tour de france netflix

‘Tour de France: Unchained’ Renewed For Season 2: Coming to Netflix in 2024

Picture: Netflix

One of the many new Netflix sports docu-series to debut in 2023 has been handed a season 2 order. Tour de France: Unchained will return for a second season in 2024. 

Debuting on Netflix for the first time in early June 2023, Tour de France: Unchained gives you unparalleled access to behind-the-scenes of the world’s most famous cycling race. The documentary series was released in French audio with a range of subtitle and dub options, including English.

Eight episodes dropped globally (after airing on France Télévisions) on June 9th. The series featured  in the global non-English TV top 10 for a single week, picking up 8.2 million hours watched globally between June 11th and 18th.

The renewal news comes via a Tweet by Netflix France . The Tour de France followed up Netflix France’s announcement in an additional Tweet, saying :

“See you next year @NetflixFR! A series made possible thanks to @francetv and the cycling teams!”

Season 2 will follow the forthcoming 2023 Tour de France, scheduled to begin at the end of July 2023 . The event takes place over 21 stages beginning in Northern Spain and concluding in Paris; it’s been confirmed 22 teams will be competing for the grand prize.

The renewal of Tour de France: Unchained means that we’ll see the return of numerous sporting documentaries in 2023. Full Swing , Formula 1: Drive to Survive, and Break Point have all been handed renewal orders, each set to return in 2024. All of the aforementioned shows (including Unchained) are produced by the British outfit Box to Box Films.

Those returning series are in addition to other various sports documentaries Netflix currently has in the works for other sports like soccer, the NFL, rugby, and WWE.

Are you glad to hear that Tour de France: Unchained is returning for a second season? Let us know in the comments.

Founder of What's on Netflix, Kasey has been tracking the comings and goings of the Netflix library for over a decade. Covering everything from new movies, series and games from around the world, Kasey is in charge of covering breaking news, covering all the new additions now available on Netflix and what's coming next.

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Tour de France: Unchained

Documentary on the journey of eight teams taking part in the world's most challenging Tour de France bike race. Documentary on the journey of eight teams taking part in the world's most challenging Tour de France bike race. Documentary on the journey of eight teams taking part in the world's most challenging Tour de France bike race.

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• Trivia The tour started in Denmark with 3 stages, with ca. 1,6 million spectators on the side of the road. 4 stages was won by Danes (Magnus Cort, Jonas Vingegaard, Mads Pedersen and Jonas Vingegaard) and ended With Jonas Vingegaard as the overall winner of the yellow and dotted jersey. On a side note, another dane won a stage in Tour the France Femmes ( Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig)

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Tour de France: Unchained review - An addictive and entertaining Netflix series

The eight episodes are a compelling look back at the 2022 Tour de France

The ‘ Tour de France Unchained’ Netflix documentary has dropped and the debate has begun about the qualities of the series as people around the world start to watch the eight-episode series.

The EF Education-EasyPost team described the series as “Unflinching, ambitious, and beautifully shot” but they would, since they star in it and team manager Jonathan Vaughters is convinced it can give his sponsors extra visibility or even bring in new ones.  

Sporza in Belgium were less impressed, quick to dub the series ‘Cycling for Dummies’, criticising the simplistic nature of the storytelling, while overlooking the fact that not everyone has raced a bike or has years of Flemish cycling culture ingrained in their minds.

Netflix Tour de France documentary trailer reveals drama of 2022 race Netflix's 'Tour de France: Unchained' documentary coming on June 8 The subtle presence of Netflix at the 2022 Tour de France The complete guide to the 2023 Tour de France

Cyclingnews binged watched the eight episodes on Thursday morning with a critical eye, while understanding the series' wider aim of attracting new viewers to professional cycling and new fans to the sport, which worked so effectively for Formula 1 and Drive to Survive.

The combination of slick and fast editing, the constant showing of crashes and pain, the heightened drama levels and frequent background music left us a little nauseous, as if we had eaten too much Haribo on a hot day.  But ‘Tour de France Unchained’, as the producers hoped and planned, is very addictive and entertaining to watch, whatever your level of understanding of the sport.  

