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Regarded as one of the greatest sporting events of the 20th century, The Rumble in the Jungle was a heavyweight championship boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. The event reportedly had an attendance of 60,000 people and was one of the most-watched televised events at the time. Muhammad Ali won the match by knockout in the eighth round, and his rope-a-dope strategy drew attention.

George Foreman has passed away at the age of 76 | Credits: George Foreman’s Ig

Despite an intense match, Ali and Foreman became friends post their match. When Ali received an Academy Award for When We Were Kings but had trouble walking to the stage due to his Parkinson’s syndrome, Foreman helped him. George Foreman, who recently passed away at the age of 76, had shared the details about the match.

George Foreman recalls his devastating defeat at The Rumble in the Jungle

Directed by George Tillman Jr.,...

Last Updated on March 24, 2025

George Foreman, one of the most famous and beloved boxers of all time, had passed away. The legend’s family made the announcement via his official Instagram handle, writing, “Our hearts are broken. With profound sorrow, we announce the passing of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr. who peacefully departed on March 21, 2025 surrounded by loved ones. A devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and a proud grand and great grandfather, he lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility, and purpose.”

Foreman, of course, was known for being a two-time, world heavyweight champion, Olympic Gold Medalist, and entrepreneur (I use my George Foreman Grill constantly). What’s unique about his career, and nearly unmatched, is the fact that a whopping twenty-two years had passed between the two times he won the title, having famously launched one of the greatest comebacks in sports history at forty-five years old,...

Exclusive: Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment and unscripted production company Get Me Out Productions (A Recipe For Murder) have partnered to produce two sport documentary projects which will be brought to buyers and sponsorship partners at NATPE.

Their docuseries Ultra will explore the endurance sport of ultra running, following some of the world’s notable male and female athletes in the sport as they compete –sometimes against each other – in races of 100 miles and more, often for days on end, without sleep, through deserts, up and down mountains, and in blizzard-like conditions around the globe. The runners to be featured are not only decorated professional athletes, but also hold diverse professional careers as software engineers, environmentalists, journalists, and more.

Where are the Kenyans? is developed by Hyde Park Entertainment and Adharanand Finn, the award-winning author of Running with the Kenyans and The Rise of the Ultra Runners and himself an experienced ultra-runner,...

The Sundance Film Festival is best known as being the launching point for some of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Tarantino, Chazelle, Soderbergh, Aronofsky, and more have brought their first films to Sundance the rest has been history. While these names are now household staples, Sundance is perhaps best known as the premiere destination for ground-breaking documentaries, consistently showcasing some of the greatest non-fiction storytelling ever made.

Eighteen documentaries have premiered at Sundance and gone on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Some of those include Navalny, Searching for Sugarman, Icarus, March of the Penguins, Man On Wire, When We Were Kings, and many many more.

The best documentary of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and possibly an Oscar frontrunner, is a film called Andre is an Idiot. One wouldn’t expect a documentary about a man suffering from colon cancer to be the funniest film of the 150+ films showing at Sundance,...

The boxing biopic Big George Foreman depicts the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” match between Foreman and fellow icon Muhammad Ali — and many wonder if George Foreman beat Ali in real life. The 2023 film covers Foreman’s (Khris Davis) entire life story, from his impoverished childhood to the near-death experience that inspired him to hang up the boxing gloves to the impending bankruptcy that forced him to get back in the ring and become the oldest-ever heavyweight champion.

The “Rumble in the Jungle” scene in Big George Foreman portrays Ali (Sullivan Jones) as the confident young athlete talking trash in Foreman’s ear during each round. While this angle captures the George Foreman vs Ali dynamic at that time — Foreman as the defending champion and Ali as the new blood rising through the ranks to steal his glory — it doesn’t present Ali in a flattering light. Foreman was expected...

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According to Barry Sonnenfeld's new memoir, "Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time," the director, cinematographer, and producer once convinced Will Smith to sign onto the Muhammad Ali biopic "Ali," the movie that earned the actor his first Oscar nomination -- only for Sonnenfeld to have the opportunity to direct the film pulled out from under him in the wake of an infamous flop.

You may know Sonnenfeld's work from stylistically singular TV shows like "Pushing Daisies," "A Series of Unfortunate Events," and the musical comedy series "Schmigadoon!" You might also know him as the director of zeitgeisty family films including two "The Addams Family" features and three "Men in Black" movies. Unfortunately for Sonnenfeld, though, for a time Hollywood knew him best as the director of one of the worst cinematic misfires of the '90s: the Smith-led neo-Western "Wild Wild West.

