Murderball

Murderball (2005) is a documentary by Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro that you can watch online on iFILM. It's about wheelchair rugby — a brutal, full-contact sport played by quadriplegic athletes, where reinforced chairs slam into each other like bumper cars at full speed.

The film follows the U.S. national team on the road to the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens. At its center is Mark Zupan, the tattooed, sharp-tongued face of the squad, and his bitter feud with a former coach who defected to Canada and now wants nothing more than to beat his old players. Alongside the rivalry, the movie digs into the lives behind the game: how these men ended up in their chairs, and how they rebuilt sex, work, relationships and plain anger — while flatly refusing to be anyone's inspirational disabled poster boys.

It took the Audience Award at Sundance and made the final cut for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. There's no pity and no uplift speech here — just a raw, funny and surprisingly tender portrait of guys who would rather check you into a wall than hear you feel sorry for them. Stream Murderball (2005) online on iFILM.