Ride
2017 · 7m · Canada
Directed by Kristin Catherwood
Genres: coming-of-age, documentary, sports
Tones: contemplative, tender
Teenage Saskatchewan rider Liam Marshall trains intensely for bareback bronc competition, pursuing a dangerous family tradition in the Big Muddy Valley while inspiring his younger brothers.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a straight sports doc about rodeo tradition—exactly the kind of earnest, expected narrative that usually puts me to sleep, though Catherwood's refusal to sentimentalize the danger or mythologize the masculinity does push back against rodeo hagiography in ways worth watching.
A formally restrained portrait that trusts the landscape and ritual to carry weight; the editing rhythm mirrors the discipline of training itself, and there's a deliberate austerity here that situates it alongside the best of contemporary documentary minimalism.
Catherwood's decision to hold on the brothers' faces in static wide shots—letting us read their ambivalence about inheritance rather than cutting to their reactions—transforms what could've been a standard coming-of-age arc into something genuinely unsettling about family and choice.