When We Were Kings (1996)

Directed by

Leon Gast

Genre

documentary film, boxing film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 25m

Rated

PG

Rating

7.6 of 10 from 254 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary covers the 1974 heavyweight championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire. It includes footage of the fight's music festival and interviews with writers and filmmakers.

celebratoryhistoricalenergeticarchivalnostalgictriumphantinspiring

What happens

When We Were Kings is a 1996 American documentary film directed by Leon Gast about the "Rumble in the Jungle" heavyweight championship boxing match that was held on October 30, 1974, in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) between world heavyweight champion George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. It features archival footage of celebrities, including James Brown, B.B. King, and promoter Don King, in the lead-up to the fight and accompanying Zaire 74 music festival, alongside interview footage of Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, Spike Lee, Malick Bowens and Thomas Hauser from the 1990s. The film took Gast 22 years to edit and finance, but it was finally released to strong reviews and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature of 1996. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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• I Am Ali (2014)
• Foreman (2017)
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• Big George Foreman (2023)
• What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali (2019)