Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Constructed from over 500 hours of never-before-seen footage, this documentary centers on the personal life and career of the controversial football player Diego Maradona who played for SSC Napoli and Argentina in the 1980s.
Asif Kapadia's documentary benefits enormously from its extraordinary archive of never-before-seen footage, giving it exceptional visual intimacy and cinematographic richness that sets it apart from standard sports docs. The structural approach — splitting Maradona the myth from Diego the man — is engaging and well-executed, though not as formally innovative as Kapadia's prior work on Amy or Senna. The archival material speaks for itself rather than relying on conventional talking-head narration, lending it strong craft credentials. Novelty is solid but not exceptional given it follows a familiar Kapadia template. The ending, dealing with Maradona's decline and contradictions, is poignant but somewhat inconclusive given the subject was still alive at the time of filming.