The Top Ten: Best Sports Movies

After such a lively discussion of the best sports video games, I think it might be time to move to a different discussion – and a different screen.

Today we examine the big screen and some of its most enjoyable representations of sports.

There are many factors that contribute to what makes the best sports movie – a good underdog story, hilarious characters, accidental comedy – all contributed to where these movies rank on this list.

Just as before, I encourage you to post your own picks for best sports movies in the comments, as I’m sure there will be a bunch of disagreements on this subject.

So here’s a group that didn’t quite make the ten best – think of them as “The third hand.”

Best Sports Movie – Honorable Mention

Remember the Titans – A very solid football movie. Good underdog concept, based on a true story from Virginia in the heart of the Civil Rights struggle. Pretty believable football scenes, but the problem with them is what kept this movie out of the top ten: they’re shot strangely. Namely, they are just way too tight. Wide shots, please! I would kind of like to be able to see more than two players on the field at one time. Decent performances here and a pretty solid cast. Good, but not quite worthy of “Save until I delete” status on your TiVo.

Varsity Blues – An awesomely goofy sports movie. Set in Texas (a plus!), James Van Der Beek (a minus? debatable) plays Mox, a backup QB with the over-the-top dad. Jon Voight is the revered coach who’s actually a horrible person and Amy Smart plays Mox’s steady girlfriend. So when the starter goes down, Mox goes in and starts to lead the team to glory. Very solid movie, though. Funny and absolutely rewatchable – a big criteria on this list.

The Karate Kid – Just off the list. A good movie with good scenes and a good underdog story. Probably should be higher, but maybe I have some irrational personal bias against it. I’m not sure. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that I don’t like it as much as these others. Oh well. Sorry Daniel-san.

Best Sports Movie – The List

10th Best Sports Movie

The Bad News Bears (original) – There are those out there who believe the remake of this movie is better than the original. I vehemently disagree with this belief and always will. Maybe this movie’s lost some of its luster because of Jackie Earle Haley and Tatum O’Neal, but there are so many great things about this movie, many of which cannot be reprinted here or anywhere. Let’s just say that Tanner is easily my favorite character in this movie and one of the best characters in any sports movie I’ve ever seen.

9th Best Sports Movie

The Natural – Really only on here for one scene: The last one. There are plenty of other good ones, but if this movie is on near the end, I will always turn it on. When ESPN was doing its countdown of the best sports movies of the last 25 years in 2004, something Keith Jackson said about this movie has stuck with me: “Inside every little boy’s head, there exists that kind of a dream.” I guess that’s why I like it so much. I know I had that kind of dream.

8th Best Sports Movie

Slap Shot – Paul Newman’s virtuoso performance as Reg Dunlop is up there with some of the best sports movie characters in history. Ty Webb? Definitely. Crash Davis? Absolutely? Norman Dale? Yep. All three are iconic characters, and Dunlop is just as good as any of them. Plus, how can you go wrong with the greatness of the Hanson brothers? Answer: You can’t.

7th Best Sports Movie

The Longest Yard (original) – I really wish I didn’t have to make that distinction, as the more recent Longest Yard with Adam Sandler is almost unredeemable. Chris Rock saves the movie from being an unmitigated disaster. The original Longest Yard, though, featured Burt Reynolds in his heyday and a bunch of other football players creating some absolutely great football scenes. The problem? Not quite enough football, plus it’s not about a team, just a bunch of guys who happened to play football in prison.

6th Best Sports Movie

Rocky – While the original is a little dated now, it needs to be appreciated for what it was when it came out: a great boxing movie that won “Best Picture.” Really. Inspired just about everybody who watched it to run up those steps in Philly (along with inspiring people to do other things). Influenced the sports movie genre in many ways as not just a great underdog story, but the great underdog story. Got knocked down a little because of all of the sequels and how dated it is now. Still, though, always worth the time.

5th Best Sports Movie

Caddyshack – This may seem hard to believe, but there are many ways this movie could have been even better. Why did we need the gopher? Did we really need that much time with Danny and Maggie? Still, though, Caddyshack is a stop-down, start to finish laugh riot that is always funny no matter how many times you’ve seen it. So many layers to the movie and so many great scenes. Shame that there are a couple of clunkers. It’s in the hole!

4th Best Sports Movie

Bull Durham – Getting into the heavy hitters now. Caddyshack is impeccably written from a comedic standpoint, but Bull Durham is also written superbly, more from an overall motion picture standpoint. There are some simply outstanding scenes in this movie with fantastic dialogue. Just about every scene involving Crash, Nuke and Annie is near All-Star quality. Plus, some of the advice Crash gives Nuke is some of the best out there (with a little cleaning up of the language). Gets docked because Tim Robbins is nowhere close to realistic as a pitcher.

3rd Best Sports Movie

Hoosiers – A lot of people have this movie as their best sports movie and one of their favorite movies overall. I don’t have any problem with those people, as I agree that the difference between Hoosiers and the best sports movies ever, if there even is one, is razor-thin. My choice of slotting Hoosiers third is simple: I’m not as big a basketball fan as baseball fan. There’s no portion or segment of Hoosiers that I can complain about – I always stop down to watch it if it’s on, but I would just choose either of the following two before it because of my love for baseball.

2nd Best Sports Movie

Major League – The perfect blend of comedy and an underdog story. I will always watch this movie if I find it on TV – it always leaves me feeling pretty good inside. Cerrano, Willie Mays Hayes and Ricky Vaughn? I’m not sure if you could beat those three (Wesley Snipes’ best role in my opinion). Plus, how could we forget the greatness of Lou Brown? There’s two or three potential All-Stars. Awesome. A little hokey with the love story between Jake and Lynn, but they did end up beating the Yankees, so that’s a plus.

Best Sports Movie

Field of Dreams – Simply amazing. A great story with good performances and spectacular characters. Even gets a little comedy in there now and then. Not really all that much about baseball, but it doesn’t matter. James Earl Jones with the big speech at the end, the headlights of the cars as the screen fades out, plus the added fun of ghosts coming out of a cornfield. I mean, how great is that? Only drawback is that Ray Liotta is right handed as Joe Jackson. Inexcusable.

There have been good sports movies recently (Friday Night Lights), but not many. Hopefully we get another really good one soon.

PICS:

Caddyshack: http://www.thisweekontheinternet.com/2009/06/22/best-golf-movies-us-open/

The Natural: http://media.photobucket.com/image/the%20natural/askwhy3/The_Natural.jpg

Rocky: http://www.plu.edu/~allenca/

Major League: http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/blog/major-league.jpg