10. Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
A dozen bored surfers, mostly kids in Venice, California, not only reinvent the skateboard but remake a once-forgotten-about suburban fad from the 1950s into an action sports revolution.
Narrarated by Sean Penn, Dogtown depicts life in the more rundown “Locals Only” beach communities circa 1974, which consisted of mostly of surfing in the early morning tides and loitering. The Zephyr Team (or Z-boys as they are called) spend one summer combating the boredom by building their own boards with the help of a local who owns a surf shop. After they enter re-emerging skateboarding competitions in SoCal, they transfigure it all into their own scene; one that rouses a generation of skateboarders consisting of greats like Tony Hawk, Shaun White and the creators of the of X-Games.
Dogtown puts chronological perspective into skateboarding, and the up-from-the-bootstraps history you never knew it had.
9. Fever Pitch (The 1997 BBC version)
A London football-obsessed school teacher has spent the last 20-some years, and every day going forward, viewing life through the one lens: his favorite team, The Arsenal Football Club. Having sublimated the grief of his parents’ divorce through English Football, he views every week of his life as another football match in pursuit of fortunes always hiding.
Colin Firth, who usually plays the archetypical sullen Brit, is resounding as author Nick Hornby’s autobiographical noncommittal single man who’s really just a lad grown up. Hornby’s character then grows smitten a prim and proper English teacher who dislikes him at first but warms up to him and his enthusiasm for sport and life in general.
Fever Pitch is a nice portrayal of the struggles of an irrational sports lover reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that, to the rest of the world, there are more important things than Saturday’s game.
8. Jerry Maguire (1996)
Jerry Maguire, played by Tom Cruise, is a hot shot sports agent who gets fired from his job and questions everything he lives, says and believes.
While the film peers into exciting world of sports celebrity and the high life, it delves more into Maguire’s own superficiality and vanity unraveling in the wake of his own personal choices.
This Cameron Crowe film not only was Oscar nominated, but also springboarded the careers of Renee Zellweger, Bonnie Hunt, and Cuba Gooding, Jr., who himself won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Moreover, this film familiarized us for the first time with terms like “Qwon”, “Show Me the Money”, and with precocious toddlers in glasses. Jerry Maguire is curriculum 101 and a must-see film for any sports enthusiast.
7. Invincible (2006)
I’ll have to admit bias on this one. Not so much because I grew up a Philadelphia Eagles fan, but because even more than that I am a huge fan or the underdog and outsider. Even better, Invincible is based on a true story of a man walking on to his hometown NFL team.
In the drab and recession-laden mid-1970s, the lowly Philadelphia Eagles are so bad that their new head coach, Dick Vermeil, announces team tryouts open to the public on live TV. While every Eagles fan and football-obsessed yahoo in town lines up, one standout athlete, a 30 year old bartender named Vince Papale is good enough to make the team and go pro.
In a style reminiscent of Rocky, the film’s character struggles not only with his past failures amidst a new challenge of making the cut day-by-day, but he also grapples with his new role as a star and outcast in his own microcosm of working class Philadelphia life.
Greg Kinnear and Mark Wahlberg are both convincing in their roles, and even if you’re a Giants or Cowboys fan, you will be inspired to root for Papale as the underdog that delivers on game day.
6. When We Were Kings (1996)
The “True Story of the Rumble in the Jungle” is another documentary which profiles Muhammad Ali’s ascent and domination of the world as sports hero and international icon.
Amidst the slow rise in the 1970s of African-American culture as mainstream, and African-Americans as welcome participants in a racially uncertain middle-America, Kings recounts Ali’s unconquerable spirit and beaming optimism for his craft and love for the people who cheer him as well as those who don’t.
Meanwhile, the new and presumably undefeatable George Foreman makes a play for Ali’s crown. It culminates with Don King’s Rumble in the Jungle, billed as the penultimate international heavyweight championship bout in the heart of Africa.
Overall, Ali’s rise as a heavyweight champion and sports personality has had a cultural impact on our country more than we realize. This film, more than any other, details the fascinating story from the beginning.