Perfect Day Media, one of the Nordics’ largest and most successful podcast studios, is now becoming a key part of the rapidly expanding PodX Group. PodX is acquiring 100% of Perfect Day from its sister company Pophouse Entertainment.

Patrick Svensk, CEO PodX Group: “We are proud and excited to welcome Perfect Day Media to PodX Group. Perfect Day Media holds a unique position in the Nordic podcast market, excelling at attracting top talent, while also successfully monetizing formats and content. This acquisition perfectly aligns with our vision to become the leading international player in the podcast space.”

In recent years, PodX Group has made a number of notable acquisitions in the podcast industry, such as Studio Minuit and Nouvelles Écoutes in France, Posta in Argentina, Filt and Suomen Podcastmedia in the Nordics, and Goldhawk Productions, Listen and Platform Media in the UK.

Perfect Day Media, known for hits including “Alex & Sigges...

In his latest podcast/interview, host and screenwriter Stuart Wright talks to filmmaker Tim McKenzie-Smith about his debut feature, the documentary about a seminal, black British band Getting It Back: The Story Of Cymande and “3 Films That Have Impacted Everything In Your Adult Life,” which includes:

When We Were Kings (1996) Get Shorty (1995) The Departed (2006)

“3 Films That Have Impacted Everything In Your Adult Life” is about those films that made you fall in love with film. The guest selects their trio of movies and we talk for 5 minutes, against the clock. When the alarm goes off for five minutes we move on to the next film.

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Jeffrey Wright took home the award for best lead performance at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards for his role in American Fiction.

When Wright made his way to the stage to accept the award from presenter Colman Domingo, he expressed how thrilled he was to receive the honor from the actor. “Wow, thank you, thank you. And to receive this from you, Colman, man…it’s just a beautiful gift,” he gushed.

The American Fiction star had one of the most candid, heartfelt speeches of the night.

“It’s funny, you go to these awards shows, [and] you kind of grow tired of them and then you get one and uh…kind of changes the vibe,” he joked, met with raucous laughter.

He recalled attending the Independent Spirit Awards back in 1997, when he was up for best debut performance for his starring role in Basquiat. “The first time I was here at the Independent Spirit Awards,...

When film and TV talents collide on the Santa Monica beach at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, anything can happen. Just ask “American Fiction” nominee Jeffrey Wright.

“The year I was nominated for ‘Basquiat,’ our producer Jon Kilik said, ‘Hey, do you want to meet Muhammad Ali?’” recalls Wright, up for the debut performance trophy at the 1997 ceremony, while the boxing champ was there with his doc “When We Were Kings.” “I pretty much skipped over a series of tables to say hello to him. Ali was an absolute personal hero and meeting him blew my mind. That was the beginning of a really gratifying relationship, because I ended up [playing photographer Howard Bingham] in the movie ‘Ali.’”

Wright, who had already won a Tony Award at that point, went on to more acclaim and glory in film and TV roles, this year receiving his first Oscar nomination for his performance in “American Fiction.

Boxing movies offer diverse narratives beyond underdog stories, exploring themes of prejudice, trauma, and real-life experiences. Films like Ali and Cinderella Man pay tribute to extraordinary real-life boxers, showcasing their struggles and triumphs in and out of the ring. Documentaries like When We Were Kings provide a historical lens into iconic boxing matches, revealing the political and cultural significance of the sport.

The Rocky and Creed franchises have been responsible for some of the best sports movies ever made, but there are plenty of other great boxing films that are worth checking out. Feautring the stories of underdogs overcoming adversity, unlikely fighters becoming champions against the odds, or the experiences of legendary real-life sports stars and their extraordinary jounreys, a great boxing movie has the power to enthrall and excite audiences and filmgoers. From gripping documentary accounts to fantastic fictional foes, boxing movies have the potential to be total knockouts with viewers when done right.

