Celebrating 100 years of Olympic films. Year 2017 Video Release 2017 12 05 Studio Criterion Collection Genre Sports MPAA Rating Not Rated Color Color Runtime 6253 Animated Live Action Full Synopsis Spanning fifty three movies and forty one editions of the Olympic Summer and Winter Games, this one of a kind collection assembles, for the first time, a century's worth of Olympic films the culmination of a monumental, award winning archival project encompassing dozens of new restorations by the International Olympic Committee. These documentaries cast a cinematic eye on some of the most iconic moments in the history of modern sports, spotlighting athletes who embody the Olympic motto of Faster, Higher, Stronger Jesse Owens shattering sprinting world records on the track in 1936 Berlin, Jean Claude Killy dominating the slopes of Grenoble in 1968, Joan Benoit breaking away to win the first ever women's marathon on the streets of Los Angeles in 1984. In addition to the work of Bud Greenspan, the man behind an impressive ten Olympic features, this stirring collective chronicle of triumph and defeat includes such landmarks of the documentary form as Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia and Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad, along with lesser known but captivating contributions by major directors like Claude Lelouch, Carlos Saura, and Milos Forman. It also serves as a fascinating window onto the formal development of cinema itself, as well as the technological progress that has enabled the viewer, over the years, to get ever closer to the action. Traversing continents and decades, and reflecting as well the social, cultural, and political changes that have shaped our recent history, this remarkable marathon of films offers nothing less than a panorama of a hundred years of human endeavor. Films included Stockholm 1912 The Games of the V Olympiad Stockholm, 1912 dir. Adrian Wood Chamonix 1924 The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924 dir. Jean de Rovera Paris 1924 The Olympic Games as They Were Practiced in Ancient Greece dir. Jean de Rovera The Olympic Games in Paris 1924 dir. Jean de Rovera St. Moritz 1928 The White Stadium dirs. Arnold Fanck, Othmar Gurtner Amsterdam 1928 The IX Olympiad in Amsterdam dir. unknown The Olympic Games, Amsterdam 1928 dir. Wilhelm Prager; supervisor Jules Perel Garmisch Partenkirchen 1936 Youth of the World dir. Carl Junghans Berlin 1936 Olympia Part One Festival of the Nations dir. Leni Riefenstahl Olympia Part Two Festival of Beauty dir. Leni Riefenstahl St. Moritz 1948 Fight Without Hate dir. Andre Michel London 1948 XIVth Olympiad The Glory of Sport dir. Castleton Knight Oslo 1952 The VI Olympic Winter Games, Oslo 1952 dir. Tancred Ibsen Helsinki 1952 Where the World Meets dir. Hannu Leminen Gold and Glory dir. Hannu Leminen Memories of the Olympic Summer of 1952 dir. unknown Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 White Vertigo dir. Giorgio Ferroni Melbourne/Stockholm 1956 Olympic Games, 1956 dir. Peter Whitchurch The Melbourne Rendez vous dir. Rene...