There are loads of sports out there that feel as though anyone could do them. We have all kicked a football, for example, or picked up a tennis racket in our time.

Similarly, many people are taking to a bowling alley from a young age, even if we need the barriers up to be able to hit any of the pins.

As with football, tennis and pretty much any other sport you could mention, it only takes seeing a professional performing it to realise that we aren’t even close to being good enough to take it on professionally.

That is very much the category into which bowling has to be put, as these documentaries will help you to realise.

High Roller: The Bob Perry Story

• Format: Documentary film
• First Released: 2004
• Length: 54 minutes
• UK Age Rating: 13+
• Watch in UK: Free on YouTube and Plex. Prime Video offers an SD rental or purchase.
• Additional Information: English subtitles are available on Prime Video, which also carries a smoking content advisory.

Born in Paterson, New Jersey, in the United States of America, Bob Purzycki became one of the best bowlers in the country. What is surprising about that story is that he was just 12 years old when it happened. When he turned professional, Bob Purzycki became Bob Perry, with the talented player lined up to compete in the bowling competition of the World Fair in 1964, which was being held in Queens.

That all went out of the window, however, when a local youth hit him in the face with a mallet, causing him to lose permanent vision in his left eye. It seemed as though his bowling days were over, but Perry had other ideas.

He spent the next five years learning how to bowl with just one eye, improving his game to a 220 average by his 18th birthday. Soon, Perry got involved with drugs and even got mixed up with the Mafia, which resulted in him spending some time in jail.

Not that that stopped him, with the bowler deciding to return to his original name of Bob Purzycki in order to take part in the Super Bowl High Roller tournament in Las Vegas, where he went on to defeat all of the best bowlers in the world in order to be crowned champion once more, this time aged 47. High Roller: The Bob Perry Story is a tale of overcoming adversity and returning to the top.

A League of Ordinary Gentlemen

• Format: Documentary film
• First Released: 2004
• Length: 1 hour 33 minutes
• Watch in UK: No authorised UK streaming, rental or digital purchase option. US-import DVD listings are available through Amazon and eBay.

There is perhaps no documentary about any sport that sums up the participants quite like A League of Ordinary Gentlemen. That is, at least in part, because of how on-the-nose the title of the film is. There are ten-pin bowling leagues up and down the United States, as well as across countless other countries.

Mostly, these leagues are made up of just ordinary people who like to go bowling to let off some steam. Some of them are so good at what they do that they end up making it onto the Professional Bowlers Association Tour, which is where this documentary finds four of them as they compete during the 2002-2003 season.

The bowlers in question are at different stages of their careers, but all of them are faced with the reality that the PBA Tour is losing popularity in terms of television ratings. Thankfully for them, the PBA had not long been bought by three programmers for Microsoft, who turned to American athlete, coach and businessman Steve Miller, who had done wonders for Nike, in order to revitalise bowling in the US.

If you want an image from the film that sums up the sport in general, it is of 37-time champion Walter Ray Williams Jr. shovelling snow off the roof of his motorhome, just moments after having celebrated winning the title once more.

Pin Gods

• Format: Documentary film
• First Released: 1996
• Length: 1 hour 22 minutes
• Watch in UK: Free on YouTube, uploaded by filmmaker Larry Locke.

Made in 1996, Pin Gods asks one real question: what on earth drives someone to embrace the sport of ten-pin bowling wholeheartedly?

The reality for many blue-collar Americans is that there wasn’t a wealth of choice when they were growing up, with one reviewer pointing to the fact that they had just three channels to watch as a kid, two of which showed nothing but religious programming and the other had a live bowling telecast broadcast from a local alley on every Sunday night. That is arguably the best summary of bowling’s place in America’s heartland that you could hope to find, also explaining why people love the film.

Rather than following already established professionals, as is the case with two of the other documentaries on this list, Pin Gods follows three newcomers hoping to break into the big league competitions. That means that they have to travel around the country to places such as Erie, California and Pennsylvania.

Tony Rosamilia is a middle-class kid hoping his beer belly will help him to knock down the pins, whilst Anton Pavelchak, known as ‘Sonny’, is full of bravado. The trio is completed by Bob Vespi, who knows a little about the bowling spotlight thanks to some success during his rookie year. A delight of a film for those interested.

