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I think there are more Football movies out there than baseball. North Dallas 40 and Any Given Sunday come to mind quickest. I remember really liking a somewhat cheezy one in the 80's maybe with Kevin Kostner and Robin Williams where they had an old timers game. I'll have to dig it up and rewatch it.
*whistles innocently*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzk3XZQMI88
*also whistling innocently*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Pt_GMDdGo
Seriously though, Remember the Titans was a great film.
I'll second North Dallas 40. Also Necessary Roughness, and the original The Longest Yard.
I assume you mean American Football, aka gridiron, and not what the entire rest of the world calls "football" right?
...Well tough, because I'm going with the latter anyway :smalltongue:
Damnit Psyren, I came to this thread just to post this movie! It definitely fits the thread, as it's the only one with a sport where the athletes use a foot to kick something shaped like a ball.Quote:
Originally Posted by Psyren
There's also this pretty great one from Germany.
I think it was Kurt Russel nand Williams, not Costner. And I think it was late 90s/early 2000s, not the 80s.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkVIIIMarc
EDIT: OK, I looked it up. It was Kurt Russel, but it was the 80s--1986, to be exact. The movie was titled The Best of Times.
If you ever wonder why the NCAA is so freaky with recruitment & the transfer of players, watch "Horse Feathers" with the MArx Brothers.
Amazingly accurate of the day.
"Brian's Song".
According to IMDB, there are 73 (American)Football movies, and 102 Baseball movies. Not surprising, since Baseball was "The Great American Past Time" for the first 80+ years of the history of film.:smallwink:Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkVIIIMarc
- Rudy
- Any Given Sunday
- Remember the Titans
- Brian's Song
- Invincible
Maybe in that order. I stick the comedy football movies elsewhere (but really liked Little Giants).
- M
If people want to list Rugby football, association football, or even Australian rules football movies, they should name them in the thread, rather than just linking to youtube videos of Rick Astley. And no, I'm not going to check whether anybody did that.
Uh... Mighty Ducks? No, that's ice hockey. But still the closest there is.
Seriously, are there football-movies? American or otherwise? I guess there should be but I can't think of any.
Without looking anything up, in addition to the 6 I listed already, I'd add:Quote:
Originally Posted by Raimun
- The Longest Yard (Original)
- The Longest Yard (Remake)
- Wildcats
- Necessary Roughness
- We Are Marshall
- The Blind Side
...and there's a bunch of soccer/football movies, but I've not seen many beyond Victory.
- M
Can't avoid at least mentioning Air Bud: Golden Reciever. 😁
I'm waiting for Air Bud: Royal Court. "There's no law that says a dog can'tQuote:
Originally Posted by The Glyphstone
play basketballbe King!"
Also, to answer the question: The Waterboy. Henry Winkler makes anything he touches gold.
Horse Feathers. It counts.
It has been a long time since I saw Horse Feathers. Does it have significantly more football than M*A*S*H* (the movie) did?
The last quarter of the movie is a football game. The rest of the movie plot is about recruiting the wrong players &/or mocking college life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Psyren
I was going to google this, as it's the only football movie I recall liking enough to regret having forgotten the title of. I was going to guess Kung Fu Football.Quote:
Originally Posted by Narkis
If I had to pick an American Football movie... School Ties, maybe? It's not big on the football thing so much as racism, but it still technically involves football and is a pretty good movie.
Granted the only other one I can remember watching was Little Giants which was one of the many Mighty Ducks clones that the 90's was way into.
If "technically involves X" is the criteria, does that make Thelma and Louise a car movie, a kid movie, an action movie, a western and a comedy all at the same time?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitten Champion
Re: Little Giants/Mighty Ducks: In that they both have children, both have sports with underdogs, and are both in America I guess I can get behind them being clones. But that's about as deep as the similarities run.
- M
See, none of them (or any other movie mentioned in this thread, with the exception of Mighty Ducks) ring the bell for me. I have literally never heard of any of them. Even though I tend to think of myself as a "movie guy". And I did play football in school... when they made to... and with general disintrest. Heh, sorry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mordar
I don't know. Is, say, 42 the Jackie Robinson biopic a baseball movie? The Wrestler a wrestling movie? Will Smith's Concussion an American Football movie? I'd personally say yes, but how much of the sport has to be the focus of the work for it to be a [blank] movie is up to interpretation, I guess.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mordar
School Ties is considered a sports drama, and is about an American Football player, so, [Football] movie?
