--- title: "Icarus" year: 2017 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/icarus" fi1m_id: "icarus" imdb_id: "tt6333060" tmdb_id: 432976 wikidata_id: "Q34905518" fi1m_score: 76 critics_score: 70 critics_reviews: 10 published: "2026-10-03T00:01:09.131817+00:00" updated: "2026-10-03T00:01:09.656718+00:00" region: "BR" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Icarus (2017) Directed by Bryan Fogel · 2h 01m · Documentary ## Identity Icarus - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/icarus - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** icarus - **IMDb ID:** tt6333060 - **TMDB ID:** 432976 - **Wikidata ID:** Q34905518 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6333060/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/432976, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34905518 **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 70 from 10 reviews *In a sentence:* Fogel injects himself in his kitchen for an hour before the film notices who is on the other end of the Skype call > Bryan Fogel set out to film himself cheating at amateur cycling and ended up with the man who ran Russia’s anti-doping laboratory telling him everything. The first hour is self-indulgent; the second is a proper thriller, and nearly all of it is Grigory Rodchenkov. ## Synopsis Los Angeles, 2014. Bryan Fogel, a filmmaker and amateur cyclist who has just ridden the Haute Route, a seven-day race through the Alps, decides to ride it again the following year on a full programme of banned drugs, to prove that the testing that caught Lance Armstrong can be beaten by anyone with a fridge and a syringe. Don Catlin, who founded the anti-doping laboratory at UCLA, hears him out and then backs away. He passes Fogel to Grigory Rodchenkov, director of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, who agrees over Skype and starts prescribing. Dave Zabriskie, a retired professional rider, tells Fogel what the drugs do and what they did to the sport. Then a report into Russian athletics is published, and Rodchenkov’s laboratory is in it. ## Review Bryan Fogel is a filmmaker who rides bicycles seriously, and in 2014 he had an idea. He would ride the Haute Route, an amateur stage race through the Alps, once clean and once on a full doping programme, and film himself beating the tests that had finally caught Lance Armstrong. It is a stunt, and the film admits as much. Then, about an hour in, the man advising him on his injections turns out to be at the centre of the Russian doping scandal, and ready to talk, and *Icarus* becomes a different and far better film. It is worth your evening, as long as you can forgive the first hour for being the price of the second. That first hour is thin. Fogel injects testosterone into himself in his kitchen, fills his fridge with labelled bottles of urine, and rides up mountains while Jake Swantko and Timothy Rode shoot him from the bike and from the chase car. Don Catlin, who founded the anti-doping laboratory at UCLA, listens to the plan and then quietly removes himself from it. Dave Zabriskie, a retired professional rider, explains what the drugs do to a body and what they did to the sport. Fogel is not an interesting enough subject to carry a feature, and the film keeps cutting to Armstrong on television to borrow a weight it has not earned. What rescues it is the man Catlin passes him to. Grigory Rodchenkov ran Russia’s anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, and he appears in a Skype window grinning, telling Fogel what to take and when to stop so that a test will come back clean, with the good humour of a man teaching a cookery class. He quotes Orwell. He finds the whole business hilarious. We laughed with him, and liked him, and then caught ourselves, because the film has just shown us that the person charged with catching cheats is coaching one. Fogel does not push him on this. He is too pleased to have him. Then, in late 2015, an independent commission into Russian athletics, led by Richard Pound, publishes its report, and Rodchenkov’s laboratory is in it. What follows we will describe only in outline. The film becomes a whistleblower story, and Fogel finds himself holding the camera while a man’s life comes apart in front of it. Rodchenkov begins to tell what he says was done at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, and we will leave him to tell it. It is here that we were frightened for him, plainly and for a long stretch, and the fear came not from the music but from his face, which stops grinning. The second half is cut by Jon Bertain, Kevin Klauber and Timothy Rode as a run of podiums and denials. Thomas Bach, Sebastian Coe and Vitaliy Mutko say, in archive footage, that there