The Best Baseball Movies,

Of all the movies on Dennis Quaid’s acting résumé, perhaps the one his fans loved most was the real-life baseball flick The

Rookie. Here are some other heavy-hitting films that also scored big with fans.

The Pride of the Yankees (1942): Gary Cooper stars as Lou Gehrig, whose legendary career was cut short by the disease that would one day carry his name.

The Bad News Bears (1976): A slovenly, beer-guzzling coach (Walter Matthau) and his sad-sack youth baseball team become “winning” losers.

The Natural (1984): Once-promising supernova Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) stages a middle-aged comeback cheered on by his devoted sweetheart (Glenn Close).

Bull Durham (1988): An allAmerican romance that follows the travails of a veteran catcher (Kevin Costner), the team’s wild-card pitcher (Tim Robbins) and the groupie (Susan Sarandon) who seduces both. Costner was back in Field of Dreams (1989), portraying an Iowa farmer who plows up his corn to build a baseball diamond.

A League of Their Own (1992): It’s easy to root for this Penny Marshall–directed rouser, featuring Geena Davis, about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

The Sandlot (1993): No film captures childhood summer nostalgia quite like this coming-of-age comedy about a group of rowdy pals in the early 1960s who play every day at a local sandlot.

Moneyball (2011): Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) figures out how to compete with stats as well as bats.