Eight carefully scripted episodes

The eight episodes are an excellent way to look back at the  2022 Tour de France  and better comprehend what happened both out on the road and behind the scenes on every stage.

Each episode is carefully scripted to fit a simplistic, feel-good narrative, following the Drive to Survive formats. But they also capture the tensions and rivalries within teams and the peloton, the thrill of road racing, the emotions of success and the pain of defeat. 

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Watching Grand Tour racing live on television can be far less entertaining, with long waits for the most dramatic moments. Tour de France Unchained packages the action and splices it with interviews to create an intense and addictive summary. It’s like switching on Milan-San Remo from the foot of the Cipressa rather than appreciating and understanding the impact of the long ride from Milan.  

The eight episodes remind us just how good the 2022 Tour de France was, from the rain-soaked opening time trial in Copenhagen, the daily battles for stage wins, the Vingegaard-Pogacar battles in the Alps and Pyrenees, the way Geraint Thomas fought for third place overall and the final stage in the Paris sunset on the Champs Elysees.

Tour de France Unchained is not complete because it focuses on just eight of the 22 teams but it offers a more complete, more layered, look back at the race than television ever can.

Some of the rider introductions feel very scripted - Geraint Thomas' spot in episode five starts out very stilted and entirely uncharacteristic of his usual affect but the series makes up for it with delightfully candid snippets sprinkled into the script.

Tom Pidcock admits to not enjoying the Tour de France before being given the opportunity to go for the Alpe d'Huez stage win. Neilson Powless' eyes cannot hide his heartbreak in the post-race vignette about the stage, after he suffered a stinging defeat on the climb.

The pre-Tour de France footage from training camps and other races helps present the riders at the centre of the episodes. Vignettes include Fabio Jakobsen's comeback from the terrible injuries of his 2020 Tour de Pologne crash and Thibaut Pinot’s unique character and many setbacks that make him so admired.

The intimate moments are revealing and give the riders a very human and fragile face, despite the over-use of crash footage and focus on the gladiator-esque suffering. There is lots of patriotic chest beating from Marc Madiot, lots of swearing in French from AG2R-Citroën directeur sportif Julien Jurdie and Patrick Lefevere can’t help but gloat after Yves Lampaert and Fabio Jakobsen win the opening two stages.

There are moving intimate family moments as Thomas talks about the risks he takes in races with his wife and Netflix even captures the post-stage phone conversations between Vingergaard and his partner.

Looking back at race tactics better than instant television ever can

The Netflix camera crews had all-area access to the eight teams and captured rarely-seen moments on team buses, in hotels and even meetings between directeur sportif and riders on the massage table. 

Months of editing time allowed the producers to look back and dissect race tactics in a way that live and daily television never can. For example, the risks to Vingeggard’s overall chances of victory due to Wout van Aert's attacks to win stages are revealed in full.

The way tactical errors or just simple fate and misfortune can destroy a team and equally, how success brings exultation, leaves you mesmerised. 

Tour de France Unchained reveals just how Vingegaard could have lost the Tour de France due to his bike swap chaos on the cobbles of northern France or when he crashed during stage 15 to Carcassonne. 

Each of the eight episodes lasts around 40 minutes and combines two storylines from major moments of the race. AG2R Citroën Team, Alpecin-Fenix, EF Education-EasyPost, Groupama-FDJ cycling Team, Ineos Grenadiers, Bora-Hansgrohe, Team Jumbo-Visma and Team Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl all get their moment in the Netflix spotlight.

Tadej Pogcar's UAE Team Emirates opted not to be involved due to privacy and sponsor concerns but the Slovenian and the rest of the Tour de France peloton are included in the episodes because of the extensive use of television footage and on-bike video images.

Comments and context from French television commentator Steve Chainel, Britain’s David Millar and Orla Chennaoui help explain the unwritten rules of professional cycling and the Tour de France, while Vaughters, Lefevere, Madiot and Jumbo-Visma directeur sportif Grischa Niermann are natural storytellers, completing the picture. 

A second series is all but confirmed with the producers ready to work on different storylines and secure even better access with the teams at this year’s Tour de France.

