Who knew? It is difficult to imagine a feature-length film charting the rise of six Manchester United footballers from FA Youth Cup to Champions League winners being so laugh-out-loud funny. The Class of 92 is no comedy but it expertly and easily aces the six-guffaw test by which such movies stand or fall in the world of the Observer film critic, Mark Kermode.

Football, friendship and fame are the prevailing themes of a splendid documentary made by the film-making brothers Gabe and Ben Turner, but there is no shortage of funny either. Reunited for just one day last summer, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Phil and Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes clearly revelled in recalling their seven-year ascent through the United ranks, from put-upon first year apprentices to treble-winning kings of Europe. Their 1999 Camp Nou coronation, recalls Giggs, was "the happiest I've ever felt on a football pitch".

Of course, every silver lining has a cloud and failure is also acknowledged. While the film centres on graduates from the class of '92, some of those who did not make it also feature. Of those available for a star-studded five-a-side, Robbie Savage carved out a successful career elsewhere, while George Switzer, Andy Noone and Raphael Burke fell by football's wayside. If they are bitter about what might have been, they hide it well. Indeed, the film's only sour note is as fleeting as it is understandable: the obvious resentment at the savage media-led public monstering of Beckham and Phil Neville for perceived treachery – that red card and that penalty, respectively – at World Cup 1998 and Euro 2000.

Interviewed separately, then filmed together chatting over a meal, all six protagonists emerge from this film well. Photograph: Craig Sugden/The Class of 92

Including contextual contributions from carefully chosen talking heads ranging in diversity from the former prime minister Tony Blair, to Mani from the Stone Roses, The Class of 92 is ostensibly a film about friendship. We meet a close-knit gang of six very good pals brought together through circumstance in their early teens and eavesdrop as they fondly recall that time they got to live the dream – not just their dream but your dream and my dream. Never mind one-eyed tribalism, while football and 1990s Madchester provide the entertaining backdrop (and soundtrack), any viewers who remain tight with their childhood gang of disparate ne'er-do-wells will be warmly grinning at the obvious kinship that still continues to prevail among this band of brothers.

Footballing success stories to a man, despite having enjoyed – or endured, in the case of Scholes – varying degrees of fame in the years since winning the FA Youth Cup in 1992, the impression is conveyed that our six amigos were never happier than when gadding about The Cliff as young lads: playing football, deliberately scuffing the leather seats of Beckham's first club car and enjoying the nightlife of a vibrant Manchester that the guest contributor Danny Boyle explains had "reinvented itself" after Margaret Thatcher's Tories left it to die.

Even the genuinely horrifying hazing rituals United youngsters were forced to undergo are remembered fondly. Laughing at the viciousness of it, Butt recalls how much of this institutionalised bullying was "unspeakable".

Apparently no longer a feature of life at Old Trafford, it stopped when his class graduated, with a circumspect Beckham pointing out that for all its benefits "we knew it was wrong". On a lighter notetheir hilarious discussion about the different ways Sir Alex Ferguson had of telling them they were being dropped is perhaps the most entertaining dining table discussion since the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs.

Interviewed separately, then filmed together chatting over a meal, all six protagonists emerge from this film well: their good humour and obvious trust in the directors provide a stark contrast to the understandably guarded and bland answers that one is more accustomed to hearing from footballers thrust into the spotlight.

In their different ways Beckham and Gary Neville have embraced fame but it is somewhat surprising to learn that Giggs is a naturally entertaining raconteur while Phil Neville's recollection of his carefully choreographed and painstakingly rehearsed double stepover – "the greatest Old Trafford had ever seen" – is worth the price of admission alone. Somewhat astonishingly, it is actually the least box-office of the six stars who prove most entertaining; perhaps because one does not expect them to, Butt and Scholes unwittingly steal the show.

The latter, repeatedly relying on his desert dry wit to skewer his old friends with barbed asides, is a revelation. He is just one of many in a fascinating documentary one suspects fans of all teams will enjoy despite themselves, even if the sensation does leave them feeling a little grubby inside.

The Class of 92 will open in selected cinemas across the UK and Republic of Ireland from Sunday 1 December and will be available on DVD from Monday 2 December