Ali

Ali (2001) — watch online on iFILM — is Michael Mann's biographical drama about the decade that defined Muhammad Ali. Will Smith spent over a year training to move like the real champion, earning an Oscar nomination for the role.

The film follows Ali from his 1964 upset of Sonny Liston through his conversion to Islam, the government's refusal to let him fight after he declined the Vietnam draft, the years of legal battles and forced inactivity, to the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle in Kinshasa. Jon Voight plays broadcaster Howard Cosell; Jamie Foxx is trainer Drew Bundini Brown. Mann shot partly in Mozambique and South Africa to ground the story in its actual geography.

At 165 minutes, the picture moves slow and deliberate — the same way Ali himself fought, absorbing pressure before striking. The film lost money on release but found a second life as one of the more serious attempts to capture a political athlete without smoothing out the contradictions. Stream Ali (2001) in full on iFILM.