It’s easy to criticise Tour de France Unchained for its Netflix format, stereotypical overly dramatic musical overdubs and sweetened narratives but the drama of the 2022 Tour de France is addictive, arguably more than Formula 1 and other sports can ever be.

Our conclusion:  Watch it, enjoy it, criticise it, enjoy the details it reveals and look forward to the 2023 Tour de France.

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Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters , Shift Active Media , and CyclingWeekly , among other publications.

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‘Tour de France: Unchained’ Will Turn You into a Cycling Fan

The new Netflix series is road cycling’s best opportunity in decades to expand its audience

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

It’s been two decades since road cycling grabbed the collective attention of mainstream America, and those of us who pedaled a bike during the Lance Armstrong era remember our sport’s bizarre dalliance with Jane and John Q. Public. Cyclists graced the covers of glossy magazines . Hollywood A-listers dropped by the Tour de France . Dave from accounting bought a shiny Trek and started using words like “peloton” and “echelon” in meetings. Yeah, stuff got weird.

We all know what happened next: Lance’s doping confession zapped cycling’s growing popularity just as it was nearing a critical mass. After the dust settled, many fans—myself included—assumed road cycling would fade back into niche-sport anonymity for good, never again to be packaged and sold to a broad U.S. audience.

Well, we were wrong. On Thursday, streaming giant Netflix released Tour de France: Unchained , an eight-part cycling docuseries that takes viewers inside the 2022 Tour. I received advanced screeners for Unchained , and I watched each episode multiple times. My takeaway: Unchained is precision crafted to transform mainstream viewers into cycling fans. It’s preferential spot on one of the largest media platforms in history makes Unchained road cycling’s best opportunity since Lance to reach a broad American audience. Dave from accounting may have to dust off his old Trek.

The wide appeal of  Unchained is no accident, of course. The program is the cousin of Netflix’s wildly popular auto-racing series Formula 1: Drive to Survive , which has been credited with F1 racing’s global surge in visibility. The success of Drive to Survive already spawned Netflix’s two sister series: Break Point takes viewers inside professional tennis, and Full Swing  shines a spotlight on the professional golf tour. Unchained shares plenty of connective tissue with all three series . It was shot and edited by French production company QuadBox, which is a joint venture between filming firm Quad and Drive to Survive producer BoxtoBox Films (which also produced Break Point and Full Swing ). Yann Le Bourbouach, a QuadBox executive producer, told me that his staff had just one goal when they started brainstorming a cycling project back in 2018: “What we tried to achieve in this documentary is to appeal to a broad audience and not the hardcore fan.”

“Perhaps it is a bit pedological for the hardcore fans,” Le Bourbouach told me. “But I would love for people to see that a victory at the Tour de France occurs because of the work of many.”

You can read my interview with Le Bourbouach here .

So, why is Unchained so effective at reaching casual viewers? Like  Drive to Survive, Unchained blends human-interest narratives with inside-the-game access that brings the athletes and competition to life. Each episode focuses on a different collection of riders, coaches, and directors at the race, and then explores a familiar hero’s tale of adversity, setback, and ultimate triumph. The first episode charts the improbable comeback of Team Soudal—Quick Step’s Dutch sprinter Fabio Jakobsen , who starts the 2022 Tour just 22 months after he was nearly killed in a crash at the Tour of Poland. Another episode discusses French cycling’s repeated heartbreak (a French rider hasn’t won the Tour since 1985) by profiling two Frenchmen: Groupama-FDJ’s star-crossed racer Thibaut Pinot and AG2R-Citröen’s fanatical director Julien Jurdie. Lots of credit goes to Unchained’s producers for choosing the correct riders and directors to train their cameras on before and during the Tour: Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard , the race’s ultimate winner, is the focal point of another episode.

These human stories suck audiences in with humor, personality, and heart-tugging anecdotes of personal loss and struggle. Sprinkled amongst these tales is the explainer stuff to help casual viewers understand bike racing’s more enigmatic nuances, like drafting, teamwork, and how a rider actually wins the Tour. Rather than bash viewers over the head with clumsy diagrams and oratories on strategy, Unchained presents this information subtly and with care. In episode one, retired French rider Steve Chainel delivers the basics, and after that, it’s up to the viewer to pick things up as the series goes along. Want to know about teamwork? A sentence here and a line of dialogue there will tell you what you need to know. Sneeze, and you might miss it.