There’s a lot to enjoy, but nothing new, in this documentary that focuses on a key transitional period in Muhammad Ali’s life

Here to prove you can never have enough documentaries about Muhammad Ali is New York director Muta’Ali Muhammad, who has made a new film on the subject for the US’s Smithsonian Channel; it is entertaining, but perhaps unsure of what exactly it’s saying that is new. It focuses on the legendary boxer’s public life from 1959 to 1964, as he negotiated a new existence as world champion and member of the Nation of Islam, changing his name from Cassius Clay to (initially) Cassius X in a key transitional moment. It is written by Scottish author and producer Stuart Cosgrove, adapting his own 2020 book Cassius X: A Legend in the Making.

This perfectly watchable film moves with breezy fluency from Ali’s early years, the sensational...

It’s appropriate that Netflix dropped the sixth season of “Black Mirror” on June 15, the same day that Emmy voting began. The series isn’t eligible for this year’s awards, of course, but it has been a dominant force at the Emmys for years, even sparking a rule change that affects a number of other anthology programs this year.

And because of that rule change, it’s going to be a lot harder for any of those other programs — which include “Documentary Now!” and “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” — to be nominated for Emmys this year.

First, a little background. “Black Mirror,” created by Charlie Brooker and first airing in 2011, was inspired by the classic 1950s and ’60s series “The Twlight Zone,” in which Rod Serling used each episode to tell a different story — usually creepy or scary, usually with a twist, always with a moral. Back then,...

Flattering biopic zooms entertainingly through an extraordinary, switchback career

The extraordinary and long-gestating comeback story of heavyweight boxing champ George Foreman has taken a long time to tell, perhaps because he has lived his life in Muhammad Ali’s shade, especially since Ali’s sensational underdog victory over him in the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle. In movie terms, Leon Gast’s thrilling 1996 documentary When We Were Kings turned Foreman into the bad guy who deserved to lose – particularly the nasty macho detail about Foreman having a German shepherd on a lead when he turned up in Zaire for the fight.

That dog does not appear in this watchable, celebratory biopic from director and co-screenwriter George Tillman Jr, with Foreman credited as executive producer. Khris Davis plays Foreman; Forest Whitaker plays his trainer Doc Broadus and Sonja Sohn is his mother Nancy. The movie thumps through successive events of Foreman’s amazing life in efficient,...

If you’re a fan of boxing or just like watching documentary films in general, you’ll certainly want to know where to watch the award-winning documentary When We Were Kings.

Directed, written, and edited by Leon Gast, When We Were Kings covers the cultural and historical impact of the 1974 boxing clash between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, billed to the public as the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’. A documentary film that was 22 years in the making, Gast examines the significance of this boxing championship match as well as its cultural impact on the Black Power era in the 1970s.

Release to financial and critical acclaim, it’s a documentary film that certainly deserved its Academy Award win for Best Documentary Feature in 1996. If you want to know where to watch When We Were Kings, it’s available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max online now.

Watch...

The Sundance Film Festival has rich history when it comes to documentary — and sports documentaries, in particular. Hoop Dreams, one of the greatest documentaries ever, made its premiere at Sundance ’94, while When We Were Kings (’96), Murderball (’05), O.J.: Made in America (’16) and Icarus (’17) all debuted at the fest.

One of the splashy late additions to the Sundance 2023 was Stephen Curry: Underrated, a documentary from director Peter Nicks (The Waiting Room) and producers Ryan Coogler (Black Panther) and Erick Peyton billing itself as “an intimate look at NBA superstar Stephen Curry’s...

Maybe take these “historical” stories with a grain of salt.

Oscar winner Helen Mirren returns as the host for Season 53 of IFC’s “Documentary Now!” series, premiering October 19 on IFC and AMC+. “Stories that dare to tell the truth have never been more crucial to our culture,” Mirren says in the trailer. “Now, more than ever, the world needs ‘Documentary Now!'”

The “true” series will parody famed documentaries “The September Issue,” “Burden of Dreams,” “3 Salons at the Seaside,” “When We Were Kings,” “Gleaners and I,” and “Beaches of Agnes” across its six-episode season. A special sneak peek at the mock “My Octopus Teacher” entry stars “Fleabag” fan-favorite Jamie Demetriou as a filmmaker who “who forms a deep, emotional, and financially taxing relationship with a monkey” and gets shirtless in a moment of passion. Titled “My Monkey Grifter,” the spoof spans true crime and bestiality.

Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, “Succession” star Nicholas Braun,...

Documentary Now! is back on IFC and it is set to premiere Season 53 on Wednesday, October 19 at 10 p.m. Et with two new episodes. The titles of the two-part season premiere are “Soldier of Illusion,” written by John Mulaney, and “Trouver Frisson,” which plays tribute to the Agnès Varda films.

