Best sports movie

[Gerald Cooperberg]

Did anyone ever see Friday Night Lights? I heard good things but never got around to it...

Do sports documentaries count? If so, I'll cast my lot with Hoop Dreams-- or Endless Summer...

-Coop

[RGA]

These kinds of lists are hard because some movies are more about the sport while others are more about human dram -- Consider the baseball films The Natural versus Field of Dreams. The latter is more about the options we have in our lives where one instance we could have went down an entirely different path...a mystical film about father and son more than a film about baseball -- while some of the other baseball films there are mainly about baseball with side stories sprinkled over top -- the sister raltionship in league of their own.

I personally think that while Rocky is a good film it has recently been eclipsed by two much better boxing films two years in a row. Million Dollar Baby and this year's excellent Cinderella Man. I personally think that Cinderella Man is by a significant margin Ron Howard's best and least Hollywood movie and it is in a year that has so many strong films that it may not get a nomination. Like Rocky Million Dollar Baby is a nobody from nowhere who overcomes despite it all to get to the top. Cinderella Man is about the successful Boxer who falls due to Injury to get that second shot. I don't even like Boxing but I loved both of these films and still derive some amusement from the patently terrible boxing sequences in Rocky and the Yo Adrian line. I always felt Rocky was a bit too stilted to be considered a great film. Raging Bull is more of a character study which I need to see again.

And no sports movie list is credible if it does not have Slap Shot on it.

[markw]

I'm still laughing my ass off at Adam Sandler's "The Longest Yard". Silly, crude and cheap, but it still hits my funnybone just right.

[Groundbeef]

Also to the list

Chariots of Fire (more of a social commentary I think though)
As for Football...The Brian Picallo (sp?) Story-Brians Song

Dodgeball was pretty good to.

Friday night lights SUCKED. It was the worst movie (sports) I've seen in a while. Coach Carter was much better, as was Rudy.