The BEST episodes of 30 for 30 season 3
Every episode of 30 for 30 season 3, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of 30 for 30 season 3!
Inspired by ESPN's anniversary, ESPN Films is launching 30 FOR 30, an unprecedented documentary series featuring 30 of today's finest storytellers telling thirty remarkable stories from the ESPN era. On their own, each of the films will be an intimate look at a specific story, relevant to larger themes from the modern era. Collectively, these films will be a diverse mosaic of what sports has meant to American and World culture in the last thirty years. Each storyteller will bring their passion and personal point of view to their film detailing the issues, trends, athletes, teams, rivalries, games and events that transformed the sports landscape from 1979 to 2009.
#1 - Fantastic Lies
Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/12/2016
On March 13th, 2006, the Duke University lacrosse team had a party. What happened there became a nightmare that changed lives, ruined careers, tarnished a school's reputation and even jeopardized the future of the sport at Duke.
#3 - Tommy
Season 3 - Episode 23 - Aired 9/20/2017
It was a remarkable and compelling rise to the spotlight. But then came the stunning, confounding, and ultimately tragic fall. In the 30 for 30 film "Tommy," directors Erin Leyden and Gentry Kirby explore the story of one-time heavyweight boxing champion Tommy Morrison in a tale that's unlike any other. Born into a troubled family in the American heartland, Morrison's initial emergence as a fighter was bolstered by a starring role in Rocky V. A few years later, he beat George Foreman for the WBO heavyweight title, and seemed primed for more stardom, even in the face of blown opportunities and upset losses. But then everything changed in early 1996, when he tested positive for HIV, forcing him into retirement. From there, Morrison's life spiraled further and further downward, plagued by drug problems, jail time, and most alarmingly and bizarrely, an eventual denial that he had the virus at all. There have been other boxers, and other sports stars, whose stories ended sadly. But rarely is the loss of potential as poignant as the case of Tommy Morrison.
#4 - The '85 Bears
Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/4/2016
A look back at the 1985 Chicago Bears, a team built on ferocious defense, with big personalities who shuffled to a Super Bowl title. Jim McMahon, Mike Ditka, Mike Singletary, Buddy Ryan and William Perry are among those appearing. Directed by Jason Hehir, with executive producers Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley.
#5 - The Gospel According to Mac
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/3/2015
Examines Bill McCartney and his sometimes-controversial mixture of football and evangelicalism as Colorado Buffaloes head coach in the 1990s, including a national championship.
#6 - Believeland
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 5/14/2016
The film shares with viewers some of the highs, lows and most unforgettable moments in Cleveland sports history over the past 50 years. Believeland includes interviews from celebrities, public figures and former athletes with connections to the city.
#7 - One and Not Done
Season 3 - Episode 15 - Aired 4/13/2017
Who is John Calipari? To his devotees, he is one of college basketball's greatest coaches. To his detractors, he represents everything wrong with college sports. Somewhere in between lies one of the most compelling and complicated figures in American sports. "One and Not Done" chronicles the life of Calipari - from high school point guard, to dominating UMass coach, to king of Kentucky. A man who has not only altered the college basketball landscape and become the face of the so-called "One and Done" phenomenon, but has also had two Final Four appearances vacated and evolved as a coach who at one point had to rebuild his career.
#8 - What Carter Lost
Season 3 - Episode 21 - Aired 8/24/2017
There's high school football, and then there's Texas high school football. Oddly enough though, one of the greatest teams in state history has been lost to time... and fate. What Carter Lost, directed by Adam Hootnick for ESPN Films' 30 for 30 series, is the saga of that team, the 1988 Dallas Carter Cowboys. With 21 players who were offered college scholarships and several who went on to the NFL, Carter took on the best that Texas had to offer - including the Odessa Permian team that inspired Friday Night Lights - as well as the worst, in a racially charged state-wide dispute over one player's algebra grade and Carter's legitimacy. Somehow, Carter managed to win it all on the field, and somehow, they threw it all away. Perhaps it was the Dallas police officer and Carter fan who said it best after his actions ended a string of crimes that shocked the Carter faithful to their core: "Why would you do this?" Years later, it is a question that still has no easy answer, but through searing interviews with Carter players, coaches and family members, as well as glimpses of their lives today, this film is ultimately about what Carter found.
#9 - Year of the Scab
Season 3 - Episode 22 - Aired 9/12/2017
Two weeks into the 1987 season, the NFL's players went on strike. For the first time in the history of professional sports in the United States, replacement players would take the field. "No Names", "Has Beens", and "Never-Would- Be's" were plucked from obscurity for one last chance at football immortality. What they didn't know was that their golden tickets would become scarlet letters. As the strike fanned fires across the country, no one felt the heat more than the 1500 replacement players, who were caught in the crosshairs of media fueled controversy between owners, players and fans alike.