Alexander Skarsgard (Big Little Lies), Nicholas Braun (Succession), and August Diehl (Inglorious Bastards) star in the premiere episode titled “Soldier of Illusion,” which was inspired by the Werner Herzog-focused documentary Burden of Dreams. Skarsgard plays a visionary German filmmaker in the 1980s who tries to will his magnum opus into existence while working in the remote, punishing conditions of the Russian Ular mountains.

Deb Hiett returns as narrator in the episode that also stars Kevin Bishop (The Tracey Ullman Show), Gana Bayarsaikhan (Wonder Woman), Matthias Rimpler (Ludzie i Bogowie), and Fred Armisen (SNL).

The second episode of the premiere...

Taran Killam as Benedict A. Juniper, John Mulaney as Simon Sawyer – Documentary Now! _ Season 3, Episode 3 – Photo Credit: Rhys Thomas/IFC IFC today released a first look teaser and final details from the highly anticipated 53rd season of Documentary Now!. The two-part season premiere episode, “Soldier of Illusion,” written by John Mulaney, and “Trouver Frisson,” paying tribute to the films of Agnes Varda, join previously announced episodes “Two Hairdressers in Bagglyport,” “How They Threw Rocks” and “My Monkey Grifter” to round out the season. Known for lovingly paying homage to the world of documentaries, Documentary Now! Season 53 will debut with a two-episode premiere on Wednesday, October 19 at 10 Pm on IFC, and on AMC+ the same day. New episodes to debut weekly on Wednesdays. The upcoming season of the critically acclaimed comedy, co-created by Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers and Rhys Thomas, executive produced by Lorne Michaels and produced by Broadway Video,...

Asif Kapadia, the Oscar-winning guest curator for 2022’s Sheffield DocFest, has unveiled his program A Documentary Journey with Asif Kapadia.

Kapadia, who is best known for his documentaries ‘Amy,’ about Amy Winehouse, and ‘Senna’ about Brazilian motor-racing champion Ayrton Senna, opened the last in-person iteration of Sheffield DocFest in 2019 with his feature about legendary Argentine footballer Diego Maradona.

The festival, now in its 29th year, was digital only in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

Featuring “films that have had significant impact for him, inspiring his own style and creative choices as a filmmaker,” Kapadia has selected eight documentaries for the series, including “When We Were Kings” about Muhammad Ali (pictured above).

“Without this film, there would be no ‘Amy.’ There would be no ‘Senna.’ There would be no ‘Diego Maradona,’” said Kapadia of the Ali feature.

“This selection is personal to me, as someone who grew up in Hackney in the 1970s and 1980s,...

Steve Venezia has been re-elected vice president of the Cinema Audio Society, and Frank Morrone has been re-elected secretary. They will continue to serve alongside Cas president Karol Urban and treasurer Lee Orloff, who weren’t up for re-election this year.

Sound Orgs Sound Off About Pre-Taped Oscar Categories: “Marked Out As Somehow Less Important ‘Second-Tier’ Skills”

Founded in 1964, the Cinema Audio Society is a philanthropic, nonprofit organization for film and TV sound professionals.

Venezia, who also serves as vice-chair of the Television Academy, is an independent sound engineer who has worked with ABC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on the audio production of 16 Oscar broadcasts. Most recently he was senior director of worldwide production and post-production services at Dolby, where he worked for over 22 years covering sound mixing and advancements in audio technologies.

Morrone, a two-time Emmy winner for sound mixing, is a re-recording mixer whose credits include Lost,...

Constance Zimmer (UnREAL) is checking out ABC’s Big Sky, with a recurring role during the back half of Season 2.

The actress will play Alicia, “an accountant who proved herself invaluable to Veer Bhullar’s (Bernard White) business even before they fell in love,” our sister site Deadline reports. “Charismatic, cunning and confident, Alicia’s success comes from her tendency to observe and assess long before she acts. But while Alicia may have earned Veer’s trust, her real challenge will be earning the trust of Veer’s children, Ren (Janina Gavankar) and Jag (Vinny Chhibber), who will do whatever...

“Documentary Now!” has unveiled the first details of its upcoming fourth season (or 53rd according to the show).

While the new season of the IFC comedy series does not have a premiere date, it is expected to air on IFC and AMC Plus in 2022. The new season will consist of six episodes and is currently in production.

