Sunderland 'Til I Die

Sunderland 'Til I Die was made by Fulwell 73, the company founded by Leo Pearlman and the brothers Ben and Gabe Turner, who had previously made The Class of '92. Its first season launched on Netflix in December 2018; a second followed in 2020 and a third, concluding the story, in 2024. More than any other series, it created the modern club documentary: Rob McElhenney has cited it as the inspiration for buying Wrexham.

The first season joins Sunderland in the summer of 2017, freshly relegated from the Premier League, with a new manager, an unhappy squad and a city in which the club is woven into economic and emotional life. Unlike the club-sanctioned series that came after it, its focus is as much the people around the team as the team itself: the chief executive Martin Bain trying to balance the books, the kit staff and cleaners, the priest who prays for results, and the supporters in the pubs and on the terraces. Episodes are around forty minutes, and the tone moves easily between comedy and something close to grief.

Its reputation rests on that generosity. It is a portrait of what a football club means to a post-industrial town when the club is failing, and of loyalty that is not rewarded. Viewers who have never cared about football have been known to finish it in a weekend.