# What is the best skateboarding documentary of all time?

> Sundance prizewinners share space with cult portraits of 1980s pros and an Oscar-winning short. Some celebrate the ride; others count what it cost.

*By YPB Team · Published November 3, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-skateboarding-documentary-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Dogtown and Z-Boys** — score 1000/1000
   Stacy Peralta's 2001 documentary about the Zephyr skate team of 1970s Santa Monica and Venice, narrated by Sean Penn; it won the Audience Award and the Directing Award for documentary at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.
2. **Waiting for Lightning** — score 754/1000
   A 2012 documentary about Danny Way, building up to his 2005 jump over the Great Wall of China on a skateboard.
3. **Minding the Gap** — score 636/1000
   Bing Liu's 2018 documentary following him and two skateboarding friends growing up in Rockford, Illinois; it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
4. **Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator** — score 636/1000
   Helen Stickler's documentary about 1980s vert star Mark "Gator" Rogowski, whose career collapsed before he pleaded guilty to a 1991 murder.
5. **Bones Brigade: An Autobiography** — score 538/1000
   A 2012 documentary by Stacy Peralta about the 1980s Powell Peralta team that included Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen, Steve Caballero and Lance Mountain; it premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
6. **The Man Who Souled the World** — score 418/1000
   Mike Hill's 2007 documentary about Steve Rocco and the founding of World Industries, which reshaped the skateboard industry in the early 1990s.
7. **The Motivation** — score 418/1000
   Adam Bhala Lough's 2013 documentary following eight professional street skaters, including Nyjah Huston and Paul Rodriguez, toward the Street League Skateboarding championship in Newark, New Jersey.
8. **Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off** — score 418/1000
   Sam Jones's 2022 HBO documentary on Tony Hawk's career, from his teenage contest wins to the first 900 landed at the 1999 X Games.
9. **Dragonslayer** — score 418/1000
   Tristan Patterson's 2011 documentary following skater Josh "Skreech" Sandoval through backyard pools in Southern California; it won the Grand Jury Award for documentary feature at SXSW 2011.
10. **Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone** — score 0/1000
   Carol Dysinger's short documentary about girls at a Skateistan school in Kabul, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject in 2020.
11. **All This Mayhem** — score 0/1000
   Eddie Martin's 2014 documentary about Australian brothers Tas and Ben Pappas, who rose to the top of 1990s vert skating before drug addiction and crime.
12. **The Devil's Toy** — score 0/1000
   Claude Jutra's short for the National Film Board of Canada (Rouli-roulant) on early skateboarding in Montreal, where police and adults frowned on the new pastime.

Tags: movies, sports, documentary, skateboarding, extreme sports