but the coach-as-kingmaker dynamic and stage-mom intensity will feel eerily familiar.

But It's manufactured reality TV rather than fly-on-the-wall documentary — trashier, and less interested in nuance.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Athlete A2020

Cheer built its first season on the idea that a charismatic coach's authority is unquestionable; this documentary asks what happens when that same worship shields real harm — a question the Cheer franchise itself would later be forced to confront off-camera.

A precise, furious investigation into how USA Gymnastics let a predator coach thrive for years, told by the journalists and gymnasts who exposed him.

But It's not entertainment — it's an unflinching account of institutional abuse, and it will genuinely upset you.

Athlete A poster
More like this (7)

The Last Dance2020

A masterclass in building a sports documentary around one unbeatable season, with the same eye for turning practice footage and old grudges into unbearable tension.

But Ten hours about basketball's greatest ego is a very different scale and subject than a scrappy underdog cheer team.

The Last Dance poster

Bring It!2014no page yet

Southern competitive dance instead of cheer, but the same blend of family stakes, coach devotion, and last-minute routine panic that made Cheer's competition episodes so tense.

But Lifetime's reality polish brings more contrived conflict and less of Cheer's patient, observational honesty.

Wrestlers2023

A scrappy, broke independent wrestling promotion in Kentucky fighting to survive, filmed with the same patient intimacy and real affection for its underdogs that made Navarro's team so lovable.

But Pro wrestling's staged theatrics might feel like a strange fit if you came to Cheer for genuine athletic risk.

Wrestlers poster

QB1: Beyond the Lights2017no page yet

High school quarterbacks under enormous pressure, chasing scholarships and family legacy — the same blend of teenage vulnerability and elite performance that gave Cheer its gut-punches.

But Thinner and shorter-lived than Cheer, with less time to build the character arcs you'd want to fall for.

Undefeated2011

An Oscar-winning documentary about a struggling Memphis high school football team, finding the same dignity in hard work and unglamorous places that Cheer finds at Navarro.

But A single film rather than a series means far less time to fall for these players before it ends.

Undefeated poster

Hoop Dreams1994

The granddaddy of the kids-sport-and-a-way-out documentary, following two Chicago basketball hopefuls for years — patient, unglamorous, and quietly devastating by the end.

But Three hours long and shot in the early '90s, its pace and grain feel a world away from Cheer's slick Netflix polish.

Hoop Dreams poster

Bring It On2000

This is the myth Cheer both cashes in on and quietly corrects — the cheerleader as punchline and prize — and watching them back to back shows exactly how much harder, and stranger, the real thing turns out to be.

The gleeful teen comedy that made cheerleading a pop-culture fixture two decades before Netflix did it in earnest — fast, funny, and unexpectedly sharp about class and cultural theft.

But Broad, cheesy, early-2000s comedy — if you want more of Cheer's raw documentary intimacy, this glossy fiction won't scratch that itch.

Bring It On poster

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