In one sense, it is odd to include bodybuilding in a list of sports. In another, it is about as competitive a thing as you could hope to see, which sees the competitors push themselves to the very limit of human endeavour.
If you are in any doubt about that, then you need only watch the documentaries on our list, which take us behind the scenes in the world of bodybuilding and reveal precisely what it is about the competitors that makes them so desperate to succeed and the lengths that they will go to to win.
It might not be a sport in the traditional sense, but make no mistake that it is every bit as competitive as the likes of football, tennis and golf.
Pumping Iron
When it comes to the world of bodybuilding, there is essentially no film that captures what it’s all about quite like Pumping Iron. It is the movie that put Arnold Schwarzenegger into the mainstream, thanks to the fact that it focussed around his desire to win the 1975 Mr. Olympia competition.
One of his main rivals for that title was Lou Ferrigno, the man better known to most as the original The Incredible Hulk, with the documentary pitting them against one another. Directed by George Butler and Robert Fiore, the film also has segments on bodybuilders like Ed Corney, Mike Katz and Franco Columbo, but Schwarzenegger is unquestionably the star.
Shot over the course of the 100 days that led up to the Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia competitions, as well as during the events themselves, the filmmakers actually ran out of money to release the film, so it came to the bodybuilders that had featured in it to help raise the necessary funds.
It is a good job that they did, considering the fact that the film went on to become a box office smash, as well as helping to make the culture of bodybuilding more mainstream. It might be an exaggeration to suggest that gyms wouldn’t be the same as they are today without it, but it certainly helped change the sport of bodybuilding forever.
Generation Iron
Although Arnold Schwarzenegger is better known in the modern era for his roles in films like The Terminator, Conan the Barbarian and True Lies, to say nothing of his time as the Governor of California, there is an extent to which he will forever be associated with making bodybuilding a mainstream pastime. That can be seen in the fact that he appears in Generation Iron, as does his Pumping Iron rival Lou Ferrigno, as well as other legends of the sport. Narrated by Mickey Rourke, this 2013 American documentary takes a similar starting point to Pumping Iron, in the sense that it follows the leading bodybuilders getting ready for Mr. Olympia 2012.
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— GENERATION IRON (@GenerationIron) January 8, 2026
For that reason, it is considered by some to be something of a sequel to Pumping Iron, at least spiritually. The world’s top seven bodybuilders are the focus of director Vlad Yudin’s interest, so you will get to know names such as Kai Greene, Phil Heath, Dennis Wolf and Branch Warren as they show you what it is that goes into preparing for an event like Mr. Olympia in the modern era. Watching it as a companion piece to Pumping Iron is certainly fascinating, seeing how much things have changed in the decades since the original movie was made. One critic said it was ‘a gorgeous meditation on age-old existential concerns’.
The Game Changers
One of the things about bodybuilding as an enterprise is that it doesn’t immediately strike you as the sort of sport that non-meat eaters can spend time enjoying. That is thanks to the fact that you will often hear the bodybuilders themselves talk about their high-protein diets, with the image of many including drinking raw eggs and eating steaks. That is what makes The Game Changers such a fascinating documentary, in the sense that it follows vegan athletes who enjoy bodybuilding whilst enjoying a plant-based diet. You might initially imagine that this puts them at a disadvantage, but there are some who put their success down to it.
Virat Kohli, Messi and few athletes reference at the end of an American documentary film
“The Game Changers (2018)”❤️ pic.twitter.com/mTdfDQCo2f— . (@DarkPhantom_18) November 3, 2023
Derrick Morgan, for example, is married to Charity Morgan, who is a plant-based chef. Along with other athletes like Bryant Jennings, Scott Jurek and Patrik Baboumian, they believe that they wouldn’t have been able to achieve what they have achieved in the sport without having turned to plant-based meals. This isn’t just circumstantial either; the original Roman gladiators followed a vegetarian diet, whilst the USA Olympic team physician, Scott Stoll, feels that following an animal-based diet tends to impede recovery as well as performance on account of the fact that it doesn’t allow inflammation to be reduced as quickly.
Afghan Muscles
Afghanistan is a country that has been in the news on and off for decades, not least thanks to the invasion of the country that was led by the United States of America in 2001 that resulted in the overthrow of the Taliban government. This film, made in 2006 by Danish filmmaker Andreas Møl Dalsgaard, explores what happened after the Taliban was sent packing, which included a renaissance for bodybuilding as a pastime. The documentary follows Hamidullah Shirzai and Noorulhoda Shirzad, two bodybuilding champions, as they prepare for the 2004 Mr. Asia competition, due to take place in Bahrain, with the rest of their national team.
Their desire to compete at the highest level is hampered by numerous different things, including the fact that they lack financial support and have problems getting hold of the bodybuilding supplements and guidance from professionals that bodybuilders in other countries make regular use of. Then there is the ongoing military conflict that rages across Afghanistan, to say nothing of the father of one of the competitors, keen for his son to settle down. The film played at numerous festivals and won awards, even whilst the men themselves were overshadowed at the Mr. Asia event by the more flamboyant bodybuilders from other countries.
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
The more eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed the use of an asterisk in the film’s title, which is a reference to the asterisk that attaches to the records of athletes who are found to have used performance-enhancing drugs. That is because such drugs are commonly used by bodybuilders, who are looking to make themselves the Bigger, Stronger, Faster* of the title. That, of course, is a play on the Olympic motto, which is ‘faster, higher, stronger’. Although it would be untrue to say that this film is entirely about bodybuilding as a sport, it is also the case that the world of bodybuilding features very prominently in how the film is made.
That is, in part, thanks to the fact that the two brothers of Christopher Bell, the director, grew up idolising the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Hulk Hogan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. All three men admitted to using substances such as steroids and growth hormones in order to grow their physiques. The film’s entire attitude is best summed up by this quote from Bell: “If you look at all the laws in our country, and at how and why things get banned, they don’t actually fit into that category: They’re not addictive, they don’t actually kill people. I don’t condone the stuff, but after three years of researching this, it seems like we should take another look.”
Under Constriction: The Film
Another documentary that isn’t technically about bodybuilding, but that is still very much worth looking at for those interested in the sport, is Under Constriction: The Film. The premise of the film is about Dave Crossland, who decided that he wanted to see just how big he could become via the use of steroids. The tagline is ‘A Film About the Journey From Monster to Freak’, which tells you quite a lot about how Crossland was treated both during and after his attempts to grow his body as big as he could. It is an honest and brutal look at Crossland’s experiment, often filled with humour as well as looking at the sport’s darker side.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the film is that Crossland is English and the journey he goes on takes place in England, as opposed to the majority of the rest, which are US-based. This isn’t a film that shies away from the reality of bodybuilding and the associated drug use, being focussed on the notion of a man looking to grow himself as much as possible via the use of steroids and food; lots and lots of food. If you want to know the details around weightlifting, steroids and the lengths that people will go to to become muscular and chase a specific aesthetic, this is the documentary that you will want to watch.
