This Top 5 examines Sports Movies - those tales of inspiration where people are training to achieve physical and mental domination over their opposition in a competition, often facing their own inner struggles as well during the course of the story arc. I kept the criteria for what defines a “sports” movie pretty loose, considering such films as Cars (nascar racing) and The Big Lebowski (bowling, duh!), but my final selections all include primary plots that fall within the typical definition of athletics, but with vastly different focuses on the b-plot narratives, including love stories, race relations, teenage angst, and data statistics!  

Gibelwho Productions Top 5 Sports Movies:

5. A Knight's Tale

4. Moneyball

3. Remember the Titans

2. D2: The Mighty Ducks

1. Rocky

A Knight's Tale (2001): Starting off the list with a nostalgic pick, one that includes my high school crush of Heath Ledger. This flick combines medieval times with classic rock music for a rollicking take on the most gallant sport of jousting! From a humble squire attending an aged jouster to rising up in the realm of competitive jousting to fighting in the World Championships and then winning in a climactic finale, this tale follows the classic journey of a talented nobody who becomes a somebody (and wins love) through his dominance in the sporting arena.

Moneyball (2011): A slightly different take on the traditional sports movie, this film shows the other side of professional sports - the management inside a baseball team that is shedding the old way of doing business and attempting to innovate a new way of operating that embraces data and technology. The movie isn’t perfect (I could do with less of Brad Pitt’s mopey soul searching), but the film shows that those who push forward a traditional sport must be willing to take risks and think differently. The standout scene is when Jonah Hill must inform a player of his trade to another team, a moment where he faces the real world consequences of his data conclusions, instead of a just players as statistics that he crunches. The film merges love for the traditional game with the emerging technology that now dominates the sport, and the human dynamics that drive baseball.

Remember the Titans (2000): Yes, another nostalgic pick, but one that holds up almost 20 years later. The film follows the familiar troupe of a team dealing with division (in this case racially charged) and a new coach that must overcome the odds and bring the team together, both on and off the field. Denzel Washington is superb, the cast of young men is filled with spirited and upcoming actors, with a fierce turn from a kid Hayden Panettiere. The most memorable scene doesn’t even occur on the iron grid, but after an intense morning workout run through the woods. Coach leads his team to the historic battlefield at Gettysburg, where Washington speaks about the strife of the past and implores the boys to respect each other and challenges them to come together to play the game like men.

D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994): Quake Attack is Back! After the first film pulled a rag-tag group of kids who played hockey into a winning team, the next film sends them to the Goodwill Games to face Iceland as Team USA. Not only are many of the original Ducks brought back to compete, the roster is filled out with new faces, including the Bash Brothers and a young Kenan Thompson (of SNL fame). With Coach Bombay distracted by the lure of celebrity, the team must overcome injuries, penalties, and Iceland’s dominance during the final game, but ultimately takes back to the ice with new jerseys, renewed confidence, and get the game-winning save in the shootout for victory. The final scene where they gather around the campfire and sing “We Are the Champions” is one of the most satisfying finales to a sport film!

Rocky (1976): The flick is stunning entirely because of Sylvester Stallone’s magnetic performance. The tale is a simple down on his luck boxer that gets the chance to fight a champion and sees it as his chance to make it to the big time. The film follows both his training and his halting attempts to romance the local pet shop worker in his neighborhood. Stallone is electric as Rocky, who balances the hardness of a fighter training for his life and the softness of wooing Adrian. Of course, the music score paired with his training scenes are quite epic! Finally, quite surprisingly, the film doesn’t have Rocky win at the end, an interesting choice for the hero of the flick, but perhaps left it open for it’s six sequels. Overall, Rocky wins the crown of this Top 5!

Honorable Mentions:

Cool Runnings (1993): The story of the Jamaican bobsled team that defied the odds to compete in the Winter Olympics. Charming, optimistic, and lets the audience cheer for the underdogs! “Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up, it’s Bobsled time!”

A League of Their Own (1992): The story of two sisters who try out for the women’s baseball league and who must battle not only prejudice against women athletes, the incompetence of their coach, but also their own relationship. “There’s no crying in baseball”

42 (2013): The story of Jackie Robinson, the courageous athlete who broke the color barrier in baseball in the 1940s, focusing on his time on the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers and the appalling racism he encountered as the first black athlete in America’s national pastime. “You give me a uniform, you give me a number on my back, and I’ll give you the guts”

Upcoming:

Creed II (2018): With Rocky as the top pick for best sports film, it is perhaps appropriate that this franchise has made a comeback in recent years, with the modern take of Creed (2015), whose sequel is slated for release at the latter end of 2018, with enough time for me to catch up on all five of the Rocky sequels!