Best Sports Movies by Sport

[Eddie Teach]

The actual fight (except for the cutting scene) was the weakest part of Rocky.

The training bits count as part of the on-field side of the equation IMO. /shrug

[Ed Anger]

WOMEN WEAKEN LEGS.

[mongers]

Rugby - This Sporting Life

Boxing - lots of good ones out there, can't choose

American Football - I liked 'Any Given Sunday', 'Leatherheads' was amusing and I liked the attempt to capture the early games chaotic beginnings. I seem to recall 'The Longest Yard' was good.

Athletics - hmm,  can't think of anything, though as a piece of fantasy 'Olympia' would be hard to beat, for all the wrong reasons.

Cycling - 'The Flying Scotsman'  the Graeme Obree story.

Football - 'When Saturday Comes' . 

I think the reason there aren't many quality football films is perhaps because the game itself shares some of the characteristics of a movie; 90 minutes in length plus a short half-time break means it's typically the length of a film. The limited number of players, a notional fixed 11 per side, means it doesn't suffer from the huge squads American football does, and of those most play rather workman like roles, so often in a good football game the drama might revolve around a fairly limited number of players, so that they might equate to the central characters in a movie. And sometimes the it comes down to a conflict between just two leading players. 

Actually the best illustration I've found in films, about the reality of football, it's following and tribalism, is in this trivia about a film called 'A Shot At Glory' which sound interesting, but this is what real football can be about:

'Ally McCoist, who plays a former Celtic player is, in real life, a former Rangers player, McCoist is now in actual fact the Rangers No 2 coach. They actually super-impose Celtic colors on to his blue Rangers shirts. He wouldn't wear a real Celtic shirt for the film.

And the guy isn't some bigoted Neanderthal, he's quite a bright, rather humorous man, but for him the above is beyond the Pale.

[Admiral Yi]

Best bike racing movie is that one about the Indiana townies beating the frat boys, the one with the young Dennis Quaid.  Cutters' Way?  Breaking Away? 

[CountDeMoney]

Dear Lord, Yi. You're about as pop culture savvy as Timmay is a spelling bee champ.

[mongers]

Best bike racing movie is that one about the Indiana townies beating the frat boys, the one with the young Dennis Quaid.  Cutters' Way?  Breaking Away?

Yeah, I have that but have yet to get around to watching the dvd. The Flying Scotsman is good as it's a 'true story' about an athlete who really did take on the sporting establishment, and Yi you'll like this it was one dominated by the French. 

[Syt]

Football - 'When Saturday Comes' . 

I like Sean Bean, but that movie left me cold. 'Bend It Like Beckham' is a much worthier entry. There's also 'The Mircale of Bern', but I think it's a bit too far on the sugary-sweet side.

[katmai]

I can't believe none of you brought up "The Fish that saved Pittsburgh"

Fucking troglodytes

[CountDeMoney]

I can't believe none of you brought up "The Fish that saved Pittsburgh"

Fucking troglodytes

Too many flashbacks to elementary school.  Like that made-for-TV movie based on that stupid Coke commercial with Mean Joe Greene.

[katmai]

Hah, i had forgot about that one.

But also have to give Victory a from childhood memories.

[CountDeMoney]

Soccer: another weak field.  Maybe that one in the POW camp with Pele?  I haven't seen it.

And Stallone? Victory. A staple of HBO in the late 80's in the late morning.

Oh yeah, more than once staying home with the flu. Victory on at 10am?  It's a date!

That was actually a pretty cool movie.  Good soundtrack, too.

We are waaaaay too alike. 

It's 1982.  You're home sick with the flu.  But that's only half your problem.

The handful of television stations you get are broadcasting susie homemaker bullshit all morning.  Richard Simmons' workout show.  Maybe, if you're lucky, you score The Love Boat in syndication.  Or Love, America Style, with a The Jeffersons chaser.  Because you know the day's over at 12:30pm, after the local news.  The soaps turn the 2nd half of your day into a Bataan Death March.

HBO, still not programming in 24 hours, doesn't know what the fuck to program when people aren't supposed to be home.  Maybe if you drew the short straw in life on that Tuesday, you got Ordinary People.  Or On Golden Pond.  You sure as shit aren't going to get The Empire Strikes Back, because HBO didn't have the financial power back then.  And you're not getting anything with skin, because they don't broadcast rated R movies before 8pm, so American Gigolo is right the fuck out.

So yeah, you thank your lucky stars you get Victory.

And people wonder why I subscribe to every fucking package known to man on Verizon FIOS, to the point that I have my own personal Verizon customer service rep.  The scars of childhood run deep.

Fucking kids these days don't know how good they got it.

[11B4V]

 

[CountDeMoney]

Shit wasn't funny in 1982, man.

[11B4V]

Shit wasn't funny in 1982, man.

I know, and kids today dont know how well they got it.

[Ed Anger]

Soccer: another weak field.  Maybe that one in the POW camp with Pele?  I haven't seen it.

And Stallone? Victory. A staple of HBO in the late 80's in the late morning.

Oh yeah, more than once staying home with the flu. Victory on at 10am?  It's a date!

That was actually a pretty cool movie.  Good soundtrack, too.

We are waaaaay too alike. 

It's 1982.  You're home sick with the flu.  But that's only half your problem.

The handful of television stations you get are broadcasting susie homemaker bullshit all morning.  Richard Simmons' workout show.  Maybe, if you're lucky, you score The Love Boat in syndication.  Or Love, America Style, with a The Jeffersons chaser.  Because you know the day's over at 12:30pm, after the local news.  The soaps turn the 2nd half of your day into a Bataan Death March.

HBO, still not programming in 24 hours, doesn't know what the fuck to program when people aren't supposed to be home.  Maybe if you drew the short straw in life on that Tuesday, you got Ordinary People.  Or On Golden Pond.  You sure as shit aren't going to get The Empire Strikes Back, because HBO didn't have the financial power back then.  And you're not getting anything with skin, because they don't broadcast rated R movies before 8pm, so American Gigolo is right the fuck out.

So yeah, you thank your lucky stars you get Victory.

And people wonder why I subscribe to every fucking package known to man on Verizon FIOS, to the point that I have my own personal Verizon customer service rep.  The scars of childhood run deep.

Fucking kids these days don't know how good they got it.

You are the voice of our generation man.