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Whether it’s the breakneck pace of AFL or rugby league’s bone-jarring collisions, the spectacle brings people together for a shared experience that few other entertainments can rival.

Our fascination with sport doesn’t end when the final siren sounds or the last whistle is blown.

For many, that passion spills over into an appetite for documentaries and biopics — cinematic retellings that look beyond the scoreboard into the human drama at the heart of each game.

Oscar winner Russell Crowe’s passion for his South Sydney Rabbitohs is legendary. Fuelled by childhood memories of the NRL, the Gladiator star splurged $3 million on a 25 per cent stake in the Rabbitohs in 2006, hoping to cultivate a return to form. While his plans have never quite come to fruition, earlier this year Crowe denied he was looking to sell his share in the Rabbitohs with a typically gruff “it’s all bulls**t.” Certainly, Crowe has done his bit to bring some Hollywood glitz to the game.

A bemused Ryan Gosling told host Jimmy Kimmel that Crowe had invited the cast and crew of their movie The Nice Guys to a bar to watch a Rabbitohs game. “He gave everyone hats and I sat down next to him, and he had a big ice chest of ginger beer and vodka. And he just kept pouring me drinks and I was like: ‘I have to do this. I am going to work with this guy so I have to at least go one for three,’” he recounted of trying to keep up with Crowe. “And he’s watching the game and he’s explaining it and, as he’s explaining, it’s not just the rules, he’s like the rugby whisperer. He’s in all these players’ heads. He knows how they are going to move and where they are going to move. He just knows everything and it’s freakish.”

It was only later that Gosling learnt they were watching a taped game, so Crowe could happily relive past glory.

Speaking on the Fifi, Fev & Nick breakfast show on Fox FM, British comic Stephen Fry told how Crowe had inundated him with green and red rugby paraphernalia in an effort to recruit him. “The sport I haven’t managed to follow, despite your very charming film star Russell Crowe sending me and anybody he’s ever met in the street as much merch from the Rabbitohs,” he said. “I have got so many Rabbitohs objects in my house and I have yet to see them play.”

More of an AFL fan, Cate Blanchett took a savage swipe at gridiron when she was a guest on Kimmel’s show in 2023, teasing that it wasn’t “real football.”

The Melbourne-raised star went on to point out that AFL players skip the protective gear American footballers use, boasting: “They wear shorts and tank tops. And my uncle used to play professionally for Essendon. And my cousin played in Tasmania, where it’s so hardcore they played on gravel.”

Likewise, Chris Hemsworth has done his part to showcase AFL to Tinseltown and beyond. The dedicated Western Bulldogs fan was elated when the Dogs donned guernseys inspired by his iconic Thor armour and introduced his pal Matt Damon to the sport while he was visiting Australia. Hemsworth also fronted a comedic 2017 AFL advertising campaign, in which he attempted to explain the rules of footy to a room full of baffled Hollywood executives. He even posted on Instagram that watching his beloved Bulldogs secure a 22-point victory against the Sydney Swans in front of almost 100,000 fans at the MCG in 2016 — the club’s first flag since 1954 — was “the best day ever.” Next to meeting his wife, Elsa Pataky, of course.

Celebrate the season with these sporting tales streaming on Tubi:

The Nomads: The OC’s Tate Donovan (and Jennifer Aniston’s ex) stars in this 2019 movie about a teacher who introduces an inner-city Philadelphia high school to rugby.

Scrum: This 2021 documentary follows one of the first African-American rugby coaches as he builds a team at a university, only to discover that success isn’t measured in championships.

Becoming The GOAT: The Tom Brady Story: With seven Super Bowl rings, Tom Brady is arguably the best American footballer of all time. This 2021 documentary is a must-see for sports fans.

Now showing on Tubi.