Tokyo Olympiad

A spectacle of magnificent proportions and remarkable intimacy, Kon Ichikawa’s documentary Tokyo Olympiad remains one of the greatest films ever made about sports. Drawn equally to the psychology of losers and winners—including the legendary Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, who receives the film’s most exalted tribute—Ichikawa captures the triumph, passion, and suffering of competition with a singular humanistic vision, and in doing so, effected a transformative influence on the art of documentary filmmaking.