GOLD MEDALS FOR THE SILVER SCREEN
One man’s take on the greatest sports movies ever
The recent release of Ben Affleck’s new basketball movie, The Way Back, has come critics calling it a sports classic already.
And it got me thinking — what are the classic sports movies? I mean, what are the best sports movies ever made?
This is, in a way, like ranking players or songs or bands you’ve seen live — no two people see things the same way. Consensus doesn’t exist.
But as someone who devours lists — Top 50 this, Top 50 that, good ones, bad ones — I started playing around on paper one day, jotting down one movie, then another, before I had a scribbled list of more than 60 of them. And then I started to arrange them in some kind or order.
Just to get a difference of opinion, I emailed friends and colleagues and asked them to list their top three sports movies of all time and it was rather remarkable how many of the same titles appeared on their lists. I used them as a point of reference — so I didn’t forget anything obvious.
So here goes. Before I see The Way Back, my list, purely personal, of the Top 30 sports movies I’ve ever seen.
1. Bull Durham, 1988
I have seen Bull Durham so many times I almost know the script by heart. I quote it regularly. “Candlesticks are a nice gift.” I can watch it from the middle, from the beginning, partway through, and enjoy the wonderful script by Ron Shelton and the characters played by Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. And you relate it so much of the story to today’s sporting world. “Charlie, here comes the deuce. And when you speak of me, speak well.”
2. Raging Bull, 1980
Boxing is forever in trouble. Boxing movies, not so much. Martin Scorsese’s black and white classic, the sad and poignant story of Jake Lamotta, is raw and violent and captivating. Robert Deniro, as Lamotta, and then 17-year-old Cathy Moriarty as Vicki Lamotta were nominated for best actor and best supporting actress Oscars that year.
3. Slap Shot, 1977
It is part of growing up in Canada. You know all the lines in Slap Shot. You repeat them to your friends. It’s an American film, but it should be part of the citizen application process in this country. The movie made more than 40 years ago still lives like it was released yesterday and the fictional Hanson Brothers still are paid to make appearances. The movie may have been a cartoon on violence in minor league hockey, but it was our cartoon.
4. Million Dollar Baby, 2004
I’m a Clint Eastwood fan going back to days as Dirty Harry. And I’m a Clint Eastwood fan on movies he directs like this one, Gran Torino and others. Eastwood plays the part of a grizzled boxing trainer, wanting little do with the female fighter, played by Hilary Swank until their lives become intertwined. Million Dollar Baby won the Oscar for best picture in 2005: Swank won best actress, Morgan Freeman won best supporting actor, Eastwood won best director.
5. The Wrestler, 2008
Mickey Roarke’s portrayal of a struggling professional wrestler may be the greatest single performance of any actor in any sporting movie of any kind. Now understand this — I’m not a film critic, I’m just a huge movie fan. But it isn’t often you see a film and you are so captivated by one actor that you can’t stop staring at him.
6. Rocky, 1976
Sylvester Stallone began the Rocky franchise by writing and starring in the first film, which created unforgettable characters and stories that live today. Stallone brought Rocky to life and was surrounded by a cast that included Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Talia Shire, all of whom became identified with their roles. The first film, made for just over US$1 million, earned $225 million in theatre receipts.
7. Hoosiers, 1986
The power of a great movie is it never leaves you. The power of a great acting performance is the same. And when I started hearing about Affleck’s new movie and his role as a basketball coach, I immediately thought of Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper in Hoosiers and wondered: How can it be better than that?
8. A League Of Their Own, 1992
“There’s no crying in baseball.” Can’t you hear Tom Hanks saying that? Will that clip ever stop being generated? There was crying in A League Of Their Own. There was crying and laughing and terrific performances by Hanks and Geena Davis and a memorable small performance by comedian Jon Lovitz. This is like a lot of the movies on this list: You can watch them over and over again, know the story, and still keep on watching.
9. Eight Men Out, 1988
At a time when baseball is trying to figure out how exactly to treat the Houston Astros, this is a movie worth watching again. It’s the story of the Chicago
Black Sox scandal of 1919 and the apparently fixed World Series. The movie is a period piece and worth seeing for anyone who didn’t know sports before players had any power.
