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The 5 Greatest Sports Movies of All Time


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Any opinions on Murderball? One of the few documentaries to truly blow me away.

Love it! This belongs on the list!

 

Jim Thorpe: All American

The Babe Ruth Story

Pride of the Yankees

Knute Rockne: All American

The Jackie Robinson Story

Nice list. I need to check out the Jim Thorpe and Jackie Robinson movies

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Remember the Titans was awesome

Any Given Sunday was awesome

Secretariat was awesome

Rocky was good the first time

That boxing movie with Ricky Schroeder as the kid

 

I don't normally have much patience for Oliver Stone's directorial style but I liked Any Given Sunday, especially how it gave a 360 degree view of NFL football (the coaches, the players, team doctors, journalists, owners, etc.) And Al Pacino's speech is classic.

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I thought Big Fan was very overrated. It just never went anywhere for me and the ending was dumb. Rudy was good, but even for an ND fan it was a little over the top. Miracle was fine, but it's just a Hollywood version of a great story where you already know the ending.

 

In no particular order, I'll go with:

The Bad News Bears (still the only great movie ever made about youth sports)

The Longest Yard (the original, obviously)

Hoosiers

Million Dollar Baby

Bull Durham

 

Honorable Mentions: Heaven Can Wait, North Dallas Forty, Field of Dreams and Rounders if you consider poker a sport.

 

 

My WORST sports movies of all time:

Remember the Titans (most laughably over-clichéd movie in history)

The Last Boy Scout (intensely stupid)

Rocky V / Over the Top (Sly Double Feature!)

Sudden Death (Van Damme >>>>>>> Ryan Miller)

Jerry McGuire

.

 

 

I respectfully disagree...I thought "Big Fan" was really good, and the end was, for me, maybe one of the best movie endings I have seen in a long long time...it is up there, for me with "Buffalo '66" as one of the great, quirky, and very dark, sports movies of all time...

 

Also, I thought "Friday Night Lights" was a terrific movie...and I dug "Everybody's All-American", even though Dennis Quaid, John Goodman and Jessica Lange all looked a little too old for their roles, for most of the movie. And, "Slap Shot" was one of my favorites as a kid..."He Got Game" was another good one.

 

So my list goes:

 

1- Big Fan

2- Buffalo '66

3- Friday Night Lights

4- He Got Game

5- Everybody's All-American

6- Slap Shot

 

I am not normally too jazzed about sports movies, cuz they are too full of tired cliche,and honestly, aren't very believable.

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I must disrespectfully, disagree.

 

Slapshot is 20x better than Miracle. The HBO documentary "Do You Believe in Miracles" is 100x better than Miracle. How about Caddyshack, Major League, and the greatest volleyball movie ever made, Top Gun? Ever heard of those, Sage?

"Caddyshack" is a great movie but golf is about as much a sport as Monopoly.

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Good gravy...so many good sports films to choose from!

 

In no particular order

 

Youngblood

Field of Dreams

The Replacements

Major League

Friday Night Lights

The Fighter

Big Fan

Invinceable - hokey but I loved it

Hoosiers

Mystery, Alaska

Remember the Titans - also hokey, don't care

Rudy

Brian's Song - TV Movie but it should count

Cool Runnings

Edited by Heels20X6
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I'm on record for thinking Rocky is vastly overrated. I give it credit for taking the boxing genre to a whole new level of popularity, but I can think of a sizable handful of boxing movies that are better, Raging Bull being one. I also think The Fighter was better than Rocky and operated on a lot of the same motifs.

Okay, this is something that really gets under my skin.

 

Rocky is a brilliant movie. The sequels that came after it became a cartoon. But the original movie was brilliant. It was brilliantly acted by Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Stalone, even Weathers. It beat Taxi Driver for best picture for a reason (and Taxi Driver is a brilliant movie as well -- and MS's sting over not winning best picture may have influenced his take on Raging Bull).

 

There's nothing better than the scene where Mick has to walk up the steps of Rocky's apartment to beg him for a second chance. That entire sequence is one of the best moments of writing and acting in cinematic history. Stalone has never been (nor ever will be) better than he is in that one scene. Ditto with Meredith.

 

Rocky isn't a sports classic. It's a cinematic masterpiece. Everything from the amazing score, to the editing to the production design. Without Rocky, The Fighter doesn't get made. Without Rocky, Raging Bull doesn't get made without Rocky either.

 

Yes, it was made in 1976 -- before you were born (and before I was born). It was a different style, a different time in terms of how movies were paced, made and viewed. It's slow by today's standards. But it's just as powerful. It will forever be remembered -- more than Raging Bull, more than The Fighter, more than the dozens of copycat rip offs that come after it. Rocky was lightning in a bottle.

 

Any top 5 sports movie list that does not include Rocky is not really a list at all ...

 

/rant

Edited by tgreg99
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Okay, this is something that really gets under my skin.

 

Rocky is a brilliant movie. The sequels that came after it became a cartoon. But the original movie was brilliant. It was brilliantly acted by Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Stalone, even Weathers. It beat Taxi Driver for best picture for a reason (and Taxi Driver is a brilliant movie as well -- and MS's sting over not winning best picture may have influenced his take on Raging Bull).

 

There's nothing better than the scene where Mick has to walk up the steps of Rocky's apartment to beg him for a second chance. That entire sequence is one of the best moments of writing and acting in cinematic history. Stalone has never been (nor ever will be) better than he is in that one scene. Ditto with Meredith.

 

Rocky isn't a sports classic. It's a cinematic masterpiece. Everything from the amazing score, to the editing to the production design. Without Rocky, The Fighter doesn't get made. Without Rocky, Raging Bull doesn't get made without Rocky either.

 

Yes, it was made in 1976 -- before you were born (and before I was born). It was a different style, a different time in terms of how movies were paced, made and viewed. It's slow by today's standards. But it's just as powerful. It will forever be remembered -- more than Raging Bull, more than The Fighter, more than the dozens of copycat rip offs that come after it. Rocky was lightning in a bottle.

 

Any top 5 sports movie list that does not include Rocky is not really a list at all ...

 

/rant

 

I appreciate a good rant.

 

It's a subjective thing, of course, so we'll agree to disagree. I can tell this is an area of passion for you, as it is for me, so I have no words to try to persuade you of anything.

 

Not to needlessly enumerate everything, but I'd approximate that Taxi Driver is a Top 20 movie of all time, while Rocky hangs out somewhere below the Top 100. For me, anyway.

 

As the film that single-handedly pioneered a sizable niche genre, I take absolutely nothing away from Rocky. :thumbsup:

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