is nothing to see, and the editors lay their words against Rodchenkov’s diaries and his account. Richard McLaren, the lawyer brought in to investigate, is patient and exact. Adam Peters’s score drops to a low pulse under all this, which does the job without trusting the pictures to do it; the quiet scenes of Rodchenkov alone in borrowed rooms are stronger than any cue. The flaws are real. Fogel stays in the frame long after he has stopped being the story, and the chapter headings taken from *Nineteen Eighty-Four* tell us what to think when Rodchenkov has already made it obvious. The film never asks its subject the hard question about his own part in what he describes; it lets him be charming instead. At 121 minutes it carries about twenty that belong in a shorter film about an amateur cyclist, and that film was never going to be good. Alex Gibney had something similar happen to him with [*The Armstrong Lie*](https://film.one/film/the-armstrong-lie) (2013), which set out to record a comeback and ended up recording a confession. Gibney kept his distance. Fogel cannot, and the result is messier and, in its second half, more alarming. Watch it at home, where you can pause to take in what Rodchenkov has just said. He grins through most of it. We stopped grinning around the halfway mark and did not start again. *Fi1m score 76, published 3 October 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics come down in favour, and they agree on why: the film gets better once it stops being about Fogel’s own doping experiment and becomes about Grigory Rodchenkov. The praise clusters on Rodchenkov’s testimony, on the access Fogel has to him, and on the way the account of Russia’s state-sponsored doping programme arrives with the pace of a thriller. Several reviewers admit they were unsure of the film for its first stretch and were won over in the second. The reservations are about shape. Critics call the structure uneven, padded or scattershot, and more than one thinks Fogel keeps himself on camera longer than the story needs. The Guardian also wants more distance from its subject. The spread is narrow, with most scores in the seventies; the one firm dissent comes from Slant Magazine, which finds the film heavy-handed and unfocused and says the filmmaker’s self-involvement never goes away. ## Straight answers **Is Icarus worth watching?** *Icarus* is worth watching for anyone with patience for a slow first hour, and we scored it 76. Bryan Fogel's self-filmed doping experiment is thin until Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of Russia's anti-doping laboratory, turns whistleblower and the film becomes a proper thriller. Forgive the stunt and stay for the man on the Skype call. **How long is Icarus, and what is it rated?** *Icarus* runs 2h 01m. It is a documentary film. **Where can I watch Icarus in Brazil?** *Icarus* is streaming on Netflix in Brazil. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How does Icarus compare to The Armstrong Lie?** *Icarus* is the messier and more alarming of the two, while [*The Armstrong Lie*](https://film.one/film/the-armstrong-lie) is the cooler and better controlled. Both began as one film and became another when a subject started confessing, but Alex Gibney keeps his distance from Lance Armstrong, where Fogel cannot step out of his own frame. Choose Gibney for the steadier hand and Fogel for the bigger scandal. **What should I watch after Icarus?** After *Icarus*, try [*The Armstrong Lie*](https://film.one/film/the-armstrong-lie) (2013, Fi1m 75): Gibney went to film a comeback and came home with a confession; the cooler cousin of this one. Then [*Citizenfour*](https://film.one/film/citizenfour) (2014, Fi1m 83): A whistleblower in a hotel room, filmed as it happened, with the fear left in; and [*The Act of Killing*](https://film.one/film/the-act-of-killing) (2012, Fi1m 88): Men who did terrible things, delighted to be on camera; the charm is the horror. ### Reviews we read (10) - **The New York Times**, Jeannette Catsoulis (80/100, inferred): The review finds the documentary gripping as it expands from a filmmaker’s doping experiment into a major sports scandal. It singles out that unexpected expansion as its central strength. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/movies/icarus-review.html) - **Screen Daily**, David D'Arcy (75/100, inferred): The standfirst presents the documentary as an explosive, compelling account of Russian sports doping. It singles out the marathon of allegations and evidence as its defining strength. