Television series
The Last Dance
ESPN's ten-part victory lap doubles as a myth-audit: Michael Jordan's Bulls dynasty told through long-buried 1997-98 locker-room footage and interviews Jordan himself had final say over. It's gripping even if you've never watched basketball, because it's really a character study of competitiveness as a personality trait bordering on affliction. Watch in binges, not sips.
If you liked this
O.J.: Made in America2016
Ezra Edelman's ESPN epic uses one man's rise and fall to trace race, fame and LA history — same network, same appetite for turning an athlete into a mirror for America.
But Nearly eight hours long and grim rather than celebratory — no championship high to ride, just a slow unravelling.
Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty2022
A dramatized, gloriously trashy retelling of the Bulls' 80s rival dynasty — Magic, Kareem, Riley — with the same swagger and ego Jordan's story runs on, just fully scripted.
But It's fiction dressed as history, and some real-life figures publicly objected to how they were portrayed.
Muhammad Ali2021
Ken Burns applies his patient archival method to another athlete who understood image as weapon, tracing how the modern sports icon — Jordan included — learned to perform greatness on camera.
But Slower and more essayistic than Last Dance's propulsive editing; measured historical framing rather than hype.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
When We Were Kings1996
Both are documentaries built entirely from footage of an athlete already aware he's being mythologised — this one about Ali's 1974 Rumble in the Jungle, decades before ESPN turned the format into prestige television.
The film that arguably invented the modern athlete-as-myth documentary, using Ali's trash talk and Zaire's electricity to build a portrait as controlled and charismatic as Jordan's own.
But Rougher, older filmmaking, and the central fight itself is over almost before you've settled in.
More like this (8)
Formula 1: Drive to Survive2019
Same trick, different sport: cameras get intimate access to egos, rivalries and team politics in real time, proving the behind-the-curtain sports format Last Dance popularised has real legs.
But Ongoing and soapy rather than a closed story — no single dynasty arc to resolve, just seasons rolling on.
The Two Escobars2010
Another ESPN 30 for 30 film, braiding Colombian football with the drug war — proof the network's formula for sport-as-society storytelling didn't start or end with Jordan.
But Far darker material — cartel violence, not championship banners — and less interested in triumph than in cost.
Andre the Giant2018
An HBO sports doc built the same way — one outsized legend, archive footage, people who knew him filling in the myth — but wrestling instead of basketball, and a sadder ending.
But Shorter and slighter than Last Dance's ten hours; a single tender portrait rather than a dynasty saga.
The Playbook2020
Netflix hands the mic to coaches instead of players — Phil Jackson's counterparts talking philosophy, pressure and control — the other half of the dynasty equation Last Dance mostly skips.
But Episodic and uneven across coaches; some entries land far harder than others, and it never builds one story.
Cheer2020
A completely different sport and stakes, but the same anatomy — a demanding coach, a team desperate to win, bodies pushed past reasonable limits for one shot at glory.
But No Jordan-sized ego at the centre, and the tone runs warmer and more vulnerable than combative.
Last Chance U2016
A junior college football docuseries with the same season-arc structure — talented, damaged young men, a coach who runs the show like a general, everything riding on one game.
But Lower stakes and lower fame than the Bulls dynasty; these are players fighting for a second chance, not a sixth ring.
Hoosiers1986
Same engine, fictionalised: a small-town Indiana team, a coach demanding total obedience, and a star learning to subordinate ego to the system — the Phil Jackson dynamic played as drama instead of documentary.
A scripted underdog basketball film that dramatizes exactly the coach-versus-star tension Last Dance spends ten hours untangling for real, minus the archive footage and with a tidier ending.
But Corny and old-fashioned by design; if you wanted more Jordan, an invented Indiana team won't satisfy that itch.
Icarus2017
Starts as one kind of sports documentary and mutates into another — a personal doping experiment that stumbles into a state conspiracy — the same genre Last Dance uses to celebrate greatness, turned instead toward exposing how greatness gets faked.
If Last Dance made you wonder what really goes into building a champion, this Oscar-winning doc answers with a much darker story about doping, Russia and institutional lying.
But Zero triumph, all paranoia — a genuinely unsettling watch with none of the victory-lap warmth you just came from.
People
Cast
Michael JordanHimself
Recommended by
The Playbook, Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Hoop Dreams, The Two Escobars, Senna, Cheer, Hard Knocks, Whitney, The Last Waltz, Diego Maradona, The Grandmaster, Nature Boy, When We Were Kings, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, Muhammad Ali, Pumping Iron