Documentaries to be featured in the upcoming season include:

· Paying homage to fashion documentaries “3 Salons at the Seaside” and “The September Issue,” “Two Hairdressers in Bagglyport” is a fly-on-the-wall portrait of a hair salon owner and her staff in the small coastal village of Bagglyport as they prepare their yearly stylebook.

· In the vein “When We Were Kings” and other great explorations of sport, “How They Threw Rocks” chronicles the Welsh sport of Craig Maes, also known as “Field Rock”, and the iconic 1974 bout dubbed “The Melon vs. The Felon.”

· Drawing inspiration from “My Octopus Teacher,...

IFC has unveiled details for the latest chapter of its cult-favorite, spoof series Documentary Now!, created by Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers and Rhys Thomas.

After nearly three years since news of Season 4 dropped, IFC shared that the Emmy-nominated Documentary Now! will return in 2022 on both IFC and AMC. Hosted by Dame Helen Mirren and known for lovingly paying homage to the world of documentaries, Documentary Now! and its in-show “fifty-third” season returns with six new episodes and is currently in production. Among the documentaries getting new comedic spins in Season 4 are the Oscar-winning docs When We Were Kings and My Octopus Teacher.

In the vein When We Were Kings and other great explorations of sport, Documentary Now!’s “How They Threw Rocks” will chronicle the Welsh sport of Craig Maes, also known as “Field Rock”, and the iconic 1974 bout dubbed “The Melon vs. The Felon.”

Drawing inspiration from My Octopus Teacher,...

After three years of static, “Documentary Now!” fans can rejoice: the Emmy-nominated docu-comedy series is returning for a fourth season to IFC and AMC+ sometime this year.

Dame Helen Mirren resumes her hosting duties for six brand-new episodes of the show, which parodies a wide range of classics and lesser-known gems of the documentary genre.

Details on three of the six titles have been announced, with more to come. “Two Hairdressers in Bagglyport,” an homage to fashion documentaries “3 Salons at the Seaside” and “The September Issue,” profiles a hair salon owner and her staff in the small coastal village of Bagglyport as they prepare their yearly stylebook.

Next up is “How They Threw Rocks,” which draws inspiration from “When We Were Kings” along with other exploratory sports epics. The episode chronicles the Welsh sport of Craig Maes, also known as “Field Rock”, and the iconic 1974 bout dubbed “The Melon vs.

The Woodstock Film Festival has announced the slate for its 22nd edition, with 11 world premieres among the 43 features on the bill.

The festival will take place September 29 to October 3 in three Hudson Valley communities about two hours north of New York City. In-person screenings and events will be featured throughout the fest’s five days, but online options will also enable attendees to connect amid the ongoing challenges of Covid-19.

Panels, concerts and comedy sets along with film screenings are planned in Woodstock, Kingston and Saugerties. Neon chief Tom Quinn is slated to receive the festival’s Honorary Trailblazer Award, an honor announced in 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic.

The festival will kick off with Fanny: The Right to Rock, a documentary about a pathbreaking Filipina-American garage band, with a performance by some of the band’s members following the screening. Music is an annual touchstone for Woodstock’s lineup,...

In football – and sport in general – there aren’t many who make their mark both as a player and a manager, but one man who did was Jack Charlton. Talented certainly, but it was the big man’s personality that really stood out, and this feature-length documentary captures it in some style.

Finding Jack Charlton is nothing short of a masterpiece, deftly balancing the film’s three main sub-plots: his glorious reign as manager of the Republic of Ireland, relationship with his brother, Bobby Charlton, and the unfortunate onset of dementia in his twilight years. The geniuses behind it all are ITV Sport reporter, Gabriel Clarke, who has also produced features on Joe Calzaghe and Brian Clough, and filmmaker Pete Thomas.

But this blows them all out of the water. The way each aspect of Charlton’s life is intertwined over and over again is filmmaking of the highest calibre.

When speaking with talent affiliated with some of the most prominent television documentaries of the past year, the subjects of their favorite documentaries as well as the challenges of conveying the truth in a time when it’s easy to get lost in disinformation were subjects that provoked deep discussions. Gold Derby recently put this question to James Gay-Rees (“1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything”), Hao Wu (“76 Days”), Madison Hamburg (“Murder on Middle Beach”), Ellen Kuras (“Pretend it’s a City”) and Wendy Williams (“Wendy Williams: What a Mess”) during our recent “Meet the Experts” panel.