The Bad Boy of Bowling

• Format: Short documentary; ESPN 30 for 30 Short
• First Released: 2015
• Length: 19 minutes
• Watch in UK: Available free through ESPN’s official Facebook page.

Directed by Brian Storkel, The Bad Boy of Bowling tells the story of Pete Weber, the son of Dick Weber. Weber Senior was something of a matinee idol of the sport when it was in its heyday, but his son had no intention of following his father’s somewhat clean-cut image.

Instead, one of the most iconic moments of his career came during a tournament when he turned to those watching and shouted, “Who do you think you are? I am.” That came after the moment that he had secured a fifth US Open title, which was unprecedented at the time, with the film looking to unpack precisely what the scream was all about.

Although not the longest documentary on the list, The Bad Boy of Bowling is a fascinating exploration of a man whose image helped to revitalise bowling as a sport just when it was struggling to survive. If you want to get more of a sense of who Pete Weber really was, underneath all of the bravado and the ‘crotch shots’, this is the film for you.

It also tells us a little about the type of people who are likely to turn to bowling in the first place, with the solo nature of the sport being such that it is not unusual for those who compete in it to be at least a little bit…unhinged. Described as ‘controlled chaos’ in the ESPN film, he helped to change the sport.

The Bowler

• Format: Short documentary
• First Released: 2010
• Length: 14 minutes
• Watch in UK: Free on filmmaker Sean Dunne’s Vimeo channel and Short of the Week.

Described as a short documentary film about ‘booze, broads and bowling’, The Bowler follows the world of Rocky Salemmo. The ‘ramblin’, gamblin’ man’ spent most of his adult life hustling people at bowling alleys in order to make a living, which is something that filmmaker Sean Dunne looks to encapsulate in his short film.

Just because it isn’t a full-length production doesn’t mean that it isn’t well made, however. Dunne allows the character to drive the narrative, which isn’t hard when you’ve got someone as propulsive as Salemmo. Imagine a cross between Joe Pesci’s character in Goodfellas and Bill Murray’s in Kingpin and you’ll have an idea.

Salemmo is a storyteller, which means that Dunne was able to just set up his film crew how he wanted them and then capture the madness that followed. Less of a story about bowling than one about a specific personality with his love of bowling as the structure, The Bowler allowed Director of Photography Hillary Spera to capture some really gorgeous moments on film.

This isn’t really a calm film, if you’re hoping to be lulled into the world of balls going down a lane and skittles being sent in all directions, instead cut by Editor Kathy Gatto to feel nearly as fast-paced and snappy as the man that stands at the centre of the action.

Born to Bowl

• Format: Documentary series
• First Released: 2026
• Length: 27–28 minutes per episode
• Episodes: 5 episodes
• UK Age Rating: 18+
• Watch in UK: Subscription streaming on HBO Max, including the HBO Max channel through Prime Video.
• Additional Information: English closed captions and audio description are available. Prime Video carries a warning for flashing lights or strobing patterns.

With Ben Stiller as an Executive Producer and Liev Schreiber as the narrator, Born to Bowl is a documentary series that was almost destined to succeed. Directed and produced by Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte, it takes a long-form look at the world of professional bowling, following five bowlers heading on the Professional Bowlers Association Tour. Kyle Troup, Anthony Simonsen, E. J. Tackett, Cameron Crowe and Jason Belmonte are the five bowlers in question, travelling around the country as they compete on the Tour and take us behind the scenes of what life is like for a professional bowler in one of America’s most working-class sports.

Made by Stiller’s Red Hour Productions alongside A24, each episode of the multi-part series lasts for about 30 minutes, putting a huge amount of entertainment in there. These are men that have to be away from their families for months on end, not taking a salary as the only thing that the PBA offers is prize money. One of them even takes a fridge with them wherever they stay, knowing that eating casino food in every city is not the right way to go about things. If you have ever wanted to get a sense of what professionals need to endure when they’re not footballers, tennis players or another mainstream sport, this is the place to start.