What is the best football movie?

[Shell Beau]

I watched Remember the Titans again yesterday, and it got me to thinking about all of the football movies out there.

Which is your fave?

[jobycom]

1. No one else seemed to like it, but Ron Shelton's first film, "The Best of Times"

makes my list. Robin Williams, Kurt Russel, M Emmet Walsh, and classic Ron Shelton scripting like "I'm not a has-been, I'm a never-was." I don't know, the movie worked for me.

[CBGLuthier]

2. North Dallas Forty

With the immortal line, and then it started getting weird.

Hilarious and probably more real than any sports movie should dare to be.

[Oeditpus Rex]

23. Well, except for the game scenes

Which were pretty poorly filmed.



Have you read the book? Much different ending.

[11 Bravo]

25. Pete Gent's book was outstanding. (And you're right about the ending, WAAAY different.)

[Oeditpus Rex]

29. Writing-wise, I didn't think much of it

Especially compared to, say, "Semi-Tough." Dan Jenkins has to be the best dialogue writer in history and one hell of a character developer.

But Gent spun a fantastic story, and one that he oughta know.

[CBGLuthier]

30. I like semi tough for what it is

But it plays more like a satire, especially all the EST and pyramid power stuff. I do have to admit that Burt Reynold's racist line about why they really play football is damn funny though.

[Oeditpus Rex]

34. I'm talking about the book

The movie was a travesty.

The book didn't have Bert Convy or any EST crap. The movie changed entirely the way the central characters talk and inexplicably took out the character of Elroy Blunt and, accordingly, the massive party he threw the night before the game.

I guess what it did have was Michael Ritchie in his Woody Allen period.

[CBGLuthier]

35. Sorry, but we were talking about the best football movie here

I read the book semi tough but that was 30 years ago. Still remember it being more satirical than straight. In fact most of Jenkins stuff is pretty satirical. Not that there's anything wrong with a good satire.

I didn't know Ritchie made it. Such an uneven career. Some of the best films (Smile, The Island, Fletch), and some of the worst (The Survivors, The Couch Trip, Fletch Lives)

[Oeditpus Rex]

40. 'Smile' and 'The Bad News Bears'

were his two films preceding "Semi-Tough" and were great examples of under-stated satire. I've been involved with the production of Junior Miss pageants with the Jaycees, and that's pretty much how they go.

Huh — Walter Bernstein, who also wrote "Fail-Safe," wrote the screenplay for "Semi-Tough" and was nominated by the Writers Guild of America for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium.

[taterguy]

3. North Dallas Forty

Underrated. Mixes some rather gross laugh out loud moments with stinging commentary about exploitation and double standards in the NFL.

Nolte's performance is brilliant and Matuzak does a great scene that features most people's fantasy about what they'd like to do to their boss.

[sasquatch]

16. Agreed...it went beyond being a football movie which is hard for them to do

Baseball movies always do that for some reason football movies have a hard time doing that.

[LanternWaste]

4. Brian's Song.

Brian's Song.

(VO - Ending Credits Begin...)
Coach George Halas: Brian Piccolo died of cancer at the age of 26. He left a wife and three daughters. He also left a great many loving friends who miss and think of him often. But when they think of him, it's not how he died that they remember - but how he lived. How he did live!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

17. +1

[rcrush]

5. H.O.T.S.

[Orrex]

12. Help Out The Seals!

[SoxFan]

6. Football movies, in general, aren't that good

Baseball is the best cinematic sport, hands down.

[Shell Beau]

7. No way, but what is your favorite baseball movie?

[SoxFan]

9. I love Field of Dreams

Yeah, it's a bit hokey, but I like the oddball tone of the movie. Plus, any movie with a possesed Fenway scoreboard is doing something right.

I also like "Bull Durham" and the overlooked "The Rookie" (not a cinematic masterpiece, but a great true story).

[Beer Snob-50]

10. faith rewarded

the story of the 2004 boston red sox!!!

and for fiction, gotta go with fever pitch. very realistic portarial (sp) of a red sox fan.

[Shell Beau]

13. Portrayal

[Beer Snob-50]

19. I LOV E YOU DEAR!

thank you for correcting me!!

[SoxFan]

20. I need to see "Fever Pitch"

I've been told that the portrayal of the Sox fan (a guy with absolutely no sense of perspective) is dead on accurate and more than a bit familiar.

It doesn't hurt that Drew Barrymore makes me see those "little starbursts" that Rich Lowery talked about...

[Beer Snob-50]

22. whether she knows it our not.

drew barrymore is my own personal sex toy.

[jobycom]

36. Fever Pitch was better than I expected.

First role I ever saw Drew Barrymore act like an adult.

[taterguy]

18. Boxing is the sport that produces the best movies

Along the Waterfront
When We Were Kings
Raging Bull

[Beer Snob-50]

8. debbie does dallas

that was a football movie....wasn't it.

[av8rdave]

11. The Longest Yard

[NashVegas]

31. Old School Version, Of Course

[av8rdave]

32. Absolutely!

[arcadian]

14. Victory

[Shell Beau]

15. American Football!!!

[jobycom]

37. That looks like ballroom dancing.

[flvegan]

21. Wildcats, solely for Goldie Hawn being nude.

[Oeditpus Rex]

24. 'Horse Feathers'

[Forkboy]

41. I like the cut of your jib!

[ceile]

26. The Replacements

I know it's a not a great movie, but damn if I don't laugh histerically every time I see it.

[IndianaJones]

27. Longest Yard with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. nt.

[pokerfan]

28. 1) Remember the Titans 2) Rudy

ESPN Reel Life has a couple of good articles on the accuracy of these two 'based on a true story' films.

"There wasn't a brick thrown through my window," Boone says in his DVD commentary. "It was something far more devastating to any human being than a brick could be. I guess Disney, being the family movie production company that it is, felt that to depict a toilet stool coming through your window was a bit much ... I've never gotten over that incident that particular night, because I could never understand how anybody could feel so bad about another human being as to throw a toilet commode through a window."

Reel Life: 'Remember the Titans'

For two years, Rudy was a yeoman on a communications command ship in the Navy. Then he worked in a power plant for two more years before going to Holy Cross Junior College in South Bend.

Waking up Rudy's echoes

[Burma Jones]

33. Friday Night Lights - Movie, not TV Show

[KamaAina]

38. Backfield In Motion

[MissMillie]

39. Rudy!!!!

love that movie....


let's hear it for the little guy!