Where to Stream Icarus, the Oscar-Winning Doping Scandal Documentary, Right Now
If you’re ready to stream the sports documentary Icarus, the only snag is figuring out where to click.
What begins as filmmaker Bryan Fogel doping himself to see if he can game a cycling race turns, mid-shoot, into a thriller once he teams with Russian chemist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov. Their on-camera collaboration in Icarus cracks open a vast doping machine and sends the film hurtling from personal experiment to global scandal. You can stream the whole story now on Netflix .
It was Netflix’s first Oscar win for a feature-length documentary.
Fogel directs, with producer Dan Cogan (an Oscar nominee for How to Survive a Plague) backing the project. The film won the 2018 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, giving both Fogel and Cogan their first Oscars, after earlier taking Sundance’s Special Jury Award (The Orwell Award) in the U.S. Documentary Competition.
If you’re jumping in fresh, the film starts small: Fogel tracks the effects of performance-enhancing drugs on his own body. It escalates fast once Rodchenkov—then a key figure in Russian anti-doping—joins the process, and the cameras keep rolling as the stakes get higher.
More soccer docs on Netflix
World Cup fever may have cooled, but Netflix has a handful of standout soccer titles ready to queue next to Icarus:
- FIFA Uncovered (2022) — A deep dive into FIFA’s history and the power plays behind staging the World Cup.
- Captains of the World (2023) — Directed by Louis Myles, this series follows players’ emotional journeys through the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
- Beckham (2023) — A four-part docuseries from director Fisher Stevens chronicling David Beckham’s career and global profile.
Icarus and all three soccer titles are streaming now on Netflix in the U.S.