As with any list, there are just too many from which to choose. It's remarkable how many solid entries did not make my list, including "Million Dollar Baby," "The Natural," "Eight Men Out," "The Longest Yard," "The Bad News Bears," "Miracle," "Caddyshack," "Slap Shot," "We Are Marshall," "Invincible," "Major League," "Remember the Titans," "Coach Carter," "Glory Road"...
...and I could on and on. But here are the sports movies that most resonated with me...
I'm often surprised at how polarizing this movie is. People either love it or hate it. I'm of the former, as the criticisms from the haters make little sense to me. The most prevalent complaint I hear is that Rudy isn't the most likable character, and rubs people the wrong way. True, but to the movie's credit, it acknowledges this very fact. I also have an acquaintance who complains that Rudy's dream isn't practical. (Oh. Yeah. Right. Because the main prerequisite for all dreams is that they be practical. Give me a break.) I actually pity the haters here.
The spinoff television series has received such widespread critical acclaim that it's easy to forget Peter Berg's "Friday Night Lights" was first a movie starring Billy Bob Thornton. If sports movies are mostly metaphors for life's other tribulations, then the economically depressed town of Odessa (Dillon in the tv series) is where those metaphors are mere luxuries. Football is everything. Winning is a means of survival in itself.
The sad thing about a pioneering spirit is that those individuals never realize the role they played in history until history itself has a chance to consider it. Penny Marshall's film is sharp, funny and as rousing as any sports flick. But what distinguishes it are the story's bookends. That's where the league's participants realize what it meant. That it ushered in a new perspective on women in society. By God, they were pioneers after all.
There's so much more to this film than Evangelos Papathanassiou's ethereal musical score. Set during the 1924 Olympics, devout Christian Eric Liddell runs for the glory of God. Haughty sprinter Harold Abrahams strives to prove his worth to an anti-Semitic society. This is an engrossing exploration into the motives that drive us to succeed.
"You don't respect yourself. That's your problem. You don't respect the game. That's my problem."
-- Crash Davis (Kevin Costner)
At a time when professional athletes seem more empowered by money and fame than a desire for the game, writer/director Ron Shelton has masterfully managed to operate below the pro-sports radar, finding both humor and humanity in the love shown by athletes who seldom thrive in the highest echelons of professional sports, yet whose desires prevent the proverbial white flag from being waved.
Phil Alden Robinson's film is set in present day Iowa, but its heart echoes back to a time of sports purity... before the Black Sox Scandal changed the way baseball was viewed. In its peaceful country setting, where the portal to emotional reconnection lies in, of all places, a corn field... Ray Kinsella is gently led into a heartfelt reunion with both a lost family member and his own kind but wounded heart.
This searing documentary runs a full three hours yet never comes off as even the least bit self-indulgent. Perhaps that's because the life stories of Arthur Agee and William Gates capture our interest so completely and effortlessly. I especially admired the movie's depiction of how coaches, family members, and friends encroach on the lives of inner-city sports phenoms. This is a mesmerizing film.
I saw both "Rocky" and my number two selection (both boxing movies) when I was still pretty young, but even then they had an indelible impact on my psyche. Perhaps that's inevitable with boxing movies. There's just something about the intensity and fortitude that translates more potently to the screen. The bar was set so high by these two movies that other boxing flicks are burdened by monolithic expectations, perhaps unfairly. Very little need be said about "Rocky" other than I'm forever amazed that Stallone reportedly wrote the script in the span of a mere weekend locked in his apartment.
Another boxing movie takes my number two spot, but Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" is a different kind of film. "Rocky" was inspiring. "Raging Bull" is raw, sad, and brutal. Robert DeNiro put on sixty pounds to play Jake LaMotta, the infamous boxer known as much for his abusive lifestyle as his world middleweight boxing champion reign from 1949 to 1951. This, along with "Taxi Driver" are arguably Scorsese's finest cinematic efforts.
David and Goliath stories are forever the backbone of successful sports cinema, but what makes "Hoosiers" my single favorite sports movie is that it opts to remain at ground level. That's crucial, I think, to its success. Compare it, for example, to something like "The Natural"... a movie I thought was decent but not quite brilliant. Both involved redemption of varying degrees. In "Hoosiers" it was the redemption for two people... one, a coach (Gene Hackman) with a checkered past and two, the town drunk (Dennis Hopper, who nabbed a Supporting Actor Oscar) who is given an unusual second chance. In "The Natural," it was a gifted baseball prospect whose life took a tragic detour and his pro baseball aspirations were put on hold for decades. Both solid jumping-off points...
The difference was one movie reveled in the simplicity of small town competitive spirit while the other deified the protagonist to stupefying degrees. The climax in "The Natural" has Roy Hobbs belting a homer that smashes the stadium's lighting, sending a cascade of sparks down from the heavens onto our beloved hero as he rounds the bases.
In "Hoosiers", there a quick shot just prior to the State Finals in Indianapolis. The shot is from outside the general store in the tiny town of Hickory, Indiana. The store is closed. A quiet night. The streets are empty. A sign at the front of the store reads: "CLOSED FOR THE BIG GAME." Guess which moment I found more moving.
It's a fair point. The coach doesn't really have an answer. The film's greatest strength, I believe, is that it doesn't try to prove her wrong. Sports is not a magic cure. All efforts at redemption aren't successful. (The Dennis Hopper character reverts back to the bottle. And the coach is never able to explain his past actions.) At the movie's conclusion, however, is the realization that the magic doesn't rest in the fact that they won, but that the entire town came together to be a part of it.
The reason sports movies are often able to transcend themselves into widespread appeal is that a competitive spirit isn't limited to just sports. The magic rests in the desire to succeed and the willingness to compete for what stirs the human soul.
I love sports movies.