I found Unchained’s interpretation of cycling to be a welcomed salve to the goofy visuals and confusing explainers that pop up each year in the Tour’s American telecast. Diagrams may help casual fans to better understand the sport, but rarely do they entice total newbies to follow it. By weaving this information into the human narratives, Unchained incepts bike fandom into the brains of anyone who cares to see whether or not Jakobsen will overcome the demons from his horrific crash. It is the perfect entry point for a regular person to learn about bike racing and the Tour.

This type of sports storytelling is not new, of course, and Unchained,   Drive to Survive, and Netflix’s other sports documentaries are simply carrying on the tradition of legendary producers Roone Arledge and Dick Ebersol , architects of the modern Olympics telecast. But many of us who grew up watching NBC’s primetime Olympics coverage long ago tired of the cheesy and formulaic human-interest schtick that producers cram between the competitions. The storytelling in Unchained  is far more ambitious than the Olympics stuff. It’s raw at times. When a character cries, the audience has enough backstory to understand the weight of the moment. You can tell that the producers and camera people spent ample time with the athletes and team directors to cultivate their trust. Cameras are rolling when things go right, and when shit hits the fan.

There’s a big difference between cyclists and race-car drivers, so Unchained is also vastly different from Drive to Survive.  The latter series hoovers up the drama generated by those adrenaline-filled personalities that drive the cars, own the teams, and talk epic amounts of trash. Cycling has a different vibe. As someone who covered the sport for nearly 20 years, I would struggle to fill one page with one-the-record smack talk I heard—most of it was from one source: British sprinter Mark Cavendish. In cycling, the star athletes tend to keep their emotions and disagreements close to the vest. But Unchained does capture enough moments of tension and disagreement to keep hardcore fans satiated.

🔥À demain. 9h. 👋 @NetflixFR pic.twitter.com/CSiiKthHqc — Tour de France™ (@LeTour) June 7, 2023

We see Vingegaard snap at his teammate Wout van Aert after van Aert drops him—and everyone else—to win stage four. British star Geraint Thomas disagrees with Team Ineos’ proposed plan for his teammate Tom Pidcock to attack on legendary climb l’Alpe d’Huez for a stage win—a move that Thomas believes will leave him vulnerable. And then there is the episode about Belgian sprinter Jasper Philipsen, who can’t seem to get out of his own way on a bike. That’s an episode you won’t want to miss.

The series isn’t perfect, and there are several characters who elude the cameras. Two-time defending champion Tadej Pogačar is a bit player in the series, despite his gravitas in the sport. And  Unchained is solely a story about the men’s Tour—there are no storylines around the women’s race. Le Bourbouach discussed both absences in our interview .

Of course, whether  Unchained grows cycling’s fanbase will likely depend more on Netflix’s recommendation algorithm than on the quality of the storytelling. That said, I am cautiously optimistic. I will endorse the series to those coworkers, family members, and fellow shoppers at Trader Joe’s in my life who have not yet caught the bike bug, and I cannot wait for my brother-in-law to refer to his daily commute as a “parcourse.” Unchained has all of potential to suck them in, tell them a good story or two, and sent them out into the world ready to go bonkers for the Tour de France.

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Netflix Tour de France TV show Unchained set to get second season

Cameras to follow racing action this July for second year in a row; first series released on 8 June

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Netflix's Tour de France documentary series, Unchained , is to return for a second series, with filming at the 2023 Tour, Cycling Weekly understands.

Cameras are expected to follow teams in the build up to the biggest race of the year and then at the event itself, as they did last year. While the Tour's organiser ASO declined to comment, multiple sources close to the production confirmed that a second season is happening.

The first season , consisting of eight episodes, is yet to be released. It will be available to stream on Netflix on 8 June, coinciding with this year’s  Critérium du Dauphiné , the key precursor to the Tour. 

