10 Best Sports Movies

10 Best Sports Movies

I know another list that has been done to death. But I like to have my say as well. What with the Big Dance ending and the Stanley Cup playoffs beginning I have sports on the brain. Again, I’ll name my ten favorites but I’m not sure whether I’ll put them into any particular order.

Slap Shot (1977) - This is a fantastic comedy starring Paul Newman as washed up minor league hockey player Reggie Dunlop. As far as I am concerned sports movies should have humor in them, and bring something to the sport that it either misses normally, or is not practical to include. In this case it is the antics. No team could get along playing like this team plays in this film. For one thing most of their players would get lifetime suspensions from the sport. In an actual game it is dangerous, but in a movie it is hilarious. The Hanson brothers add a hilarious element both by being extremely funny, and by lending credence as real hockey players skating through scenes.

Miracle (2004) - This is a movie about true events. The three things this lends to sports movies that are not apparent in a normal game. 1. History, the film is well couched in the events of the time from gas shortages to the Iran hostage crisis. 2. Camera angles - this is the way you wish hockey could look, fast pace and with tons of camera angles. Of course this is not practical because some of the cameras would have to be in the center of the ice and the players would have to skate around it. 3. A happy ending - historically the Americans did win the gold and crowd onto the podium together, you couldn’t ask for anything more. Oh yeah and it includes Kurt Russell’s best performance and a tender family story.

Remember the Titans (2000) - Any sports movie that deals with race relations has to tread carefully. Another film based on a true story, this one deals with the integration of a high school football program. The coach will be fired if they lose a game, so the go undefeated. A film that gets you to cheer along with the action is a great movie and this one had the audience cheering like they were in the stands. One of Denzel Washington’s finest performances and that is saying a lot.

Eight Men Out (1988) - Starring John Cusak, D.B. Sweeny, Charlie Sheen, and David Strathairn Eight Men Out tells one of the saddest true stories in sports history, the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal. The film depicts a group of men whose whole life revolves around baseball, on the greatest team in the league, but are so squeezed for cash that when gangsters approach them and offer bribes to throw the World Series. The team came back from a 3-1 game deficit the win the World Series, but when the scandal arose months later the eight players were banned from baseball for life while the gamblers who made so much money from the games walked away scot free. This film is moving in its portrayal of both the game and the condition in which the players lived at that time hardly believable in this day of multi-million dollar athletes.

Rocky (1976) - This is the ultimate underdog story of a smalltime Philadelphia boxer given a chance at the heavyweight championship. It may be a marketing ploy by the champ but for Rocky it is a chance to ‘go the distance’ and garner his self-respect. One of the few films on this list critically acclaimed enough to win the Best Picture Oscar far and away Sylvester Stalone’s best film, don’t laugh, and the start of a large and long franchise. The film is as much a view of Philadelphia and the city has so taken to the underdog boxer that they have a statue of Rocky outside of their sports complex.

Bull Durham (1988) - One of the only Kevin Costner movies I can stand this film again follows a minor league team, this time in baseball as three people dream about the majors and what the expect of life. Susan Sarandon plays Annie a baseball fan that has an affair with one player a season. This year she coaches Tim Robbins as Nuke a young up and coming pitcher with a shot at the majors. Making thing more complex is Kevin Costner as Crash Davis a seasoned catcher who has been to the majors and knows that Nuke has a lot of growing to do before he can compete at the majors. The down and out theme works well for sports and the combination of humor and disappointment works well here.

Chariots of Fire (1981) - Another critically acclaimed sports movie based on true events. The film is slow but it tells the story of the 1924 Olympics and the British track team. This film is as much about the decline of the British Empire between the two World Wars as it is about the aristocracy and the friendship of competitors. It tells the story of Harold F. Abrahams played by Ben Cross and Lord Andrew Lindsay played by Nigel Havers a Jew and a devout Christian and the roadblocks that their religion place before them in their sport. This film is a really impressive detailed study of sports when dignity and honor were just as important as winning.

The Pride of the Yankees (1942) - A classic, and often cited, sports film. Gary Cooper plays Lou Gehrig as the film follows him from his childhood to his farewell speech in 1939. As you all probably know Lou Gehrig died of ALS, often called Lou Gehrig’s disease in his late thirties and this film was a tribute to him. Made only a few years after his death it tends to do the Hollywood gloss over most of Gehrig’s less friendly personality traits, Cooper plays him flawlessly as a man who loves the game and feels his life slip away from him from a disease he cannot control. Interestingly the film also features Babe Ruth playing himself.

Seabiscuit (2003) - A fantastic energetic film and certainly better than the sappy drivel that passed for horse racing movies in the 1940s. Seabiscuit is the true story of a little horse and his big jockey who surmount numerous obstacles to be the best and win. The acting is all around great, the costumes are colorful and beautiful, and the horse racing sequences are a dramatic blur of horse flesh, dirt, and color.

The Hustler (1961) - The story of a group of pool grifters and one big game. Paul Newman plays Fast Eddie Felson a young up and comer on the pool circuit who takes on Jackie Gleeson’s Minnesota Fats in a high stakes pool game. Fast Eddie has to learn the ropes from the bottom up to cool his hothead and learn the rules of engagement but risks losing himself to the shadowy world of pool sharks. Fun and cool as were most of Paul Newman’s films of the 60s.

Runners Up

The Longest Yard
North Dallas Forty
Raging Bull
Hoosiers
Breaking Away

Related posts:

1. Miracle