What to know
- TIFF 2026 opened with Rapinoe, a documentary following the life, career, and family dynamics of women’s soccer superstar and activist Megan Rapinoe.
- Rapinoe is directed by American filmmaker Rebeca Hunt, whose documentary Beba premiered at TIFF 2021.
- The documentary highlights Rapinoe’s fight for equal pay and Black Lives Matter, framed against her identity as a openly gay woman from a conservative Californian town.
- Huntt’s documentary is an awe-inspiring look into Rapinoe’s fight for a better future for herself and for every generation of athletes that come after her.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ /5
This review contains mild spoilers for the documentary Rapinoe
Life looks easy when you’re at the top of the world, but for Megan Rapinoe, nothing she worked for came easy and everything she championed came with scrutiny.
At TIFF 2026, director Rebeca Huntt returns with Rapinoe, a look into the career, childhood, and family dynamics of Megan Rapinoe, a fierce activist and one of the most skilled midfielders to ever play on the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT).
Huntt’s previous documentary Beba, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2021.
Rapinoe opens with the soccer star in physiotherapy, rehabbing an injury that she says has come at “a not very good time.” The USWNT is preparing to play Sweden in the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
She wouldn’t be one of the greatest soccer players of all time without an insatiable hunger for winning. She even says it out loud, “I wanna win.”
Rapinoe was born in Redding, California, as one of the younger children of three. She has a twin named Rachael and an older brother Brian. Along with her siblings, Rapinoe started soccer at only five years old, joining the local team in Redding.
After her family and coaches realized they had a prodigy on their hands, her parents drove three hours each way four times a week so Rapinoe could play with the Elk Grove Pride in Sacramento.
When Brian was 16, the police found meth on him, resulting in a month in a juvenile detention centre, a crippling heroin addiction, and an additional 20 years in and out of the criminal justice system. This incident shaped Rapinoe from a young age and fueled her fight for Black Lives against police brutality in 2016 when she became the first non-Black athlete to kneel for the national anthem.
The documentary covers how sports fans didn’t expect Rapinoe to stand with former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. But she points to her brother’s experience with the law, and says she knows what it means “when the flag doesn’t give everyone the same freedom.”
As a visibly gay athlete with dyed hair, this wasn’t her first rodeo with activism. Scenes in the documentary replayed her public coming out to Out Magazine during the 2012 London Olympics. Rapinoe left no room for questions or doubt, proclaiming, “You’re telling people this is who you are. They can’t really question it.”
But as predicted, media pundits criticized her left and right for her decision to kneel, all with the same sentiment: “Your life is pretty good. Shut up.” Huntt choosing to show the vitriol from Fox News, Ben Shapiro, and other right wing commentators Rapinoe received is a stark reminder that you’re not supposed to speak up when your life is good. Only those actively suffering are allowed to yell into the void. Yet, those same people who are suffering often don’t have the resources to speak up anyway.
And that’s what makes someone an admirable person. Rapinoe stuck her neck out and took on sexism, misogyny, and homophobic comments during the height of her career. Her reputation as soccer’s homegrown darling could have ended in an instant.
Rapinoe then details the soccer star’s third fight against the establishment. The fight for equal pay. The USWNT was leagues better than the men’s team, yet was paid only $75,000 to the men’s $340,000 salary. The U.S. Soccer Federation peddled the narrative that “no one watches women’s sports.”
Fed up, 28 members of the USWNT filed a lawsuit against the federation for unequal pay and poor working conditions, a fight they eventually won in 2022. The team won $24 million and was promised a $450,000 a year salary — equal to the men’s team.
It’s awe-inspiring to see someone who has lived through several lifetimes of traumatic experiences continue to fight for a better future for herself and for every generation of athletes that come after her. Rapinoe may not have realized it at the time, but her fight for equal pay paved the way for other sports organizations to do the same.
Earlier this year, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) won their fight for better pay. Now, top players in the league are paid over a million dollars and the average salary now exceeds $600,000. Previously, first-year players were paid $78,000.
It’s no secret that Rapinoe is both one of the most beloved female athletes of all time, and also one of the most hated. The news cycle and social media called her every nasty name in the book, and still do to this day.
In her documentary, Rapinoe often mentions dissociating, likening it to a superpower protecting her from truly feeling the backlash she received after coming out, fighting for equal pay, and kneeling for Black lives. But she still chose the magnifying glass.
The soccer star showed there’s no point in being the best if you don’t use that influence to fight for a world you want to live in. At the end of the documentary, Rapinoe ends her story with a Mary Oliver poem. The text that fills the screen reads, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your wild and precious life?”
Rapinoe is Rebeca Huntt’s second documentary and will have one more screening at TIFF 2026 on Sunday, Sept. 20 at Scotiabank Theatre at 9:30 a.m.
