Films to watch during the Olympics

I, Tonya (2017)

Directed by Craig Gillespie, the film tells the true story of figure skater Tonya Harding, the first American woman to successfully land a triple axel in competition. Technically, she was a phenomenon. Socially, she remained an outsider in a world of perfectly polished, “proper” athletes.

The film traces Harding’s journey from a harsh childhood under her mother’s pressure to the 1994 Olympic scandal involving the attack on her rival Nancy Kerrigan. However, the narrative avoids clear-cut judgments. Structured as a mock documentary with conflicting testimonies, the story unfolds through multiple perspectives, with each participant offering their own version of events.

Margot Robbie physically recreates Harding’s skating style with striking precision, while Allison Janney won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Tonya’s mother, turning toxic parenting into a chillingly convincing character study.

It is a film about how the sports system constructs an ideal and destroys those who fail to fit it.

Eddie the Eagle (2016)

The story of British ski jumper Eddie the Eagle is a rare case in which the Olympics are portrayed without triumphant grandeur. Eddie Edwards was not a favorite, lacked outstanding technique, and frequently finished last. Yet he became a national symbol thanks to sheer determination and unwavering belief in his dream.

Director Dexter Fletcher shapes the film as a classic sports drama infused with comedy. Taron Egerton captures the hero’s naivety and persistence, while Hugh Jackman plays a fictional coach, a former athlete with a broken career seeking redemption.

Though partly dramatized, the message is clear: the Olympics are not only about rankings and medals. Sometimes simply standing at the starting line, despite ridicule and skepticism, is the true victory.

Munich (2005)

In Munich, Steven Spielberg revisits the tragedy of the 1972 Olympic Games, where Israeli athletes were killed. Yet the director focuses less on the attack itself and more on its aftermath, a covert, state sanctioned operation of retaliation.

The story follows a team of agents tasked with tracking down and eliminating those responsible. The protagonist, played by Eric Bana, initially acts with discipline and conviction. Duty comes first. But as the mission progresses, certainty begins to erode.

Spielberg constructs the film as a slow-burning psychological thriller. It is a story of how the Olympics, meant to symbolize peace and unity, became the site of a tragedy that permanently shattered the illusion of their untouchable innocence.

Foxcatcher (2014)

Based on real events, director Bennett Miller’s film immerses viewers in the story of Olympic wrestling champions Mark and Dave Schultz and their patron, heir to one of America’s wealthiest families, John du Pont.

Steve Carell appears in an unexpected dramatic role, nearly disappearing into the character of a withdrawn, psychologically unstable millionaire desperate for recognition through sport. Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo underwent rigorous wrestling training to authentically portray both the physicality and the emotional complexity of the brothers, different in temperament yet bound by a deeply complicated dependency.

The film unfolds at a restrained, almost clinical pace. Here, sport becomes a field for ambition and manipulation. It is a portrait of how the path to Olympic glory can mark the beginning of personal collapse.

Blades of Glory (2007)

This sports comedy is built around an absurd premise: two rival figure skaters are disqualified after fighting over first place and discover that their only way back into elite competition is to skate together as a pair.

Will Ferrell and Jon Heder push the world of figure skating into outright parody. The ice becomes a stage for theatrical excess: flamboyant costumes, exaggerated choreography, grandiose posing, and deliberately impossible lifts.

Beneath its comedic surface lies sharp satire. The film pokes fun at the cult of winning, the media-crafted image of the athlete, and the transformation of competition into spectacle. In this sense, Blades of Glory is an ironic commentary on an era in which sport exists not only for results, but for entertainment.

Earlier, Qazinform News Agency published a new edition of CineCrossroads featuring Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights, Steven Spielberg’s thriller Jaws, and Disney’s animated fairytale Tangled.