Yes, fall has come again, and everything in my hometown of Gainesville, Florida is revolving around the Gator football schedule. I don’t keep up with team as much as I used to. The older I get, the harder it is for me to invest my ego in a bunch of nineteen-year-olds, no matter how exceptional they might be.
But even so, I often think back to what my old writing teacher, Harry Crews, used to say about sports. Sports, he explained, is one of the last arenas of American life where truth can be found. Everything else—government, education, religion—is “shot through with lies” as Harry said, not to mention hypocrisy. But despite all the hype and the hero worship and the corrupting influences of money and TV, the bottom line in sports remains unchanged: either you can make the shot or you can’t.
It is in this spirit that I have put together a list of some of my favorite sports movies. Here they are, in no particular order…
Yes, it’s a bit strange to a movie about pool into a list of films about sports. But whether you consider pool a sport or not, this movie perfectly encapsulates the primary theme of all sports movies: every would-be champion’s greatest challenger is himself. His ego. His self-doubt. His need to prove himself. As Fast Eddie Felson, the pool hustler who comes to take on Minnesota Fats, Paul Newman delivers one of the best performances of his career. Jackie Gleason and George C. Scott are also great as the older, tougher guys who teach Eddie what it takes to win. (Answer: everything, including his soul).
This a fine but largely forgotten film from the late 1970s, when NFL football was at its post-Namath peak. On one level, the movie rests comfortably in the sub-genre of raunchy, goofy football flicks (think of the Keanu Reeves’ vehicle The Replacements). But it reaches a more profound dimension in its portrayal of the brutal, cut-throat business that major league football became with the advent of TV money, corporate sponsorship, and hard drugs. Nick Nolte plays Elliot, a star wide-receiver on on the fictional Texas team of the title (a thinly-veiled version of the Dallas Cowboys). Like all his fellow players, Elliot has to take pain killers and frequent shots of novocaine just to keep playing, fighting injuries and age. Mac Davis plays the team’s shrewd quarterback, who sympathizes with Elliot but has his own set of problems. Dayle Haddon does a fine turn as Elliott’s smart new love interest, an educated woman who gives him a new perspective on the madness of his life. Great stuff.
This is probably the best movie on my list, having won a much-deserved Oscar for Best Picture in 1981. Rarely does a sports movie really communicate that spine-tingling elation of a great athletic performance as well as this one, which is especially surprising given that the film is set in 1924. Centered around the rivalry between two great Olympic runners, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, the movie examines the way men of very different character choose to channel their athletic talent. For Abrahams, victory is a means of revenge, the ultimate one-upmanship on the English twits who hate him for being Jewish. For Liddell, a devout Christian, physical prowess is a tribute to the All Mighty. As for who wins…well, you’ll have to watch the movie.
Like Chariots of Fire, this movie builds its narrative around the rivalry between two athletes, in this case baseball players on a bush-league team, the Durham Bulls. Kevin Costner plays Crash, the aging catcher and spiritual leader of the team, while Tim Robbins plays Nuke, the young hotshot destined for greater things. Nuke is the natural athlete, supremely gifted, but completely unable to master his game. Costner is the old pro, not particularly talented but with years of wisdom and practice to his credit. The movie transcends its genre with Costner’s poignant portrayal of Crash—a guy who is smart enough to be great but lacking the physical gifts. Also excellent is Robbins’ take on the cynical transformation of Nuke from a joyful kid into world-weary craftsman. Of all the great sports movies that director Ron Shelton has made (Tin Cup, White Men Can’t Jump, etc.) this is his best.
