Synopsis
In 2009, Alex Gibney was hired to make a film about Lance Armstrong’s comeback to cycling. The project was shelved when the doping scandal erupted, and re-opened after Armstrong’s confession. The Armstrong Lie picks up in 2013 and presents a riveting, insider's view of the unraveling of one of the most extraordinary stories in the history of sports. As Lance Armstrong says himself, “I didn’t live a lot of lies, but I lived one big one.”
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Lance ArmstrongHimself
- Betsy AndreuHerself
- Frankie AndreuHimself
- Reed AlbergottiHimself
- Johan BruyneelHimself
- Daniel CoyleHimself
- Michele FerrariHimself
- Michael BloombergHimself (archive footage)
- Anderson CooperHimself (archive footage)
- Bill ClintonHimself (archive footage)
Recommendations
- 90
Variety
Director Alex Gibney delivers not just a detailed, full-access account of his subject, in all his defiance, hubris and tentative self-reckoning, but also a layered inquiry into the culture of competitiveness, celebrity, moral relativism and hypocrisy that helped enable and sustain his deception. - 90
Village Voice
To use a phrase from the film, The Armstrong Lie is a "myth-buster." It's wholly necessary, brilliantly executed, and a complete bummer. - 80
The Guardian
Succeeds as a probing look into the mechanics of an epic lie, and because of the emotion at its heart. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
A quite absorbing but never riveting or revelatory overview of Armstrong’s career and testy personality. - 70
New York Magazine (Vulture)
The chronology is confusing at times, but the film is never not fascinating. - 67
The Playlist
For all its flaws, the film offers as compelling and fair a summary of the case and the man for those less well-versed in the tale as you could ask for from a documentary. - 63
Slant Magazine
The film can't entirely avoid the feeling of a less-productive score-settling hit piece, as if Alex Gibney was making this film merely to stick it to the subject that screwed him big time. - 60
The Telegraph
The film leaves you enlightened and disillusioned, but still furious at Armstrong, who seems to have drawn the conclusion that he is now a tragic hero.