As to the Mighty Ducks/Little Giants, I don't remember enough about either for a side-by-side comparison and they're both Bad News Bears-esque anyways, but it's more that the Ducks started a specifically early-90's trend towards family sport comedies with a number of similar archetypes in characters and story.
Not that the Mighty Ducks was a cinematic tidal wave of success or anything, but it cost very little to actually make and made much more than that. So it was a success in the way horror movies are often considered successful.
"I've never heard of them" is not a terribly good criteria though. Blind Side, for instance was nominated for Best Picture and won Best Actress at the Oscars. That's pretty dang high-profile, but you've never heard of it, which underscores just how much whether or not anyone has heard of a movie has no bearing on its overall popularity or fame.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raimun
Not even Any Given Sunday?Quote:
Originally Posted by Raimun
I mean, it's an Oliver Stone movie with Al Pacino, Jamie Foxx, James Woods, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz, Matthew Modine, Aaron Eckart... not judging its quality, but that's definitely an A-list movie at least in terms of visibility, I suppose.
Interesting questions. I think my gut answers would be yes (42), kind of (Wrestler) and no.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitten Champion
42 is both a biography (of Jackie Robinson) and a history of baseball, features a lot of baseball activity and inextricably tied to baseball, so yes.
The Wrestler is a fictional depiction of the (for lack of a better word) damage caused by fame and fortune of pro wrestling and the inability to cope with the world outside. Any of a number of high dollar jobs (music, art, other sports) could have replaced wrestling and the movie would have been relatively unchanged...but it does offer several glimpses into the world of pro wrestling outside of prime time, so that's why I say "kind of" or "maybe".
Concussion requires football to tell the story and presents (as I recall) some football activity, but mostly as a backdrop/background information for the story. Without football, there is no Concussion, but football can effectively be referenced without presentation. This is kind of like Born on the 4th of July for me - it requires war, presents war...but isn't a war movie.
I remember School Ties as a story about an outsider (Jewish kid) trying to fit in at a boarding school...basically an integration/segregation story...and the sports aspect is just the vehicle used to explain why he was at the school he couldn't otherwise attend. That could have easily been replaced with a music scholarship, science prodigy or any other sport, so I think that's why I don't view it as any more a football movie than I do Teen Wolf a basketball movie. Frankly, I didn't even remember that football was included until you mentioned it in this thread.
So I guess for me the sport must be necessary to the story, presented frequently in the story, and feature heavily in the lives of the main characters of the story for me to label it a [sport] movie. YMMV.
- M
It's about the business and the politics and the people more than the sport, but I recommend Draft Day with Kevin Costner.
That he's never heard of an movie from just 10 years ago which was nominated for an Oscar and for which Sandra Bullock won an Oscar would tend to undermine his position as a "movie guy" and make pretty much anything else he has to say about movies suspect, wouldn't it? :smallbiggrin:Quote:
Originally Posted by Peelee
Anyhow, a few other fairly well-known football movies (not necessarily my favorites):
The Freshman. Silent comedy with Harold Lloyd. One of his best-know roles.
Knute Rockne, All American. Biopic with Ronald Reagan in a supporting role as The Gipper.
Jim Thorpe--All-American. Another biopic, with Burt Lancaster in the lead role.
Bonzo Goes to College. Not to be confused with Bedtime For Bonzo; Reagan wasn't in this one.
Paper Lion. Based on a George Plimpton book and starring Alan Alda.
Two-Minute Warning. Basically a crime thriller about a sniper terrorizing a stadium during a game; could have been any other popular sport without really changing the plot, so arguably not a football movie.
Gus. Mule as a pro team's placekicker; part of the "animals playing sports" subgenre.
Black Sunday. Terrorist attack on the Super Bowl; similar to Two-Minute Warning in that you could use a different sport as the backdrop/setting.
Semi-Tough. Comedy with Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson; the movie poster advertising it probably wouldn't be approved nowadays.
All the Right Moves. On of Tom Cruise's early hits.
The Program. Generated controversy over the scene of players laying down in the middle of a highway, which was later cut.
Jerry McGuire. Movie about a sports agent; Oscar for Cuba Gooding, Jr., but he could have just as easily been a player in a different sport; "Show me the money!"