Top 10 Sports Movies

This time of year has always been special to me because it has always been the start of the sports season whether it be when I was little playing soccer in the fall or now when I am coaching cross country.  For the sports fan this is also a wonderful time period because so many sports are either starting up or winding down.  With so many sporting events on my mind it got me thinking about what I would consider to be the top 10 sports movies.  Like a person’s taste in a specific sports, a person’s taste in movies is their own.  I hope you enjoy my list of top 10 sports movies.  If I left your favorite off the list let me know.

10. Breaking Away

Breaking Away is a coming of age movie about a group of friends who just completed high school, but have not yet figured out what they want to do in life.  The main character has gone so far to look for his identity as to get caught up in the culture of the people he looks up to which are Italian cyclists.  Breaking Away is a funny heartwarming movie about what it is like trying to find your way.

9. Remember the Titans

Remember the Titans is movie that uses every cliché in the sports book to tell the true story of a high school football team that is trying to come together after school integration.  Though the storyline is predictable it really does not matter because it will still grab and hold your attention and keep you cheering with every hit and touchdown scored.

8. A League of Their Own

A League of Their Own is set during World War II when the men went off to war and women took to the baseball field.  It is one of the few sports movies out there about women and while the action on the field is well done the storyline is much deeper.  It is about sisters, life, baseball, war, and America and to top it off it is funny too.

7. Field of Dreams

Field of Dreams is a well-made film about a struggling farmer who starts to hear voices that pushes him to build a baseball field in the middle of his cornfield.  While the entire town thinks he is crazy his wife loves him enough to allow him to follow his passion, and that passion gives him a chance reconnect with someone he thought he would never be able to.  It is a great father and son movie.

6. Bad News Bears

Bad News Bears is a comedy about a ragtag baseball team that is the underdog of underdogs.  It is crude profane movie that reminds me of my own youth baseball team when my dad was the coach.  We played a lot like the Bad News Bears and now that I am a coach I have had my own fair share of teams that play like the bears, so this movie has a special place in my heart just from a nostalgia aspect.

5. Bull Durham

Bull Durham is one of the funniest sports movies that has ever been made.  It  follows the lives of three people in a love triangle during a minor league baseball season,  Crash Davis the old veteran trying for one last chance at the Bigs, Nuke LaLoosh a hotshot pitching prospect, and Annie a woman that follows the team very closely.  Bull Durham does a great job highlighting the humor and drama in the game of baseball.

4. Miracle

Miracle is a movie about one of the greatest moments in the history of American sports.  A movie that I felt really did a good job bringing some of the raw emotion of that moment to the audience.  As a coach I love the dynamic between Herb Brooks, his assistant coach, and his players.  Miracle is a great movie about a great moment in Olympic history.

3. Rocky

Rocky, the movie that inspires everybody to get off the couch and go workout, while the boxing scenes are not the best that have ever been caught on film it still is my favorite boxing movie because of its storyline.  Rocky a down and out boxer that should retire and even his trainer has given up on him until he gets one last shot which is one in a lifetime.  Rocky gets to take on the heavyweight champion of the world in his hometown of Philadelphia, but it is the background story between Rocky and Adrienne that steals the show and makes Rocky one of the best sports movies of all time.

2. Rudy  

If Rudy does not inspire you to go after your dreams then you might need to check your ticker.  Rudy is about a football player who is a 5 foot nothing 100 pound nothing player that has one dream and that is to play football for Notre Dame.  His story is fit for Hollywood and like all sports movies falls into clichés, but it is a story worth seeing.

1. Hoosiers

While Rudy is about an individual that is an underdog, Hoosiers is about a whole team that is an underdog.  Hoosiers is about a small town Indiana team that has one true star player and a coach given a second and last chance to prove that they are the best in Indiana.  A great movie about the wonderful game of basketball played at its purest level.

What do you think?  Did I leave any of your favorites off the list?