Icarus
2017 · Film · documentary · 122 min
Directed by Bryan Fogel
While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country's "anti-doping" program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia's state-sponsored Olympic doping program.
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- 20 Days in Mariupol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Days_in_Mariupola
- Icarus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_(2017_film)
- The Civil War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civil_War_(miniseries)
- The Contestant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Contestant_(2023_film)
1. Bill Cunningham New York
2. General Magic(2018)
3. The Armstrong Lie
4. Icarus (2017 film)
5. Man on Wire
6. Baraka & Samsara
7. BBC Planet Earth
8. Finding Vivian Maier
In authoritarian countries, sports have long been an important tool for laundering their international image. East Germany had a particularly notorious government-run doping program (with horrible long-term health consequences), and the Russian system is well-documented too. Talented young athletes, often while still children, are coerced into doping, with the full backing of security services, which use all available resources to manipulate the subjects and cover up any traces. I can't think of any Western country ever placing such emphasis on professional sports. That's definitely a factor too.
If you haven't seen it, I recommend watching Icarus, an exceptional documentary on state-sponsored doping: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6333060/
I cannot strongly recommend enough the documentary Icarus, which starts out with the premise of "how hard is it to ask for steroids" and spirals into completely insane territory from there.
Related - the best ever documentary about doping, Icarus. Enlightening and brilliant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_(2017_film)
For related interest, I'd highly recommend Icarus (2017) on Netflix: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6333060
Icarus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_(2017_film)
It's a really odd documentary because it is two films in one. It starts off as the filmmakers attempt to dope himself as a cyclist and document that. As part of that process he seeks out coaching on how to dope better, meets some Russian coaches who tell him about their experiences doping Russian athletes for the winter Olympics. That in tern leads to a documentary about the investigation into that doping.
From the last four years: (I'm a professional critic, thus watch almost everything)
1. Gunda. A mother pig.
2. An insignificant man. Politics in India.
3. Mr Bachmann and his class. A teacher.
4. Icarus. The doping scandal.
All time:
https://letterboxd.com/rurban/films/ratings/genre/documentary/by/your-rating/
Gunda, The real dirt on Farmer Joe, Models (Seidl), Warheads (Karmakar), The Land of the Enlightened, Close-Up (Kiarostami), The Wild Parrots of Telegraf Hill, ...
+1 on Icarus, the documentary that itself became part of history
* Icarus. It's a wild ride that just keeps getting wilder and would be spoiled by my attempt at an explanation. I suggest just watching it.
* Winter on Fire. Documentary about the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine in 2013-2014.
I'm so intrigued about Icarus. Interesting why people recommend to watch without reading, but I'll do exactly that. Thanks
Icarus is possibly one of the most impactful documentaries of our generation. One of the few docs ive seen where direct and harsh action was taken in response to what the documentary showed.
I'm going to list just a few of the best I have seen so far:
- The Last Dance [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8420184/]
- Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13651632/]
- Indie Game: The Movie [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942884/]
- The Staircase [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388644/]
- Making a Murderer [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5189670/]
- Icarus [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6333060/]
- Apollo 11 [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/]
I love documentaries, and these are my favourites. All very worth a watch.
- The Crash Reel
- McConkey
- Buck
- Apollo 11
- Carts of Darkness
- The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia
- Samsara
- Baraka
- Brooklyn Castle
- Spellbound
- Drew: The Man Behind the Poster
- Crumb
- The Jinx
- The Art of Flight
- King of Kong
- Indie Game: The Movie
- Capturing the Friedmans
- OJ: Made in America
- The Barkley Marathons
- The Seven Five
- Murderball
- Unbranded
- Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee
- Big River Man
- Hoop Dreams
- Word Wars
- Free Solo
- Long Shot
- Meru
- Being Elmo
- All This Mayhem
- Jiro Dreams of Sushi
- The Cove
- Project Nim
- Alone in the Wilderness
- Behind the Curve
- The Dawn Wall
- Grizzly Man
- 13th
- Winnebago Man
- Man vs Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler
- Get Me Roger Stone
- Icarus
- 13th
- Koyaanisqatsi
- The Thin Blue Line
- An Inconvenient Truth
- Oklahoma City
- Virunga
- The Staircase
- Evil Genius
- Undefeated
- Betting on zero
I would love a good documentary about cults in general - in the style of "icarus" - reporter tries and documents it. Such a fascinating topic.
I think this is more a feature of people flocking to more shallow documentaries, which pushes them up the recommendation funnel.
Icarus was fantastic, for instance, but of potentially limited appeal (which is a shame, as it touches on a lot of topics of broad interest from doping in sport to political intrigue).
The home Rental market is significantly smaller than home streaming. Icarus has over 700 Million Views [1] where as this one was the third most rented title for a week on Itunes, so yes relatively speaking no one is watching it.
The platforms did not want his content, even though he is an academy award winning documentary director. You can read his interview with Variety below.
1. https://variety.com/2021/film/news/the-dissident-saudi-arabia-netflix-bryan-fogel-icarus-1234886662/
I've seen a couple food-related documentaries on Netflix.
They were a complete disaster of oversimplification with biases so evident that it made them impossible to watch.
Netflix has some great documentaries (Icarus is really good) but I would stay away from anything related from alimentary/food sustainability issues.
The Icarus documentary starts exploring PEDs and their detection but veers off into the Russian doping scandal. Regardless, it clearly shows that evasion is entirely possible with the correct guidance. I highly recommend it.
