A New Netflix Documentary Explores The Complicated Bond Between Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali

Watch the first trailer for the upcoming Netflix documentary, Blood Brothers.

The relationship between Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali is on full display in a new preview of an incoming Netflix documentary.

In the first trailer for the streamer's new documentary, Blood Brothers, family members and peers detail an uncommon bond between the icons, offering insight into what compelled them to one another and what inevitably pulled them apart. "My father wanted to be great," says Maryum Ali, daughter of the late boxing champ. "There are things that Malcolm taught him that my father kept with him until his last day," Ali adds. "For my father to take his wife and his babies and got to his home meant that my father trusted him 100%," recalls Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of the civil rights leader. The film also features testimony from Al Sharpton, Dr. Cornel West, Ali's younger brother, Rahman, and others close to the former Nation of Islam figures.

As high profile NOI members, Ali and Shabazz were two of the organization's loudest and most impactful voices, rising simultaneously in separate cultural spheres. However, after roughly three years of close friendship, lingering discord over the leadership and direction of the NOI fractured the relationship, as Shabazz grew critical of the organization and publically condemned it.

The doc is an adaptation of Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith's 2016 book, Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. The film is directed by Marcus A. Clarke (Unsolved Mysteries and Around The Way,) with Kenya Barris and Jason Perez serving as producer's on the project.

Watch the Blood Brothers trailer below. Tune into to Netflix to stream the documentary on September 9th.