Touchdown: Best football films in our playbook
Football is a lot of things. Brutal, for one, a punishing contact sport that can break a man. But it can also make a man whole. By turns, it is exhilarating, heartbreaking, infuriating and triumphant. Loyalties are tested, spirits are broken, friendships are forged. In short: Football is the stuff great movies are made of.
So let’s hit the gridiron with 10 of the best fictional games ever played.
10. ‘The Longest Yard’ (1974)
Indulge in Burt Reynolds in all his hirsute ‘70s splendor and wearing the most ill-advised white pants this side of David Bowie in “Labyrinth.” He plays disgraced former pro quarterback Paul “Wrecking” Crewe, who gets a ticket to a Florida prison for stealing and wrecking his girlfriend’s car (he also slaps her around, but that doesn’t seem to be a factor in his incarceration due to the film’s casual, occasionally breathtaking sexism). In the hoosegow, a corrupt, football-obsessed warden bullies Crewe into forming a team of prisoners to play against a team of guards. The game it leads to is inventively shot and incredibly thrilling, so much so you’ll root for Crewe in spite of that whole ignored “domestic abuse” thing (maybe).
9. ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ (2012)
How do you get a bipolar man who has lost his job and wife to forget his many woes? You have him fall in love with Jennifer Lawrence, that’s how. She’s positively irresistible as the slightly cracked, recently widowed Tiffany in David O. Russell’s romantic comedy-drama. But Pat (Bradley Cooper) tries to resist anyway, as he moves back in with his parents after a stint in rehab and tries to win back his ex-wife. That’s where, inexplicably, the worlds of ballroom dance and football collide, as Pat’s Philadelphia Eagles-obsessed father (Robert De Niro) stakes his savings on his team and on his son.
8. ‘Any Given Sunday’ (1999)
Oliver Stone’s pro-football film tackles as hard as the real thing, with the director bringing the same grit and bravado to his treatment of the sport as he did to the Vietnam War and Wall Street. The film navigates all the politics and pain that go into any given football season — here, it’s the fictional Miami Sharks, who are entering a season of turmoil. Respected coach Tony D’Amato (Al Pacino) is locking horns with the team’s owner (Cameron Diaz), who inherited the team from her dad and wants D’Amato out. Things fare no better on the field, where an upstart third-string quarterback (Jamie Foxx) proves himself as immature as he is skilled.
7. ‘Remember the Titans’ (2000)
“Titans” hits all the expected beats of an underdogstriumph-against-the-odds sports movie, so it’s no great spoiler to say you can expect a perfectly predictable happy ending. The surprise is that it manages to be so wholesome without being hokey. Based on a true story and set in 1971 Virginia, this rousing film stars Denzel Washington as Herman Boone, a black coach hired to head a newly integrated high-school football team that’s none too keen on integration. But the spirit of sportsmanship takes hold, and though there are plenty of victories on the field, the most impressive ones take place off the field.
6. ‘Friday Night Lights’ (2004)
For many small towns across America, football isn’t just fun, it’s a way of life. That’s especially true of Odessa, Texas, where the residents rally around the Permian High School Panthers. Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) finds his job on the line when the team’s star player is injured in the season’s first game, and all hope of making it to the playoffs is presumed lost. But the team rallies for the community — and their own selfrespect — tackling problems on and off the field in a heartening attempt at a comeback. There’s a lot riding on these young shoulders, and they carry it all with grace.
5. ‘Big Fan’ (2009)
Comedian Patton Oswalt has long been heralded for his humor and is chiefly known for his many appearances on sitcom television (”The King of Queens”) as well as voicing Remy the rat in Pixar’s “Ratatouille.” But this dramatic turn was a revelation for even the most ardent Oswalt fans. He plays Paul Aufiero, a sadsack parking garage attendant who lives with his mother and obsesses over the New York Giants as if they are a religion. It’s a sad, sympathetic portrait of a man building community where he can, but it takes a trip to the dark side of fandom when a run-in with a Giants player — and a rivalry with a talk-radio nemesis who roots for the Philadelphia Eagles — takes Aufiero to the boiling point.
4. ‘Jerry Maguire’ (1996)
There’s so much more to like in “Jerry Maguire” than “Show me the money!” (And it should be liked — it’s not every movie that immediately introduces multiple memorable lines to the canon of all-time-best movie quotes.) Tom Cruise is at his most likable, most relatable, playing the title character, a sports agent with a gnawing conscience that prods him to part ways with his agency — and with his lucrative clients, save one: Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a high-maintenance wide receiver with the Arizona Cardinals who wants to land a more lucrative contract. Cameron Crowe, you had me at hello.
3. ‘Heaven Can Wait’ (1978)
Warren Beatty plays Joe Pendleton, a Los Angeles Rams quarterback who finds himself in a heavenly conundrum when his guardian angel escorts him to the other side — before his time. His body has been cremated by the time they discover the mistake, so his angelic caseworker (James Mason) comes up with a temporary solution: stick him in the body of a rich guy who’s about to kick it until they can find him another soon-to-bedead quarterback to inhabit. It was a good plan until he had to muck it up by falling in love. (But who can resist when it’s Julie Christie?) It’s all very silly and sweet; the film’s charm is that it doesn’t hold back on either trait.
2. ‘Brian’s Song’ (1971)
It’s a short list of films guaranteed to make a grown man cry like a little kid with a skinned knee, and this famous ABC Movie of the Week (of all things) is at the top of the list. Two competing running backs for the Chicago Bears — Brian Piccolo (James Caan), who’s white, and Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams), who’s black — bicker, prank and compete on and off the field. But the true spirit of brotherhood and sportsmanship shows itself somewhere much more important: beside a hospital bed. This is sports — and sports movies — at its best.
1. ‘Rudy’ (1993)
“Rudy” is the apotheosis of feel-good underdog sports stories, which sounds like a slam but isn’t. Watching Daniel E. “Rudy” Ruettiger (Sean Astin) overcome the odds to achieve his dream of playing football for Notre Dame is, however saccharine an experience, a genuine joy. To say that the odds are stacked against Rudy is an understatement: He’s a middling student with dyslexia with neither the grades nor the money to make it into Notre Dame, never mind the physical stature to play for its football team. He seems all but destined to live out his days busting his butt at a local steel mill. But tosh to all that — Rudy’s indomitable spirit is the stuff sports legends are made of.