Yeah, they replied wrong. Icarus is about PEDs. But I do like the idea of some diehard track enthusiast being enthralled and depressed by a tell-all documentary about pacing lights.
One of my favourite (and simultaneously most depressing) documentaries, Icarus, leaves no doubt professional sport is riddled with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_(2017_film)
I keep seeing this sentiment, but the fact is his other documentary Icarus was HUGE on Netflix, and if The Dissident pops up on millions of people's feed saying "From the creator of Icarus!!", millions of people would watch it.
Them not being interested is suspiciously leaving a huge pile of money on the table.
The financial viability of a documentary isn't necessarily tied to the importance of the underlying story. This one is about a bigger story than Russian doping, but it doesn't appear to be nearly as good of a documentary as the director's previous work. Icarus won an Oscar while The Dissident isn't among to top 10 or so favorites in its category.
When purchasing a documentary, a network would either want something that could potentially become a big hit or potential add prestige by competing in awards. It doesn't appear likely that this documentary would have done either.
> a niche documentary
niche like Russian doping?
From the article:
> The documentary about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi... was one of the hottest films at last year’s Sundance. It had glowing reviews, a ripped from the headlines subject, and a big-name director in Fogel, fresh off the Oscar-winning “Icarus,” a penetrating look at Russian doping that got the country banned from the Olympics.
> And yet, Netflix, which had previously released “Icarus,” and other streaming services such as Apple and Amazon steered clear of “The Dissident.”
Wikipedia has a separate article for reactions to Jamal Kashoggi's killing from around the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi
Not sure you could call this a niche topic. Heck we're talking about it on HN.
I want to see a documentary that is basically what Icarus was going to be before it turned into being about international politics: doping by “weekend warriors” in amateur sports.
There is a lot of paranoia in the running community (for example) that even local municipal marathons are being won by amateurs doping (not to mention some people running with those Nike “Vaporfly” shoes with the carbon fiber plate in them.) I have my doubts about how effective it is at the amateur level. I suspect it’s like amateurs buying expensive golf clubs and golf balls hoping it will make them better when really they just need more practice and are skill limited rather than gear limited.
Exactly - you’re compelled to cheat and have to find out how to get away with it since you _know_ others are doing it.
It’s a huge issue. Very interesting psychology. Joe Rogan has a few episodes on it but I can’t remember who he interviewed. I think there’s a documentary related to this, perhaps Icarus if I recall correctly.
Icarus is a really good documentary about the Russian doping program. In won the Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature in 2018.
I've seen two documentaries that really have stuck with me. One is Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (watched in multiple long parts from memory); the other is Icarus.
Icarus (2017). Won an Oscar, has 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not just the story of how state-sponsored doping and corruption kill Olympic games and major sport competitions, but the emotional and sometimes artsy way the movie is made is very impressive.
Right, and I am differentiating films from TV/shows because they're completely different markets.
However, with respect to Icarus, it was not produced by Netflix; only distributed by it. Hollywood studios also bid on the distribution rights but Netfix simply outbid them. (Per reports, it was the most ever paid for a documentary.) Similarly, both Beasts of No Nation and Mudbound, the only two well-regarded films in Netflix' lineup, were both produced by indie studios. Netflix simply outbid Hollywood studios for the distribution rights. Netflix has never actually made a good movie on its own. (Though in Netflix' defense on my thesis about the crap quality of their movies, Cloverfield Paradox was a Paramount production; Paramount got the better end of the deal.)
> Think about the films people will remember from the last decade: you won't find any Netflix films among them.
Films, maybe not. But House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Stranger Things, Black Mirror and The Crown have just as much cultural significance as Hollywood movies. And if we expand to HBO, then we can call in Game of Thrones, which has had far more cultural impact than La La Land. This is related to a cousin comment of mine: films are no longer the most important cultural medium. Long-form shows with high production values are.
It's also worth noting that Icarus, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, is from Netflix.
Bodybuilding and powerlifting have both tested and untested federations. The untested federations tacitly approve PEDs. (And people in the tested federations, at least for powerlifting, are often caught for PEDs.) Weightlifting, as far as I know, has no untested federations.
To the grandparent post, you'll probably be interested in the recent documentary "Icarus". It's on Netflix.
As a UI font, this is pretty great. Almost a mix between Circular and San Francisco, it should work well.
However, most disappointing and worrying part of font presentation is applications to different movies and TV shows. With the same typeface, they completely lose their identity.
Strong, condensed typeface of House of Cards. 80s-inspired typeface for Stranger Things. Minimal and geometric typeface for OA. Cyrillic alphabet inspired treatment of R in Icarus.
They all were different and appropriate, and here they are all very 2010's generic sans-serif, losing all personality.
I'm happy to see Netflix Sans in UI, but sure hope it doesn't go deeper, into actual show branding.
If you have not done so, check out the documentary “Icarus” on Netflix. Many of the characters in this story appear there; one of them is now in FBI witness protection.
+1 for Icarus. Excellent, fascinating documentary. Don't get distracted by the weird title.
I'd highly recommend the Netflix documentary Icarus. The filmmaker starts out trying to more or less replicate the doping routine of Lance Armstrong while competing in amateur cycling.
I don't want to give anything away, but the documentary takes an incredible turn once the filmmaker meets Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov — who ran the Russian anti-doping lab prior to Russia's ban from the Rio Olympics.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/icarus-review-netflix/535962/
People should also watch Icarus on Netflix, which just came out. It goes into great lengths by getting serious sources on record - not anonymous - stating very clearly that drug-testing is a sham and has been for decades. Some countries more than others (Russia being the target of this documentary, but others are just like it).