Sports films aren't just for sports fans. You don't have to know the difference between a home run and a touchdown to get swept into the thrill of competition or connect with a protagonist thwarting defeat. We're all just trying to win — or at least not lose too badly.
Whether they're about karate or hockey, triumphant underdogs or washed-up losers, we wave a big foam finger for these 10 best sports films.
10. "Bull Durham" (1988):
Kevin Costner stars as Crash Davis, a veteran catcher aging his way out of the minor leagues with the Durham Bulls in Durham, N.C., where he's mentoring a rookie phenom pitcher named Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins). They spend the season vying for the affections of Annie (Susan Sarandon), a baseball groupie who chooses one player to be her lover each season. No-strings-attached sex with a baseball-obsessed and never-sexier Sarandon is a pretty ludicrous male fantasy, but it's a sexy one all the same.
9. "The Karate Kid" (1984): "Rocky" director John G. Avildsen revisited triumphant-underdog sports narratives and delivered a movie that has made as many indelible contributions to pop-cultural consciousness as "Rocky" (albeit goofily '80s ones). Ralph Macchio is bullied mama's boy Daniel Larusso, whose dust-ups with the karate-chopping bad boy at his new school persuades his apartment's handyman-cum-sensei, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), to take him under his martial-arts tutelage. That, or the whole "wax on, wax off" thing was a ploy to trick the neighbor kid into waxing his car.
8. "The Bad News Bears" (1976): Kids sports movies tend to be unbearable. But not when Walter Matthau is involved. Lovably irascible as ever, he plays Morris Buttermaker, an drunken former minor-leaguer recruited to coach the worst team in a super competitive California little league. Finding himself saddled with a team beyond redemption, the unorthodox coach recruits sharp-tongued Tatum O'Neal and motorcycle-riding troublemaker Jackie Earle Haley to inject the team with some talent. It has just the right mix of sugar and salt. Plus, adults saying totally inappropriate things to kids is never not funny.
7. "Hoosiers" (1986): A lot of movies have been made in its image, but "Hoosiers" remains the apotheosis of the feel-good, triumph-of-the-underdog sports flick (no wonder it's from director David Anspaugh, the same guy who gave us "Rudy"). With an alcoholic Dennis Hopper as his wingman, a disgraced Gene Hackman overcomes local prejudice and coaches a small-town 1950s Indiana team to the championships. The team's meteoric rise to greatness is perfectly predictable, but in a comfort-movie sort of way; it's the cinematic equivalent of eating a big piece of mom's apple pie.
6. "Slap Shot" (1977): There aren't many good hockey films; the sport gets the short shrift in film and in life. But "Slap Shot" is a classic of clever low-brow humor, a crass comedy that grins through bloody teeth. Paul Newman plays Reggie Dunlop, the aging coach of the Charlestown Chiefs, a minor-league team in a Rust Belt town in decline. In most sports movies, a down-and-out team in a depressed town would lead to uplifting underdog heroics courtesy of a flawed but fearless leader. But there's no feel-good heroism here; instead, the Chiefs recruit a trio of goons and introduce violence into their playbook. It's vulgar just the way a sports movie — especially one about hockey — should be.
5. "The Wrestler" (2008):
Director Darren Aronofsky made brilliant use of whatever it is that's happened to Mickey Rourke's face over the years by casting him as Randy "the Ram" Robinson, an aging pro wrestler with a host of health problems and an estranged daughter. Filmed with scrappy, handheld camera work and outfitted with production design that's as grimy as the strip clubs and trailer parks Randy frequents, the movie feels like a primal howl of pain and regret. And it brings enough pathos to the world of professional wrestling to make Guns N' Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine" bring a tear to your eye.
4. "Hoop Dreams"(1994): How could a three-hour documentary about a pair of high-school basketball players be so riveting? What was initially intended to be a 30-minute short film for PBS transformed into an engrossing epic and (relative) box-office hit, following two disadvantaged Black teenagers — William Gates and Arthur Agee — as they're chewed up and spit out of the system while they chase their quickly dwindling dream of landing a career in the NBA. It ends up an intimate examination of the heartbreaking inequalities that hobble the American Dream for so many.
3. "Rocky" (1976): The silliness of the ensuing franchise and Sylvester Stallone's meat-headed career trajectory make it easy to forget what a masterpiece the original "Rocky" is. And although there's a place in the pop-culture canon for "Eye of the Tiger" and Dolph Lundgren (hopefully much further back on the shelf), the original plays it straight as a low-budget, bighearted character study about a working-class mook with one last shot to make it as a boxer. Yes, it's schmaltzy, but in that irresistible way that leaves you wanting to race up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for joy.
2. "The Hustler" (1961): Paul Newman stalks beautifully lit smoky pool halls as small-time pool shark "Fast Eddie" Felson, a hustler whose ego and bravado sees him laid to waste by the best in the business, Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). A ruined Eddie shacks up with a crippled, alcoholic Piper Laurie and embarks on a path to redemption that's lurid even by today's standards, one land-mined with bourbon bottles, co-dependency, gambling, sex and suicide. In a career littered with iconic performances, this is one of Newman's best.
1. "Raging Bull" (1980):
Robert De Niro took home a never-more-deserved best-actor Oscar for his transformation into middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, a man made in the ring and undone in life by his own demons. It's a masterpiece of modern filmmaking, from De Niro's devotion to the role (gaining 60 pounds to portray the boxer in his decline) to director Martin Scorsese's daring black-and-white photography and fight choreography, with a downbeat ending that lands like an uppercut to the chin.
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