Directed by Romolo Marcellini • 1961 • Italy
THE GRAND OLYMPICS, the first Olympic film to be nominated for an Academy Award, celebrates the architecture and atmosphere of Rome while utilizing telephoto lenses to bring the action closer to the audience than ever before.
Up Next in 100 Years of Olympic Films: 1912–2012
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IX Olympic Winter Games, Innsbruck 1964
Directed by Theo Hörmann • 1964 • Austria
Joy and good humor pervades Theo Hörmann's documentary record of the 1964 Games in Austria. Shot in Agfacolor, it nurtures a folkloric image of Tyrol, with its quaint mountain farms and obligatory yodeling. Hörmann deploys shots from a helicopter to pres...
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Tokyo Olympiad
Directed by Kon Ichikawa • 1965 • Japan
A spectacle of magnificent proportions and remarkable intimacy, Kon Ichikawa’s TOKYO OLYMPIAD remains one of the greatest films ever made about sports. Supervising a vast team of technicians using scores of cameras, Ichikawa captured the 1964 Summer Games ...
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Sensation of the Century
Directed by Taguchi Suketaro and Nobumasa Kawamoto • 1966 • Japan
The Japanese Organizing Committee responded frostily to Kon Ichikawa's TOKYO OLYMPIAD and decided a less 'frivolous' survey of the Tokyo Games should be made from the footage Ichikawa shot. More solemn, nationalistic, and orthodox...
