Centre of attention: OJ Simpson enjoyed life in the spotlight. In 1994, in the absence of subscription television, we didn't watch the OJ saga in real time as they did in the US. There was no internet. Our portal to the madness was the 6pm news and the daily newspaper. We didn't watch as a vanguard of police cars slowly drove behind him, wondering if this had been any other black fugitive would they have just run him off the road and savagely beat him as they had Rodney King? Or would they have done worse? We didn't watch as thousands of people raced out to the curb, chanting OJ's name, forming street parties along the route to his mansion. We didn't watch as Simpson stood in his own front yard, with a handgun drawn under his chin as he clutched photos of his kids.

And we didn't watch as Simpson finally surrendered and was placed in the back a police car and as he was driven away he suddenly noticed the hundreds of people lining the streets. "What are all these niggers doing in Brentwood?" he asks the police in the knockout line of so many knockout lines from OJ: Made in America. "This film is a sad commentary on our legal system," director Ezra Edelman tells Fairfax Media. "But it's also a sad commentary on our culture. The fact that June 17, 1994, was a day when everyone knows exactly where they were when this happened, is telling. They knew where they were when John Kennedy was assassinated. They knew where they were when 9-11 happened. The fact that OJ Simpson, in a white Bronco on the freeway in Los Angeles, is one of our unifying cultural moments … Well, that's kind of f---ked up." So much of this story was. Still is. And yet I devoured it like it was a new series of House of Cards on Netflix into the early hours of the morning. ESPN's 30 for 30 documentaries set a high-water mark for sports documentaries.

The 2014 film on the Hillsborough disaster was banned in Britain until a coronial inquest was completed this year, so damning was the evidence it unearthed. Edelman's reframing of OJ Simpson's life spans five, 1½-hour episodes – yet not a second could've been left on the floor of the editing suite. The first episode will be shown in Australia on ESPN from June 21, but can be also be watched on WatchESPN for those who want to devour it in one binge. The early episodes remind us that Orenthal James Simpson – "The Juice" – was a titan of American sport: from Heisman Trophy winner in 1968 as the best player in college football to running back for the Buffalo Bills who broke records and collected accolades and endorsements and then a trophy bride along the way. It also exposes how Simpson had spent most of his career and then early acting life trying to run away from the colour of his skin.

"When I get into arguments with the black community, I tell them I do unto others what they do to me," he says in one early interview. "My life is me. I do what is right by me. I'm not prejudice – I have a white wife." It later emerges it was a wife he repeatedly and brutally bashed, and damning police reports and taped recordings of Nicole's calls to 911 operators paint a sickening picture of the couple's life. Of all the themes Edelman explores, race is the overriding narrative. Central to this is how Simpson's celebrity legal team headed by the late Johnnie Cochrane – "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!" – played on the racial tension in the city following King's bashing to appeal to a largely black jury that eventually set Simpson free. One black female juror makes the astonishing claim in the documentary that "90 per cent" of the jury acquitted Simpson because of "what happened to Rodney King". Another black female juror denies this, claiming the many failings of the prosecution was the reason Simpson walked free.

"One gave voice to what white America has always thought," Edelman says. "Another juror didn't feel that way. The thing that was lacking so clearly during the trial was other people's viewpoints. People were so sure about what happened. People could not think that others were thinking differently to how they were thinking. Hopefully, now you can watch and realise this was more complicated than you thought … Why were you cheering at the verdict? Maybe if you watch this, you might feel something different. Maybe if you're a black person, and you're seeing so many images of black people cheering, maybe you will go, 'Man, what a hollow victory that was. Maybe this was a hollow victory to invest in'." Edleman had an ocean of information to play with, including Nicole Simpson's diary. Many talked to him, others did not, including Simpson, who has been in jail for the past seven years after being found guilty of kidnapping and armed robbery while trying to wrestle back some of his own lost memorabilia in Las Vegas. Loading "I reached out to OJ rather late in the process," he says. "I never heard back. For me, the film wasn't going to live or die on whether he was in it." OJ: Made In America, will be shown on ESPN Australia from June 21-25 from 8.30pm. You can also watch it on WatchESPN.