--- title: "When We Were Kings" year: 1996 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/when-we-were-kings" fi1m_score: 83 critics_score: 85 critics_reviews: 11 published: "2026-09-17T05:01:30.110508+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T05:01:51.746512+00:00" region: "US" 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." --- # When We Were Kings (1996) Directed by Leon Gast · 1h 29m · MPA PG · Documentary **Fi1m score: 83** · Critics 85 from 11 reviews *In a sentence:* Ali talks for eighty-nine minutes and the champion of the world barely gets a word in; that is the point and also the problem > Leon Gast’s footage of Muhammad Ali in Kinshasa in 1974 sat unfinished for more than twenty years, and it is the best record of the man there is: funny, frightened and never quiet. The interviews added later only get in its way. ## Synopsis Kinshasa, Zaire, autumn 1974. Muhammad Ali, 32, stripped of his heavyweight title in 1967 for refusing the draft, arrives to fight George Foreman, the unbeaten champion who has been knocking his opponents out early. Promoter Don King has put the fight together; President Mobutu Sese Seko has put up the money to stage it in his country. Alongside it, a music festival brings James Brown, B.B. King and Miriam Makeba to the same stadium. Ali trains in public, recites verse at reporters and runs at dawn with crowds of children chanting his name. Then a cut over Foreman’s eye in training puts the fight back by more than a month, and everyone in Kinshasa waits. ## Review In the autumn of 1974 Leon Gast went to Kinshasa to film a music festival, a boxing match and whatever happened around them. He came home with the footage and could not finish the film, and *When We Were Kings* did not appear until 1996, twenty-two years after the event. The match was the Rumble in the Jungle. Muhammad Ali, 32 and written off, was fighting George Foreman, the heavyweight champion, who was younger, unbeaten and in the habit of ending fights early. Don King had put the fight together; Mobutu Sese Seko, president of Zaire, had paid to bring it to his country. It is the best film about Ali we know of, because for most of its 89 minutes it gets out of his way. Gast has built it out of Ali talking: at press conferences, at his training camp, on the road at dawn, to anyone holding a camera. The talk is the film. Our reservations, which we will come to, are about the people Gast brought in years later to talk about the talk. Five cinematographers are credited, Albert Maysles among them, and the footage looks like its period: grain, drifting focus, colours that run warm and slightly orange, a camera that is handheld, close and often being jostled. Nothing is composed and everything is alive. The sequence we will remember is Ali on a morning run with a crowd of Zairean children alongside him chanting “Ali, bomaye”, which the film tells us means “Ali, kill him”. We had seen the stills. Watching it move, with the feet on the road and the chant going in and out of time, we were moved more than we had expected to be, because a man about to be hurt by a bigger man is being carried along by people who have decided he is theirs. Ali fills the frame. He recites verse at reporters, he calls Foreman a mummy, he promises Zaire a miracle, and he never appears to be thinking about the fight at all. Foreman, by contrast, is barely there. He arrives with a dog, he hits the heavy bag until it folds, he says almost nothing, and the film treats his silence as menace rather than as a person. When the cut over his eye puts the fight back by more than a month, we get the delay from Ali’s side. We would have liked more of the other man. The delay is what makes this more than a boxing picture. The festival went ahead anyway, and Gast had James Brown, B.B. King and Miriam Makeba on the stadium stage with nowhere else to be. The editors, Keith Robinson, Taylor Hackford, Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte and Gast himself, cut the songs against the training so that the whole film moves at the speed of a set list. Brown, drenched and shouting, is worth the evening on his own. B.B. King sits down to play and the crowd goes quiet for him. Then there are the interviews. Norman Mailer and George Plimpton, both of whom were in Kinshasa for the fight, were filmed two decades on, older and comfortable, and they narrate what we are already watching. Mailer is a good talker and has one or two things to say about fear that no boxer would say aloud; Plimpton is amiable and adds little. Spike Lee, who was a teenager in 1974, is there to tell us the fight mattered to Black America, which the footage has made plain without him. Each time Gast cuts from Kinshasa to a man in a chair the temperature drops, and we started counting the seconds until he went back. The film has also been criticised for treating Mobutu’s dictatorship and Don King’s part in the business lightly, and that is fair; both are shown, named and then set aside. King comes out of it looking like a rogue with good hair. The fight itself we will not describe, and most readers will know how it went. What surprised us is how much of the tension survives the knowledge. Gast cuts the rounds against faces at ringside and in the corners as much as against the ring, and the crowd does half the work. Most sports documentaries tell you a man was great. This one lets him prove it in a bathrobe in front of a microphone, and then puts him in the ring. Certificate 12, 89 minutes, and the morning run alone is reason enough. *Fi1m score 83, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics are won over, and the praise goes almost entirely to Muhammad Ali. Leon Gast’s documentary is credited with recapturing the electricity of the fighter in his prime, with several reviews calling it a time capsule that puts the viewer at the 1974 fight. The archive footage is admired for its urgency, and the wider point about the Rumble in the Jungle as a moment in African-American culture is felt to land. The commentators, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton and Spike Lee among them, are generally counted as an asset. The spread is narrow: ten positive reviews, one mixed, none hostile. Where there are doubts, they concern what the film leaves out. The Independent finds it raises consciousness without confronting the awkward facts of how and by whom the fight was staged, and The AV Club makes the same complaint about the dictator’s money and Don King, adding that Mailer and Plimpton talk over footage that could stand alone. ### Reviews we read (11) - **Radio Times**, David Parkinson (5/5): Praises the Oscar-winning documentary for focusing on Ali the athlete and his importance to the African-American community, with contributions from Mailer, Plimpton, and Lee, proving Ali was the greatest. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-y9f80h/when-we-were-kings/) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (90/100, inferred): The review praises the documentary as one of the best and most emotionally affecting ever made, highlighting Ali's natural presence on camera and the insightful contributions from commentators like Spike Lee. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/kings-review/) - **Little White Lies**, Justine Smith (90/100, inferred): The piece lauds the film as a philosophical and poetic document of Muhammad Ali as an artist, philosopher, and poet, capturing the poetry and tragedy of his life and the era. [Read](https://lwlies.com/in-praise-of/when-we-were-kings-muhammad-ali-legacy) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (90/100, inferred): The film is a vivid time capsule recapturing the electricity of Muhammad Ali in his prime and the cultural significance of the Rumble in the Jungle. It captures Ali’s public persona, private resolve, and joyful spirit while contrasting the young fighter with his later struggles. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/when-we-were-kings-1997) - **Slant Magazine**, Derek Smith (90/100, inferred): The film provides a prismatic view of one of the biggest sports spectacles of the 20th century, seamlessly capturing its politically radical undercurrent with a tactile sense of urgency in its archival footage and reflectiveness about athletes' roles in social change. This Criterion release attests to the enduring power of Gast’s documentary. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/blu-ray-review-leon-gasts-when-we-were-kings-on-the-criterion-collection/) - **The New Yorker**, Michael Sragow (90/100, inferred): Gast’s exuberant and thrilling documentary captures Ali’s most astonishing triumph in the Rumble in the Jungle. The film shows how Ali transformed his public persona and mojo into formidable weapons against Foreman. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/kings) - **Total Film** (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it a superb and electrifying Oscar-winning documentary that captures the monumental sense of the Rumble in the Jungle, focusing on Ali's roots and challenge while conveying the event's cultural significance. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/when-we-were-kings-review/) - **Variety**, Todd McCarthy (90/100, inferred): The incredible story of the Rumble in the Jungle is related in enormously entertaining fashion. Anchored by Ali’s charisma and the event’s cultural importance, the snappily paced doc is a total delight. [Read](https://variety.com/1996/film/reviews/when-we-were-kings-1200445004/) - **Time Out**, TCh (80/100, inferred): The critic praises Leon Gast's documentary as a time-capsule transporting viewers to the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle, highlighting the insightful commentaries by Norman Mailer and George Plimpton. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/when-we-were-kings) - **The AV Club**, Maria Schneider (70/100, inferred): Despite some faults, the film is an energetic, passionate documentary of the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle and a revelation for those who only know Ali and Foreman later in life. It celebrates the event as a high-water mark in African American culture but skirts dubious elements like its bankrolling by a dictator and promotion by Don King, while the commentary by Plimpton and Mailer detracts from the footage. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/when-we-were-kings-1798195819) - **The Independent**, Adam Mars-Jones (60/100, inferred): The critic finds the film fascinating for its portrayal of Ali's charisma and showmanship but notes it deals in virtual politics and raises consciousness without confronting uncomfortable facts about the event or its context. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/stranger-than-fiction-1261527.html) ## Details - **Director:** Leon Gast - **Director:** Leon Gast - **Writer:** Leon Gast - **Cinematography:** Paul Goldsmith, Maryse Alberti, Kevin Keating, Roderick Young, Albert Maysles - **Editor:** Leon Gast, Taylor Hackford, Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte, Keith Robinson - **Producer:** Taylor Hackford, Leon Gast - **Cast:** Muhammad Ali as Self; George Foreman as Self; Don King as Self; James Brown as Self; B.B. King as Self; Spike Lee as Self; Mobutu Sese Seko as Self; Norman Mailer as Self - **Runtime:** 1h 29m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 14 February 1997 - **Genres:** Documentary - **Box office:** $3 million ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, leaving 2026-09-30 - The Roku Channel: free, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $5.99, sd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AU, BE, NL, NZ, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1997: Best Documentary Feature Film (won) - Sundance Special Jury Recognition 1996: Sundance Special Jury Recognition (won) ## If you liked this - *Soul Power* (2008): The Zaire 74 festival on its own, cut from the same footage, no boxing required - *Hoop Dreams* (1994), Fi1m 92: Two Chicago teenagers, five years, and the cost of wanting to be a champion — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/hoop-dreams.md) - *Senna* (2010), Fi1m 84: Another sports life told entirely through archive, with the driver doing the talking — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/senna.md) - *Ali* (2001): Michael Mann stages the same fight with Will Smith; see which version lands harder - *Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait* (2006): Seventeen cameras on one footballer for ninety minutes; the opposite approach to greatness --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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