The first highly-anticipated series, produced by Quadbox and Box to Box Films, the makers of F1: Drive to Survive , follows eight teams at the  2022 Tour de France , with exclusive behind-the-scenes access. 

A teaser trailer was released last month, which showed footage from inside team cars and buses, as well as interviews and the on-bike action too.

Eight teams agreed to give exclusive access to Netflix camera crews for the series: AG2R Citroën, Alpecin-Deceuninck, Bora-Hansgrohe, EF Education-EasyPost, Groupama-FDJ, Ineos Grenadiers, Jumbo-Visma and Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl. It is expected that the eight will be filmed again for the project.

Filmmakers were embedded within squads at last year's Tour, with the sets of camera and boom operators essentially part of the team. The eight squads were given vetos over what footage stayed in and out of the documentary.

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Each episode of the first series focuses on a team. One source told CW Jumbo-Visma's episode will centre on Jonas Vingegaard, the winner of the 2022 Tour, and Ineos Grenadiers' episode will be about Tom Pidcock's victory atop Alpe d'Huez.

According to reports, Netflix covered the production costs of €8m (£6.9m/$8.6m) to make the series, paying a total of €1m ($0.8m/$1m) to the different parties involved, with teams ending up with about €62,000 (£53,000/$66,000) each. 

When the first documentary series was announced last March, Yann le Moënner, CEO of ASO, the organiser of the Tour de France, said: “We are proud of this partnership with Netflix, France Télévisions and the Tour de France teams, which will offer fans a unique immersion behind the scenes. 

“Through a narrative approach, which is additive to the competition itself, the public will be able to discover how the Tour de France represents the ultimate challenge for the competitors ; in particular in terms of suffering, pushing their limits and team spirit. This project is part of our overall ambition to make our sport more accessible and meet an even wider audience.”

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Adam is Cycling Weekly ’s news editor – his greatest love is road racing but as long as he is cycling on tarmac, he's happy. Before joining Cycling Weekly he spent two years writing for Procycling, where he interviewed riders and wrote about racing. He's usually out and about on the roads of Bristol and its surrounds. Before cycling took over his professional life, he covered ecclesiastical matters at the world’s largest Anglican newspaper and politics at Business Insider. Don't ask how that is related to cycling.

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Tour de France Unchained Netflix documentary to be released on June 8

Series will consist of eight 45-minute episodes

Marco Bertorello / Getty Images

Stan Portus

The Netflix series Tour de France Unchained will be released on 8 June, according to the first official trailer released on Le Tour de France's YouTube channel.

The series was first unveiled in March 2022, when Netflix announced a partnership with A.S.O., organiser of the Tour de France, to create a documentary series based on the 2022 race.

The series is produced by Quadbox, a joint venture between Quad and Box to Box Films, the sports film producer behind Netflix’s incredibly popular Formula 1 series Drive to Survive .

Tour de France Unchained will document the trials and tribulations of eight teams at the 2022 edition of the race, including Jumbo-Visma and Jonas Vingegaard's eventual victory.

Read our Tour de France Unchained review .

First episode focuses on Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl

The first episode of Tour de France Unchained was screened at CanneSeries, the television festival linked to Cannes Film Festival, in April 2023.

RMC reports the first episode screened at the festival focused primarily on Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl.

RMC says the episode looks at the decisions of team boss Patrick Lefevere, the non-selection of Julian Alaphilippe and Fabio Jakobsen’s success at the race following his life-threatening crash at the 2020 Tour of Poland.

Yann Le Bourbouac’h, one of the producers, explained to RMC how they “tried to work on the boundary between documentary and cinema” seeking out characters in the race.

“With Fabio, we tried to show that he had almost died two years ago and that two years later he is doing his first Tour de France and winning a stage,” Le Bourbouac’h explained.

Alongside the series following Jumbo-Visma's overall winner Jonas Vingegaard, RMC also reports an episode will be focused around Groupama-FDJ and Thibaut Pinot.

A teaser trailer was shown during a keynote speech by the streaming service’s co-CEO Greg Peter at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on 28 February. Pinot featured in the teaser trailer, stating how “when you are French and in a French team, you’re in for a huge amount of pressure [at the Tour de France].”