Maybe I’m the only person who remembers this little sleeper from 1982, but it made quite a splash at the time. Once again, the movie portrays two athletes, Chris (Mariel Hemingway) and Tory (Patrice Donnelly), both of whom are track-and-fields stars shooting for the Olympics. They are rivals, of course, but also mirror-images of each other. Tory is gay. Chris is straight. Nonetheless, they become involved in a romantic relationship that quickly becomes so complicated that it adds new meaning to the term “mind-fucking”. The lines blur between desire, envy, respect, and downright anger. Seldom has a movie captured the grinding determination and testosterone-fueled comradery of athletes on a team, which is especially ironic given that most of the main characters are girls. It also a gorgeous movie to look at, with its edgy cinematographic techniques emphasizing the god-like physical beauty of the athletes (and I’m not just saying that because one of them is Mariel Hemingway). Scott Glenn almost steals the movie as the manipulative track coach who is determined to bring out the best in both athletes (regardless of what it does to them).
Yes, this one had to be on the list. Despite a lifetime of “Eye-tal-yun Stallion” jokes, Sylvester Stallone has always been one of the smartest guys in Hollywood. He wrote the screenplay for this classic boxing flick which, under the directorship of John Avildsen, became a gritty portrait of working-class Philadelphia. Rocky Balboa is the ultimate underdog, a punch-drunk bruiser with a shaky command of the English language. Even when he wins his boxes matches he only makes a pittance, and so moonlights as a thug for the local mafia boss. His dream girl is the shy nerd who works at the pet shop. But when he gets an out-of-the-blue chance to fight the heavyweight champion (played with amazing gusto and charm by Carl Weathers), Rocky is determined to “go the distance”. This movie not only glorifies the American mythology of self-improvement, it deifies it.
I had to put at least one Burt Reynolds picture on this list. Not only was Reynolds a college football player in real life, he based his film career on capturing the good-ole-boy ethos of the game, especially as practiced in the deep south. The Longest Yard actually combines two genres—the prison flick and the sports flick—and is perhaps the best example ever of the gross, funny-as-hell movie about guys who just want to break some heads (literally) on the gridiron.
There is a fine example of a sub-genre of the sports flick that I call the Coach Flick, which focuses on the struggles and stresses experienced by a coach. Michael Sheen (of Frost / Nixon fame) plays the real-life soccer genius Brian Clough. Like any high-level coach, Clough is forced to navigate the emotional and ethical minefields that big-time sports creates. These struggles are especially tragic for Clough as his spunky but undersized team is beaten again and again by Leeds United, a “bad boy” crew of toothless bruisers with no real talent but plenty of dirty tricks. (They were, I gather, sort of the Detroit Pistons of England.) But when Clough gets the chance to become head coach of that very team which he so despises, his ego kicks into overdrive and he takes the job. Sheen renders a great performance as Clough, and the always brilliant Timothy Spall shines as his long-suffering sidekick.
This is the only documentary on my list, but it definitely belongs here. Centered around the 1975 Mr. Universe competition, the movie pits the reigning champion Arnold Schwarzenegger against his younger rival Lou Ferrigno (a man so hulkingly massive that he would later play…The Hulk). As a sports movie, this one has it all: an ego-maniacal star athlete facing a determined but tragically inexperienced upstart. Strangely enough, while Schwarzenegger comes off as a bit of a jerk—manipulative, over-confident, and even a bit petty—he also displays those qualities that would later make him a beloved Hollywood star: guts, intelligence, and charm. And strength, of course. This is a movie about strength, in all its forms—mental, physical, and even spiritual.
There were a lot of other fine sports movies I could have ended this list with, but they all seemed like derivatives of the ones I listed above. The Bad News Bears, however, really is a unique film in its depiction of the redeeming power of sports. The great Walther Matthau plays Morris Buttermaker, a has-been ball player and full-time alcoholic who is forced to coach the crappiest little-league team in the city: The Bears. The team’s roster includes nerds, fat kids, and every other kind of victimized class you can think of. To this list Buttermaker adds another pair of unlikely picks: Amanda, a brilliant pitcher (who happens to be a girl), and Kelly, a juvenile delinquent with the potential to be a star player. All of these characters have a desperate need to win, but they run the risk of turning into their enemies, the ruthless and dirty-playing Yankees. This is a thrilling, emotionally complex sports movie, even if the the athletes involved happen to be 11-year-olds.
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