You can watch the documentary group panel above with these five creative talents. Click on each person’s name above to be taken to their individual interview.

For Hamburg, he wasn’t able to single out one specific documentary that influenced him. He did cite masters of the genre including Frederick Wiseman and Steve James,...

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“Mike Tyson: The Knockout” offers a ringside seat into the highs and lows of a legendary boxing career. The two-part documentary premieres on ABC on Wednesday at 8 p.m. Et, but if you miss the live airing, you can catch it on Hulu the following day.

The four-hour documentary chronicles Tyson’s “climb, crash, and comeback,” and details everything from his tough childhood to reaching world champion status. The documentary also covers Tyson’s 1992 rape conviction and personal struggles. Part two of “The Knockout” debuts on ABC on June 1, and will be available to stream on Hulu the next day. Tyson appears in the documentary, along with Rosie Perez, ESPN’s Jeremy Schapp,...

Lloyd Price, who soared to the top of the charts with the 1950s hits Lawdy Miss Clawdy, Personality and Stagger Lee, died Monday in New Orleans. He was 88 and no cause was given by his manager, who confirmed the death.

Price was discovered at age 19 by legendary New Orleans producer and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dave Bartholomew, who was working with Specialty Records producer Art Rupe. He took Price in and soon recorded Lawdy Miss Clawdy, with Fats Domino on piano and Earl Palmer on drums. The hit sold a million copies and spent seven weeks atop Billboard’s R&b charts.

That launched a recording career that saw Price score 15 top-ten R&b hits, including Personality and Stagger Lee.

Price told the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that he was shocked by the success of Lawdy Miss Clawdy. The title was taken from a local disc jockey at station Wbok Radio,...

Lloyd Price, the pioneering R&b singer behind Fifties hits like “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” “Stagger Lee” and “Personality,” has died at the age of 88.

Price’s manager Tom Tripani confirmed to Rolling Stone that Price died Monday, May 3rd; no cause of death was provided.

Friend Rickey Poppell added on Facebook (via Variety), “Those of us close to Lloyd have been keeping his declining health issues to our selves for the past five years, while Tom kept me up to date along the way. Lloyd was one of the sweetest,...

Leon Gast, the director of the Oscar-winning documentary “When We Were Kings,” about Muhammad Ali’s iconic “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match, has died. He was 85.

Gast died on Monday at his home in Woodstock, NY following a long illness, according to the Woodstock Film Festival, of which Gast was a member of the advisory board.

“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Academy Award-winning documentarian Leon Gast,” the festival tweeted. “Leon passed away peacefully this morning at his home. A longtime resident of Woodstock, Leon was one of the festival’s earliest friends and supporters. He will be missed dearly.”

Gast was in Kinshasa, Zaire in 1974 attempting to tell a story about a music festival happening in the country before he turned his attention to the fight in which Ali won back the heavyweight title from George Foreman. He would spend over two decades working to complete the film,...

Leon Gast, the veteran filmmaker who won a Documentary Feature Oscar for helming the 1996 “Rumble in the Jungle” pic When We Were Kings, died Monday. He was 85.

The news was confirmed by the Woodstock Film Festival, of which Gast was a founding advisory board member and a 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree.

Gast also won a Spirit Award, a Sundance Special Jury prize and a DGA Award nomination for When We Were Kings, which he also produced and edited. It told the fascinating story about the 1974 heavyweight title fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman held in Kinshasa, Zaire. The filmmaker later produced and directed The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013), which aired the following year on PBS as under the Independent Lens banner. Gast won a News & Documentary Emmy and an International Documentary Association Award for that project.

Gast began his movie career after working for an ad agency in New...

Leon Gast, the Academy Award-winning director behind sport documentary “When We Were Kings,” died on Monday, according to Meira Blaustein, his close friend and the co-founder of Woodstock Film Festival. He was 85.

Blaustein shared the news of Gast’s death in a Facebook post. “He was a giant of a filmmaker, an absolute joy of a human being, and a very dear and beloved friend,” Blaustein wrote. “I am so grateful that I got to visit with him yesterday, tell him how much I loved him, how much he meant to all of us. I only wish I had stayed longer.”

