Netflix is going back to the well.
The streamer announced Tuesday that Untold will return for a fifth volume, kicking off March 31 with four new documentaries rolling out over four weeks. The new slate covers Lamar Odom’s 2015 overdose at a Nevada brothel, the arrest-prone early-2000s Portland Trail Blazers (The ‘Jail Blazers’), the Magnus Carlsen-Hans Niemann chess cheating saga, and a shooting at an Olympic equestrian farm in New Jersey.
Untold has been one of Netflix’s most consistent sports documentary series since Chapman and Maclain Way launched it in 2021. It’s also gotten a reputation for letting its subjects off easy when they have too much say about the final product.
Volume 5 doesn’t suggest the formula is changing, but the subject matter at least gives it a chance.
The opener, “The Death and Life of Lamar Odom” (March 31), is directed by Ryan Duffy and features interviews with Odom, Khloé Kardashian, and the former manager of the Love Ranch. It revisits the October 2015 night when Odom was found unresponsive after a multi-day binge, months after separating from Kardashian and shortly after retiring from a 14-year NBA career that included two championships with the Los Angeles Lakers.
“Chess Mates” (April 7), directed by Thomas Tancred, marks the franchise’s first foray into chess. The film revisits Hans Niemann’s 2022 Sinquefield Cup victory over Magnus Carlsen, which triggered immediate cheating allegations. The documentary builds toward their 2024 rematch as a dramatic endpoint. Notably, Jimmy Butler is listed as an executive producer, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
“Jail Blazers” (April 14), directed by Sascha Gardener, features Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire, and Bonzi Wells revisiting the early-2000s Blazers, a team that reached a Western Conference Finals and spent the rest of the decade being better known for arrests than basketball.
“The Shooting at Hawthorne Hill” — directed by Grace McNally — closes out Volume 5 on April 21. The film is about Michael Barisone, a retired Olympic equestrian whose relationship with a student at his New Jersey farm fell apart, led to allegations of surveillance and harassment, and ended with a shooting.
The Way brothers told Awful Announcing back in 2021 that they made Untold for anyone willing to follow a story into uncomfortable territory, whether they care about sports or not. That worked when the docs actually went to uncomfortable places.
Volume 5 will show whether that’s still what this series is trying to do or whether it’s become a place for athletes to tell their side of the story without much pushback.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.