10. Rudy
A kid who wasn’t big enough, strong enough, fast enough, athletic enough, had one goal in life: He wanted to play football at Notre Dame. No one thought it was possible except Rudy. The story is kind of true, but the Hollywood version with twisted facts works. If your eyes didn’t get moist watching this one, check your pulse.
11. Hoop Dreams, 1994
Originally, I decided to not include documentaries on this Top 30 list. But how can you put a list like this together and not have Hoop Dreams or When We
Were Kings on it? I like what film critic Roger Ebert wrote about it at the time: “It takes us, shakes us, and make us think in new ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched life itself.”
12. Field of Dreams, 1989
Canadian Bill Kinsella wrote the bestseller, Shoeless Joe, which was later turned into this film starring Costner and James Earl Jones. You have to suspend your own view of reality to completely enjoy this film, in which a baseball lover builds a stadium in the corn fields of Iowa. “If you build it, he will come.”
13. Caddyshack, 1980
OK, so I’m not sure this would qualify as a sports movie, but I didn’t want to leave it off. It’s too good to leave behind. It’s a comedy, an all-time great comedy, with the background being golf and a country club. If you haven’t seen it, find it. It’s Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield. And it hasn’t aged badly at all.
14. Bend It Like Beckham, 2003
I had almost no expectations when I went to see this movie. I wasn’t really familiar with the actors. I don’t particularly care for soccer. And then the movie grabbed me and pulled me in. The story of female athletes, misunderstood by families and parents and occasionally coaches, is more than memorable.
15. Jerry Maguire, 1996
“Show me the money.” Another one of those lines that has lived longer than the film itself. The movie was part romantic comedy, part drama, part suspense and fully entertaining in what some have called Tom Cruise’s greatest role, playing an agent that was roughly based on the career of Leigh Steinberg.
16. Bang The Drum Slowly, 1973
This is a bit off the board for most. But I’ve been somewhat consumed by this film from the time I first saw it on television years ago. It’s one of those hidden gems that seems somewhat lost in time. It’s the story of a big-league catcher who is dying, playing his final season, and his relationship with his best friend. Another Robert Deniro movie you can’t miss.
17. Friday Night Lights, 2004.
This was a fine movie that became an even better television show. It’s about small-town high school football in America, and not just what it means to a community but how everything seemed to circulate around the football team.
17. Major League, 1989
More than anything, Major League is fun. It’s silly. It’s playful. It makes you laugh and makes you smile. And oddly, over time, it gets better with age. It’s like The Producers, only it’s about baseball and a Cleveland Indians team that was set up to lose. Charlie Sheen as wild-thing reliever Rick Vaughn is among the memorable characters of this deep cast.
17. Hurricane
“Here comes the story of the Hurricane. The man the authorities came to blame. For something that he never done.” Those are the words from Bob Dylan’s powerful song about Rubin (Hurricane) Carter. The film about Carter being railroaded for murder, starring Denzel Washington, was directed by Canadian Norman Jewison.
This is, in a way, like ranking players or songs or bands you’ve seen live — no two people see things the same way. Consensus doesn’t exist.
18. When We Were Kings, 1996
The Rumble in the Jungle has fascinated me from the day Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman in Zaire, now known as the Republic of Congo, in 1974. This is a documentary made about that event and all that went on around it. The result of the fight, an Ali knockout, was shocking then. This film is of similar quality.
19. Miracle, 2004
Twenty four years after the Miracle On Ice changed hockey forever in the United States, this movie was made with Kurt Russell playing the complicated role of head coach Herb Brooks. Knowing the way it ended, the movie couldn’t match the original drama: But the detail of the story was sharp. Unfortunately, Brooks died in a car accident just months before the film was released.
20. Brian’s Song, 1971
This wasn’t a motion picture. It probably should have been. Instead, it was a made-for-television movie, that was shown and shown again. It was that emotional and heart tugging, this true story of the Chicago Bears backfield and friendship between dying Brian Piccolo and the alltime great, Gale Sayers. Strong showings here for James Caan and Billy Dee Williams.