Watch Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos For Free

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The first must-see film of the year.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

In the 1970's a group of businessmen decided to bring football to the United States of America. Their best efforts were not really cutting it as the New York Cosmos were playing in a run-down stadium to small crowds and general media apathy. This all changed though when the signing of Pele made the sport the talk of the town. This documentary looks back at the rise of the Cosmos, with stars coming into the US sport and also the fall, where the television contract with ABC fell through.A timely showing with the BBC Storyville season this one because it screened at more or less the time when David Beckham flew out to LA to join the Galaxy as the latest attempt to break America. Only time will see how that goes but one would hope he has a positive impact because otherwise it is a shame that he has not chosen to seek out more of a professional challenge rather than trying to break a nation. Anyway, regards of how Beckham does, this film does a good job of summarising the rise and fall of football (soccer) in the USA during the seventies and early eighties.A little in the accessible style of "The Kid Stays in the Picture", the film makes great use of contributions to tell the story and it is impressively edited together to be fast-paced and interesting. It does help to be a fan of the sport but even if you are not the film still makes for an interesting sporting story. Contributors are edited across one another to make sure that we know that perhaps the truth is not out there (indeed one says that the makers will get a range of stories about who brought Pele to the Cosmos); stories are told within the main story (the dirt being painted green the best one for my money) and generally it is the people themselves who drive the story.In regards this it is of course a shame that Pele is absent (due to the fee he demanded to take part in the film) but it is again a sign of how well put together it is that really you don't feel his absence that much. The others are all lively and interesting and I did like the way that the footage was edited together to allow for disagreement and energetic presentation of the subject – again making it interesting even if you know nothing of the subject (and other than modern football in the UK, I confess to knowing very little of the NY Cosmos or the attempts to break the sport in the US market).Overall then an enjoyable documentary that yet again demonstrates the value of the BBC Storyville stable. Thanks to the engaging contributions and impressive editing together of the whole package, the film is interesting and accessible throughout and does a great job of capturing a period in football's and US sports' history in a way that is entertaining and lively.

As someone who grew up in Northern New Jersey during the rise of the Cosmos in the late 70's/early 80's, I was looking forward to seeing this movie, and it looked so good in the trailers. While it did not play near me (or it came and went so fast I didn't notice), I was still looking forward to seeing this on DVD. However, as you can tell by my rating, I was very much disappointed. I didn't think it was possible to make this film so dull and plodding, but that's what was accomplished. Far too much time was spent on the Pre-Pele days. And their coverage of the Cosmos teams was incomplete and showed a lack of understanding. One example: They talk about the signing of Chinaglia with little hype, but talked about the signing of Beckenbauer as "the first time someone that good jumped to the NASL while still in his prime." In fact, it was Chinaglia who was the first great player to jump to the NASL, and he came over when he was 29 years old. Beckenbauer, on the other hand had been playing in World Cups since 1966, and came to the Cosmos in 1977 at the age of 32. Beckenbauer was still a great player, but like Pele, he was playing on the downside of his career. Indeed, Chinaglia became the greatest scorer in NASL history.Finally, the DVD had a "deleted scene" of the Cosmos having to play a phony Haitian team because the original team "jumped immigration." That was hysterical and something that few people knew about. This absolutely should have been in the original cut, compared to many of the other choices that Miramax made.

Wow! What a blast from the past! I spent 5 years of my life working for the Cosmos in their ticket office- 1978-1983. I missed the early years, but got a real education from watching this film. It brought back great memories of the years I did spend there. When did we all get so old? If they hadn't given names on the bottom of the screen, I wouldn't have recognized half the people being interviewed.The clips of Pele and the early days of the Cosmos were a pleasure to see. Giorgio, well, I always considered him a bad guy, even more after seeing this film. I consider this a must see for anyone who was a Cosmos fan and a great education in U.S. soccer history for the younger folks!

I knew a little about the New York Cosmos before I saw this movie, and had always been intrigued as to how Pele, Beckenbauer and others came to play in a country that had seemed so apathetic to association football or soccer.The movie tells the story of exactly how this happened, beginning with the purchase of the Cosmos by Steve Ross of Warners Communication as a favour to the owners of Atlantic Records in the mid 1970's. They immediately signed the world's best known player Pele, and as media interest grew, the popularity of the club also grew. Following Pele, several established European players came over the join the clubs of the growing league, whilst the Cosmos recruited Italian Chinaglia and German legend Beckenbauer amongst others. The Cosmos ended up playing in front of 80,000 fans and winning several league championships, before imploding in the early 1980's.The film features testimony and recollections from many of the principal protagonists, although the deceased Ross is not present, and Pele declined to be involved. This makes for some good moments as several different people claim the credit for the same thing on more than one occasion. The soundtrack is fantastic and the soccer action well presented, although not using classical football broadcasting techniques, such as wide angle shots. I enjoyed the film, which unfolded the story of the Cosmos in an interesting and rather fun way. My favourite moments were recollections from the amateur American players who had the luck to play with several of the greatest players to play the game. These men seemed humble and were all amusing and engaging. They certainly looked better than the arrogant Chinaglia.My only sustained criticism of the film is that it rather rushed the ending and the slide towards oblivion of the Cosmos, dwelling a little too much on the signing of Pele. However, this is a minor flaw. Any fan of football interested in the history of the game should watch this well made documentary.