“When We Were Kings,” which won best documentary feature at the 1997 Oscars, explores the iconic boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali that took place in Kinshasa, Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1974. Featuring historical footage and new interviews, the doc also examines the...

Leon Gast, the celebrated Oscar-winning documentarian behind When We Were Kings, which chronicled the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, has died. He was 85.

Gast died Monday, according to his friend and fellow documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple. No other details of his death were immediately available.

Gast also executive produced Bill Siegel’s 2013 PBS documentary The Trials of Muhammad Ali, which was awarded a news and documentary Emmy. His final film, Manny (2014), co-directed with Ryan Moore, centered on another champion boxer, Manny Pacquiao.

When We Were Kings (1996) received special jury recognition at Sundance en route to ...

Leon Gast, the celebrated Oscar-winning documentarian behind When We Were Kings, which chronicled the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, has died. He was 85.

Gast died Monday, according to his friend and fellow documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple. No other details of his death were immediately available.

Gast also executive produced Bill Siegel’s 2013 PBS documentary The Trials of Muhammad Ali, which was awarded a news and documentary Emmy. His final film, Manny (2014), co-directed with Ryan Moore, centered on another champion boxer, Manny Pacquiao.

When We Were Kings (1996) received special jury recognition at Sundance en route to ...

Eli Goree stars as Cassius Clay, a.k.a. Muhammad Ali in the new film “One Night in Miami,” directed by Academy Award winner Regina King. The film is developing major Oscar buzz, with King earning a directing bid at the Golden Globes and the film’s ensemble earning a nomination at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Goree recently spoke with Gold Derby editor Rob Licuria about what made him interested in “One Night in Miami,” how he thoroughly researched for the role and how the boxing scenes were physically demanding. Watch the exclusive webchat above and read the transcript below.

SEEBarry Robison interview: ‘One Night in Miami’ production designer

Gold Derby: What drew you to this project? I mean, it’s so exciting to be able to play a legend and to work with people like Regina King but was there one thing in particular that really made you...

In his latest podcast/interview, host and screenwriter Stuart Wright welcomes We Are The Geordies producer Zee Zomorrodian to talk Newcastle United and 5 Great Sporting Documentaries – including:

Hoop Dreams (1994) When We Were Kings (1996) Next Goal Wins (2014) Forever Pure (2016) Last Chance U (2016)

While you may be familiar with Nufc legends like Alan Shearer, Malcolm Macdonald, Les Ferdinand and, of course, Rafa Benítez, the legions of fans are the real stars in We Are The Geordies. It takes a unique look through the eyes of 11 Nufc fans from across the spectrum, an in-depth, close-up view of what it takes to be a supporter: the travelling, the sacrifices the highs, the lows, the passion, the unwavering belief – the Faith – as we join them on their arduous and emotional season-long journey to help lift a once great club back to the top flight. Led by world-renowned manager, Rafa Benítez, who only six months earlier...

As August winds down, it’s time to look ahead to everything that’s hitting the major streaming services in September. As always, there’s an enormous haul of originals and newly licensed titles going up across Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu and Prime Video over the month, including content from every genre out there.

The first day of September brings the usual lengthy list of movies arriving on most of the sites. Just a few of the highlights include all three Back to the Future films returning to Netflix, every entry in the Twilight saga arriving on Hulu and countless iconic movies going up on HBO Max, including Grease, Miss Congeniality and V for Vendetta. Also, Doctor Who fans will want to take note, as the most recent season of the show lands on HBO Max the same day.

Feel free to inspect the full list of everything...

HBO Max is out with its list of everything new coming to the streaming service in the month of September.

Highlights include Ridley Scott’s “Raised by Wolves,” out Sept. 3, which follows two androids raising a human child on a distant planet; “Coastal Elites” starring Bette Midler, Kaitlyn Dever, Dan Levy, Sarah Paulson and Issa Rae, out Sept. 12, and “The Murders at White House Farm,” which is out in Sept. but doesn’t yet have an exact premiere date.

Others without a premiere date coming in Sept. include season one of “Haute Dog,” “Mo Willems: Don’t Let the Pigeon Do Storytime!” and seasons one through three of “The Great Pottery Throw Down.”

Also Read: 'Lovecraft Country' Premiere Draws 1.4 Million Multiplatform Viewers - Including HBO Max

Read the full list below:

Sept. 1

93Queen, 2018

All The Right Moves, 1983 (HBO)

The Astronaut Farmer, 2007 (HBO)

Badlands, 1973

Ballmastrz: 9009, 2018

Bandidas, 2006 (HBO)

Barnyard, 2006 (HBO)

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,...

