Top 5 Sports Movies Of All Time

http://theconservativecomeback.blogspot.com/ ^ | 2/18/09 | TheConservativeComeback

[TheConservativeComeback]

If you have been reading this blog since its inception one month ago, you know that we like to mix in a lot of sports and movie posts. Today we combine those with our top 5 sports movies of all time.

A couple of rules you should be aware of with our selection process. First, if your favorite sports movie was made in the 40s or 50s...it is not on this list. I'm going to speak the truth right now and say what a lot of people won't say, Pauly Shore would've been a 5 time Oscar winner in the 40s. For the most part the acting was terrible.

Second, being that this list is so short we decided that sports comedies would be put under a different category. So while Slapshot, Major League, and Caddyshack are some of the great movies ever made, they fall under a different list.

[Bat_Chemist]

“Remember the Titans” wasn’t about football...it was about integration. Football was the impetus to overcome the obstacle. No matter how great the movie was, I’m not sure it qualifies as a “sports movie” any more than “Radio” does (which I also loved).

[brwnsuga]

I love, love, love Gary Cooper!

[TheConservativeComeback]

Ya know what I was actually tying so fast and responding to so many different people that I wrote down the wrong movie. I meant that I am not as a big a Bull Durham guy as others.

I actually like Field of Dreams, just not enough for a top 5

[JacksonCalhoun]

Mmmm, Lacey Underall.

Too bad Ted Knight left us too soon. A WWII hero and (take with a Wiki-grain of salt) a conservative who used to do battle with Ed Asner during Mary Tyler Moore.

[CougarGA7]

Mine in no particular order:

Miracle
Necessary Roughness
The Longest Yard
Brian’s Song
Heaven Can Wait (Only because the Rams WIN Super Bowl XIV in it)

[Badeye]

‘Its based on a true story,’

There are only two things ‘true’ in the movie. 1)Tiny Milan won the state championship in 1951...and 2)The jump shot that won it depicted in the end.

The coach NEVER hit ANYONE that played for him at ANY time.

The town NEVER demanded he be FIRED.

The town meeting never happened. Jimmy played the entire season...its a good story, but not a ‘true story’.

[jaydubya2]

"Mmmm, Lacey Underall."

I wish I had a high res of that picture to highlight her qualities.

[Fiji Hill]

My all-time favorite sports movie is Pig Skin Parade (1936), a musical, starring Judy Garland, about a football team from a small college in Texas that accepts a challenge to play heavily-favored Yale University. Musical numbers include "The Texas Tornado," my favorite Judy Garland song.

If horse racing can be considered a sport, then Broadway Melody of 1938 is one of my favorite sports films, as is The Big Broadcast of 1938, if ocean liner racing is a sport.

Other sports movies that I like include The Drop Kick (1927), a drama about football, The Absent-Minded Professor (1961),a comedy featuring basketball, Roogie's Bump (1954), a film about baseball, and Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914).

[TheConservativeComeback]

Miracle is a very good movie. And if we ever do a top 5 sports moments list, make no mistake that hockey game will be on the list.

I like Necessary Roughness too.

[Fiji Hill]

Heaven Can Wait (Only because the Rams WIN Super Bowl XIV in it)

This is one I'll have to see. I used to be a Los Angeles Rams fan--the pro football equivalent of a pre-2004 Boston Red Sox fan.

[Political Junkie Too]

Wow! None of the figure skating romances made the list? < /sarc>

-PJ

[Caramelgal]

Do you believe in Miracles?



The beginning of the movie shows “Jimma” Carter with his hang dawg face, in his shabby sweater talking about the “malaise”, the long gas lines, Americans taken hostage by the Iranians, Soviet aggression, it depicted a pretty bleak time that I remember very well (sound familiar?).

Then there was the 1980 American hockey team. A tough, no-nonsense, coach, Herb Brooks takes a bunch of young amateur and collegiate hockey players and not only did they do the unimaginable and beat the “unbeatable” Soviet team, a team made up of professionals that beat the best of the NHL, but these kids go on to win the Gold metal.

I remember watching the game on TV with my mom and we were jumping up and down and screaming until we went horse, yelling USA! USA! USA!

I saw the movie right after it came out with my 10 year old nephew. At the end of the movie we and most of the others in the theater were standing up and cheering.

[Dixiekraut]

Any body here like ‘A League of Their Own’?
( There’s NO crying in BASEBALL !)

I also have a soft spot in my heart for “Gran Prix” w/
James Garner. Awesome camera work for it’s day...commonplace techniques nowadays in Nascar.
Also one of the first films to use split screen

And if auto racing is a sport..I’ll throw in “Heart Like a Wheel” w/ Bonnie Bedalia as Shirley Cha-Cha Muldowney.

[FelixFelicis]

Hated The Natural because I read the book first and knew how it was “supposed” to end. Movies always take flak when they deviate from the books they’re based on (and they almost always do), but in this case the movie ending is 180 degrees different from the original Malamud novel. IMO, the book’s conclusion is far more powerful and doesn’t involve turning Roy Hobbs into yet another hackneyed sports-movie hero.

[longfellow]

MIRACLE.

[TheConservativeComeback]

how does the book end?

[dfwgator]

I agree with everyones picks.....but how can we forget Happy Gilmore

"The Price is WRONG, bitch!"

[dfwgator]

Brians Song (sobbing hysterically while my wife wipes my tears with her hankie and holds my trembling hand)

According to the "Man Law", that movie and "Old Yeller" are the only two movies that men are allowed to cry over.

[CholeraJoe]

Gotta be “Miracle.”

[Fiji Hill]

I’m glad to know that someone else on this board has seen “Roogie’s Bump.”