Drive to Survive, but with bikes?

Drive to Survive saw interest in Formula 1 increase substantially in 2020. According to global analytics company Nielson, an average of 2.7 million 16 to 35-year-olds became interested in F1 every month in the year beginning March 2000.

Speaking to RMC, Le Bourbouac’h explained how the Tour de France series will differ from Drive to Survive.

"You have to understand that Formula 1 is a championship where you follow one race and then another. You can adjust your narrative arcs. The Tour de France does not wait for you. It's different work, it's different stories," he explained.

Regardless of the differences between the two shows, if Netflix’s Tour de France series proves anywhere near as popular as Drive to Survive , there could be a massive increase in interest in the Tour de France and cycling more generally.

What is the Tour de France Netflix documentary about?

Netflix has said its Tour de France series will “follow as closely as possible all the actors of the Tour de France, from cyclists to team managers to understand the multiple stakes of a race”.

It promises to show the racing but also the ‘backstages’ of the eight teams involved, from how they prepare for the Grand Boucle’s stages to crossing the finish line.

Yann Le Moënner, director general of A.S.O., says the docuseries will show how the race poses the ‘ultimate challenge’ for its competitors through a narrative approach.

Laurent-Eric Le Lay, sports director at France Télévisions, says it will “allow everyone to experience part of the daily life of champions and teams”.

This is not dissimilar to Drive to Survive which, to a certain extent, dramatises the F1 season and provides behind-the-scenes footage fans wouldn’t usually see.

Cyclingnews has reported that 70 accreditations were issued for filming at the 2022 Tour de France for the series. Each of the eight teams involved is said to have had a dedicated film crew, while a separate crew tried to cover the broader story of the race.

Which teams are involved in the Tour de France Netflix documentary?

There are eight WorldTour teams involved in the Tour de France Netflix documentary:

• AG2R Citroën Team
• Alpecin-Fenix
• Bora-Hansgrohe
• EF Education-EasyPost
• Groupama-FDJ Cycling Team
• Ineos Grenadiers
• Team Jumbo-Visma
• Team Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl

The major omission from this list is UAE Team Emirates, the team of Tadej Pogačar, who won the 2021 edition of the race and came second in 2022.

Team Jumbo-Visma’s inclusion in the documentary will provide insight into winner Jonas Vingegaard’s race. But if UAE Team Emirates and Pogačar were in the documentary we could see how the battle for first and second place played out from both sides.

One reason why UAE Team Emirates may have opted not to be in the documentary is teams were paid €50,000 to be involved, according to Cyclingnews .

Patrick Lefevere, general manager of Team Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl, described the sum as “peanuts” in Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad . UAE Team Emirates may have deemed the cash not enough to justify the disturbance of a film crew to its Tour proceedings.

What happened at the 2022 Tour de France?

The 2022 Tour de France was the 109th edition of the race. It started with an individual time trial in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The race was touted as being a battle between defending champion Tadej Pogačar and the might of Team Jumbo-Visma, which played out from the off.

Team Jumbo-Visma controlled the race in the first week before Pogačar claimed the yellow jersey with two consecutive stage wins.

When the race hit the Alps, Team Jumbo-Visma challenged Pogačar’s lead and eventually broke the young Slovenian, with Jonas Vingegaard taking the lead.

Vingegaard defended his lead through the Pyrenees and cemented it on the final individual time trial.

Wout van Aert of Team Jumbo-Visma won the points classification and, alongside the yellow jersey, Vingegaard won the king of the mountains classification. This made the 2022 edition of the race the first time one team has won all three of the Tour de France jerseys since 1969.

Geraint Thomas of Ineos Grenadiers came third, continuing his success after winning the 2022 Tour de Suisse.

The 2022 Tour de France also saw climate change protesters blocking the route during the summer heatwave, which saw temperatures hit 40˚C while the race was in progress.

A number of riders withdrew due to Covid-19, including Magnus Cort of EF Education-EasyPost, who animated the king of the mountains competition in the first week.

If the 2023 Tour de France is anywhere near as dramatic, the Netflix series should prove quite the watch as a precursor and an inside view ahead of the 2023 action.

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