WarnerMedia’s grand streaming experiment continues apace with HBO Max’s list of new releases for September 2020.

This month, HBO Max is bring some serious dramatic heat with the Ridley Scott-directed sci-fi series Raised by Wolves arriving on Sept. 3. And if science fiction isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, then HBO Max has identified something that is: true crime. The Murders at White House Farm will arrive at a date to be determined in September.

In addition to those intriguing original offerings, HBO Max is making the best of its WarnerMedia library this month. Doctor Who season 12 makes its long-awaited streaming debut on Sept. 1. Also arriving on the first of the month are Clerks, Election, and the hopefully-not-too-timely V for Vendetta.

Recent horror hit The Invisible Man arrives on Sept. 19. It is complemented by HBO Max original comedy Unpregnant on Sept. 10.

Here is everything else coming to HBO Max this month.

The director of Sergio and many docs talks about docs and movies taken from true stories.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Sergio (2009)

Sergio (2020)

Reds (1981)

The Two Popes (2019)

Rules Don’t Apply (2016)

Bulworth (1998)

Dick Tracy (1990)

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Innerspace (1987)

Ishtar (1987)

The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Man On Wire (2008)

The Fog of War (2003)

American Dharma (2018)

Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru (2016)

The Killing Fields (1984)

The Year of Living Dangerously (1983)

Under Fire (1983)

Salvador (1986)

The Quiet American (2002)

The Quiet American (1958)

A Private War (2018)

The War Room (1993)

The Final Year (2017)

Independence Day (1996)

Citizen Kane (1941)

Bloodsport (1988)

Bloodsport II: The Next Kumite (1996)

When We Were Kings (1996)

Soul Power (2008)

High School (1968)

Hospital (1970)

Titicut Follies (1967)

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (2007)

Before Night Falls (2000)

At Eternity’s Gate (2018)

American Factory (2019)

Dina (2017)

Honeyland (2019)

The Act of Killing (2012)

The English Patient (1996)

Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990)

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

Purple Noon (1960)

Other Notable Items

Sergio Aragonés

Wagner Moura

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A conscientious objector, or Co, status has never been fashionable in Hollywood, because it’s never been fashionable with the general population.

Example No. 1: Actor Lew Ayres, who worked regularly in 1930s Hollywood. His career nearly ended in 1942, when he was given 4E, conscientious objector, status. The public considered him a traitor, but calmed...

At long last, Criterion has revealed its 1,000th entry to be the ultimate “Godzilla” collection, with all 15 films of the Japanese monster series’ original Showa era films beautifully burnished for the first time. This massive set, with all films digitally restored, ranges from Ishirō Honda’s 1954 original-that-started-it-all “Godzilla” to Honda’s 1975 “Terror of Mechagodzilla,” which was his directorial swan song.

Also featured in the set are such iconic Godzilla face-offs as “King Kong vs. Godzilla” (1963), “Mothra vs. Godzilla” (1964), “Godzilla vs. Gigan” (1972), “Godzilla vs. Megalon” (1973) and more.

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By Glenn Dunks

Ice hockey is not a sport I tend to pay any attention to. As an Australian, it’s barely on my radar outside of the movies. And even then, my mind only goes to the fab Canadian film Goon and Michael Ontkean’s jockstrap in Slapshot as worth the time. Still, I know a good story when I see one and like other documentaries about pro sports I could not give any less of a hoot about – titles like Senna and When We Were Kings, for instance – this new passionately-realized debut feature from director Joshua Riehl got me involved in its sport, its personalities and its man-made mythos.

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Muhammad Ali’s bark was as formidable as his bite, and “What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali” pays tribute to both, allowing the three-time heavyweight champ to narrate his own story via a combination of audio and video archival material. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, this 165-minute documentary uses copious interview soundbites to highlight the pugilist’s unparalleled gift of gab — and, consequently, the way it served as his means of defiant self-definition. Debuting on HBO in two parts (after premiering at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival), it’s a celebration that, if not quite definitive, proves a stirring work of nonfiction assembly.

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Spike Lee’s politically charged cinema has irked the Academy in the past, but his witty take on how a black policeman outsmarted the Ku Klux Klan could prove sweetly timed

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