Whether you’re coming down off the high of Christmas or still couch-bound from all the food and libations, there’s nothing quite like a good documentary or docuseries you can sink into, and Prime Video has a gravy boat full of them to choose from.
On tap this weekend is one of the greatest surfing movies ever made, a series celebrating half a century of an iconic NFL team, and a redux of a gritty and sloppy music doc that gets up close with two of the best bands of the late ’90s to early 2000s.
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The Endless Summer
I’m not a surfer (I live in Toronto), but I could watch surfing videos and movies all day. It’s pure escapism coupled with beautiful and sun-kissed locales and calming breaking waves … with surfers doing the coolest, most insane things on them. If you’re at all into surfing movies, then you are undoubtedly familiar with Bruce Brown’s groundbreaking 1966 documentary, The Endless Summer. Many call it the quintessential surf movie, but it’s way deeper than many of the surf films and videos we see today—it’s part travel story, part daydream, and all vibe, making for the perfect hazy distraction from all the snow and slush outside.
The epic hour-and-a-half-long movie follows surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August, two clean-cut Californians, as they travel the world—from Australia and New Zealand to Tahiti, Hawaii, and Africa—literally chasing the summer while looking for the best breaks in the world. It truly is a joy to watch, and Brown’s narration is clever, conversational, and totally sets the tone. But speaking of tone, The Endless Summer is probably as well known for its soundtrack as it is for its incredible surf footage, with the film just drenched in The Sandals twangy surf guitars and gorgeous “ooohs.”
The Endless Summer is a must-watch, so much so that it’s been added to the U.S. National Film Registry and has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. If you like surfing films like Step Into Liquid or Riding Giants or excellent series like 100 Foot Wave, you will love this classic. It will seriously melt any snow in your general radius.
This brand-new Prime Video Original docuseries is 10 episodes of pure Buccaneers mayhem. For fans of the iconic NFL team, Raise the Flags: 50 Years of Buccaneers Football is a definitive historical documentation of the team’s rollercoaster ride of a career arc—from its inaugural 1976 season, where the team went winless for 26 games, through new coaches, new owners, wins, losses, and two Super Bowl championships.
Directed by noted NFL documentarian Trent Cooper (NFL 360) and produced by Buccaneers co-owner Ed Glazer, Raise the Flags is stacked with 50 years worth of archival footage from on and off the field, detailing everything from the team’s growing pains and controversies with players to how the public and fans perceived them, turned their backs on them, and stuck with them. But what’s so gobsmacking about Raise the Flags is the more than 100 interviews Cooper and team captured for the series, so you really get to hear all the stories and perspectives from the players, coaches, and key members of the Buccaneers organization tell their stories themselves. Standouts include Tom Brady, Tony Dungy, Jon Gruden, Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks, John Lynch, Mike Alstott, Mike Evans, and Baker Mayfield.
If you’re into sports documentaries and series like HBO Max’s Hard Knocks or Prime Video’s All or Nothing, Raise the Flags: 50 Years of Buccaneers Football will hit home just as hard.
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Dig! XX
I’ve wanted to write about Ondi Timoner’s 2004 cult-classic music documentary Dig! forever, because it had such a huge impact on me when I first saw it, and it opened me up to what would become two of my favorite bands of all time—The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. I had always known the connection between the two alt-psych rock bands from the late ’90s/early 2000s—the Dandy’s with hits like Bohemian Like You, and Jonestown, you may know from the theme to HBO’s Boardwalk Empire—but Dig! detailed how deep, destructive, and insane that connection was.
The original Dig!, on its own, is a stunning piece of rock documentary filmmaking that tracks both bands in their early years as they go from best friends to fierce enemies, through major-label ambitions, drugs, arrests, bloody on-stage brawls, and the knife-edge walk between wanting fame and fortune and selling out. Narrated by Dandy’s frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor, whose intense and often toxic relationship with Jonestown’s prolific genius Anton Newcombe is on painful display, Dig! is can’t-turn-away-TV, and is considered one of the greatest music documentaries of all time.
Fast-forward 20 years, and now we get Dig! XX, an anniversary expanded recut from Timoner that not only adds an extra 40 minutes of footage to the proceedings, but brings in Jonestown’s iconic tambourine player, Joel Gion, to add a new narration track to the film for a perspective from the Jonestown camp. Gion brings new depth to the epic doc, with insights from inside the meltdown, and believe me, it’s worth the 2-hour, 26-minute runtime. Even if you’re not familiar with The Dandy Warhols or The Brian Jonestown Massacre (I wasn’t), it’s a crazy rock story for the ages. Dig! XX is currently available for rent on Prime Video.
Prime Video boasts a vast collection of documentaries and series, making it challenging to know where to begin. We regularly comb through the streaming giant’s catalog to help you cut through the noise. Hopefully, one of the recommendations above will make for a great weekend watch for you.
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Yes, via Prime membership or $9/month
Simultaneous streams
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Prime Video has a large volume of content to watch. The other Amazon perks are a bonus as well.