#10 - Deion's Double Play
Season 3 - Episode 29 - Aired 1/31/2019
A look at Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, focusing especially on a 24-hour span in 1992 when he sandwiched an NFL game between a pair of Major League Baseball postseason games in cities separated by 1,000 miles.
Watch Now:Amazon
#11 - This Was the XFL
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 2/2/2017
A bold challenge, a fearless experiment and ultimately, a spectacular failure. In 2001, sports entertainment titans Dick Ebersol and Vince McMahon used the marketing behemoths of their respective companies -- NBC and WWE -- and launched the XFL.
#12 - Four Falls of Buffalo
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 12/12/2015
In 1989, the Buffalo Bills were a talented team full of big personalities -- including future Hall of Famers Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed. Dysfunction and in-fighting ran as deep as the talent in their locker room., but the team known as "The Bickering Bills" would soon transform themselves into an elite force. From 1990-1993, the Bills went on an unprecedented run of AFC Championship victories, appearing in a record four straight Super Bowls. Of course, that isn't what the Bills are mostly remembered for. This is the story of a team that went down in history not for herculean achievement of making four straight Super Bowls, but for losing them all.
#13 - Trojan War
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/13/2015
The rise and fall of USC Trojans football during Pete Carroll's coaching tenure.
#14 - Celtics/Lakers: Best of Enemies (3)
Season 3 - Episode 18 - Aired 6/14/2017
Conclusion of a look at the 1980s Celtics-Lakers rivalry, focusing on the three years after the 1984 NBA Finals, as the teams' disdain for each other gradually turns to respect while meeting in two more Finals.
Watch Now:Apple TV
#16 - Catholics vs. Convicts
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/10/2016
A look at the notorious 1988 Notre Dame–Miami football game and its personal and cultural impact.
#17 - The Prince of Pennsylvania
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/20/2015
Explores the turbulent relationship between Olympic wrestling brothers Mark and Dave Schultz and their benefactor, John du Pont, culminating in the murder of Dave by du Pont.
#18 - Seau
Season 3 - Episode 27 - Aired 9/20/2018
The life of NFL legend Junior Seau, from his upbringing in a Samoan immigrant family, through his path to NFL superstardom and status as a league icon, ending in his seemingly inexplicable suicide in 2012.
#19 - Doc & Darryl
Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 7/14/2016
The connection between the lives and careers of former New York Mets Dwight "Doc" Gooden and Darryl Strawberry.
#20 - Chasing Tyson
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 11/10/2015
Explores the years that Evander Holyfield spent trying to arrange his first fight with Mike Tyson.
#21 - Phi Slama Jama
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 10/18/2016
A profile of the iconic Houston Cougars men's basketball teams of the 1980s, fronted by Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, whose explosive play and highlight-making slam dunks earned the team the nickname Phi Slama Jama.
#22 - 42 to 1
Season 3 - Episode 28 - Aired 12/11/2018
Chronicles Buster Douglas' shocking knockout of the then-undefeated Mike Tyson at the Tokyo Dome on February 11, 1990.
Watch Now:Amazon
#23 - The Last Days of Knight
Season 3 - Episode 26 - Aired 4/18/2018
In 1971, a young basketball coach named Bob Knight came to Indiana University. Over the next few decades, he became a coaching god. Knight delivered three national titles to a state that worships the game, earning a reputation as not just a basketball genius, but a brilliant leader who equated hard work and discipline with success. And yet, there was another side to that success. In April 1999, Robert Abbott, a producer for CNN/Sports Illustrated, began reporting a story investigating why three high school All-Americans had left Knight's program over the prior two years. Nearly two decades later, the 30 for 30 film "The Last Days of Knight" is the previously untold behind-the-scenes story of that investigation and all it produced - a chronicle of accusations, denials, and discoveries; riots and death threats; a smoking gun video; and the fall of a coaching legend. Directed and narrated by Abbott, it's a tale about success, power, abuse, institutions, journalism, and ultimately, a search for truth.
#24 - Hit It Hard
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/1/2016
A look at John Daly's rise from obscurity to two major championship wins and fall back to mediocrity.
#25 - Celtics/Lakers: Best of Enemies (2)
Season 3 - Episode 17 - Aired 6/13/2017
Part 2 of 3. The Celtics-Lakers rivalry ramps up in the 1984 Finals as a cast of characters--led by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson--who changed the NBA finally went head-to-head for a title.
Watch Now:Apple TV