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/icarus-review/5113930.article) - **The Guardian**, Gwilym Mumford (75/100, inferred): Mumford finds the documentary flawed but fascinating, with a powerful and revelatory account of Russian state-sponsored doping. He praises the remarkable access to Grigory Rodchenkov’s detailed testimony, while faulting the film’s uneven structure and lack of critical distance from its subject. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/04/icarus-review-netflix-doping-wada-russia) - **Variety**, Peter Debruge (75/100, inferred): Debruge finds the documentary compelling and game-changing, though its Putin-focused approach limits its broader investigation. He praises how it humanizes whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov while exposing corruption around Russian Olympic doping. [Read](https://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/icarus-review-sundance-1201964494/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Glenn Whipp (70/100, inferred): Whipp finds the documentary ragged and occasionally scattershot, but ultimately compelling. He praises the immediacy with which it reveals the scale of Russia’s Olympic doping scheme. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-icarus-review-20170803-story.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Todd McCarthy (70/100, inferred): McCarthy finds the documentary flawed but revealing, calling it a winner despite its indulgent, padded feel. He praises the revelations from Grigory Rodchenkov, whose story proves more compelling than the director’s on-camera presence. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/icarus-review-965854/) - **Time Out** (64/100, inferred): The available page identifies this as a review but does not reveal the critic’s verdict. Its description highlights the documentary’s investigation of the doping scandal, with no specific praise or complaint available. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/icarus) - **Slant Magazine**, Clayton Dillard (1.5/4): Dillard finds the documentary heavy-handed, unfocused, and weakened by the filmmaker’s continued self-involvement. He faults its reliance on chronological montages and says it fails to center the scandal’s most significant figure. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/icarus/) - **The Wrap** (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the documentary timely, engrossing, and essential despite its unwieldy scope. They praise the shift into a whistleblower thriller, especially Rodchenkov’s account of Russia’s doping system. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/icarus-sundance-review-doping-documentary/) - **Collider**, Matt Goldberg (B): Goldberg finds the documentary initially muddled but ultimately riveting, praising its transformation into a pulse-pounding account of Russian Olympic doping. He singles out the revelations from Grigory Rodchenkov and Fogel’s skill in reshaping the story as its strengths. [Read](https://collider.com/icarus-review-russian-doping-documentary/) ## Details - **Director:** Bryan Fogel - **Director:** Bryan Fogel - **Writer:** Bryan Fogel, Mark Monroe, Jon Bertain, Timothy Rode - **Cinematography:** Jake Swantko, Timothy Rode - **Editor:** Jon Bertain, Kevin Klauber, Timothy Rode - **Music:** Adam Peters - **Producer:** Bryan Fogel, Dan Cogan, David Fialkow - **Cast:** Bryan Fogel as Self; Dave Zabriskie as Self; Don Catlin as Self; Grigory Rodchenkov as Self; Scott Brandt as Self; Ben Stone as Self; Richard Pound as Self; Richard McLaren as Self - **Runtime:** 2h 01m - **First release (the US):** 20 January 2017 - **Genres:** Documentary - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXoRdSTrR-4 ## Where to watch in Brazil - Netflix: streaming *Checked 2026-10-02.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 2018: Best Documentary Feature Film (won) - Sundance Special Jury Prize Documentary 2017: Sundance Special Jury Prize Documentary (won) ## If you liked this - *The Armstrong Lie* (2013), Fi1m 75: Gibney went to film a comeback and came home with a confession; the cooler cousin of this one. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-armstrong-lie.md) - *Citizenfour* (2014), Fi1m 83: A whistleblower in a hotel room, filmed as it happened, with the fear left in. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/citizenfour.md) - *Tickled* (2016): A daft New Zealand story about a tickling contest that keeps opening onto something nastier. - *The Act of Killing* (2012), Fi1m 88: Men who did terrible things, delighted to be on camera; the charm is the horror. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-act-of-killing.md) - *Senna* (2010), Fi1m 84: Sport told entirely through archive, with no filmmaker in the way of the subject. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/senna.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/icarus