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Above, Lance Armstong gives Peter LeFleur flack for not seeing "Cinderella Man" (or should have) and busts his nut for being a quitter in Dodgeball.
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5. Hoop Dreams (1994)
Hoop Dreams starts off in the late 1980s when two local Chicago boys are scouted for their basketball talents. One gets a scholarship to a prestigious private high school in the suburbs while the other roughs it through the public school system and an unstable home life. William and Arthur, both inner-city kids, dream of becoming NBA superstars like their idol, Chicago’s own Isaiah Thomas.
Following the kids over four years of life in high school and pursuit of college, the makers of Hoop Dreams weave together an eye-opening story about inspiration and triumph amidst the difficulties of city life and scant opportunity.
The film, which Roger Ebert regards as one of the best films he ever saw, is a refreshing look at sport on the street, removed from the glitz, glamour and marketing mash up of the professional big leagues.
4. Don King: Only in America (1997)
The great Ving Rhames plays a local Cleveland bookie and some time ex-con maneuvering his way to the top of the nascent and dynamic world of pro boxing.
Rhames, best known for his role as Pulp Fiction’s gang thug Marcellus Wallace, plays a different type of tough guy and hustler in the form of an animated and verbally combative Don King; a persona he nails. Only in America also cameos Bernie Mac, Jeremy Piven and the late soul singer Lou Rawls.
For as much as other films like Any Given Sunday and Jerry Maguire have endeavored to depict the perceived evil, cutthroat and slimy nature of sports promoters, Only in America does so not by belaboring its players as bad people. Rather Don King’s character is flamboyant, very human, and so exciting that, as he puts it “If you didn't have Don King, you'd have to invent him.”
3. Cinderella Man (2005)
In the last few decades there has been a drought of good films about the Great Depression, or at least ones that weren’t about bootleggers and Italian mobsters. Cinderella Man recounts the true story of an on-his-way-out boxer and longshoreman whose family is down to their last penny.
James Braddock’s unlikely last hope is his boxing career. While slumming it to the dock every single day to find scarce work, he hides his injuries to take a crack at the younger up-and-coming professional fighters at first just for the pay. But his stamina and heart, and ability to withstand a beating (both in life and boxing) gifts him with a few knockouts and an underdog’s chance to challenge the great killer champion Max Baer for the title.
If you ever have spent a day of your life feeling useless or defeated, watch this film and it will put your attitude and your head straight.
2. Seabiscuit (2003)
In another riches to rags 1930s-era film, a half-blind jockey too tall and a horse too small, wild, and lazy team up to recreate themselves as the new juggernaut in horse racing.
Based on another true story, the film starts with a narrative by the documentary voice of great historian David McCullough. In the way that Sputnik caused Americans to fear communism and the rise of the Soviet Union in the 1950s, Seabiscuit, a mere race horse, inspired an America sorely beaten down by The Great Depression. No one exactly knows how this horse achieved what it did, but the story is all about heart.
Tobey Maguire does well as an unsure and improbable jockey while Jeff Bridges plays the race team’s promoter and personal coach in an enthusiastic style reminiscent of champion football man Vince Lombardi. Likewise, another must-see, whether or not you care about sports or horse racing at all.
1. Invictus (2009)
Whether or not wins an Oscar or any other accolade, the film is, in my view, the best sports film since Rocky, which I believe was the greatest sports film ever made. Invictus is as good as Chariots of Fire, better than Raging Bull, and blows Hoosiers out of the water.
You need know nothing about rugby, and you need know nothing about South Africa. Clint Eastwood directs, as Matt Damon, perhaps for the first time in career, acts so well that you forget you’re watching Matt Damon.
Damon portraits François Pienaar, the captain of the South African Rugby team; a team that is talented but in a wholesale state of disarray. The team’s players are listless and unmotivated, while their level of play is evocative of the Bad News Bears. Meanwhile, the nation’s black rugby fans cheer not for South Africa but for England.
At the same time, newly elected Nelson Mandela wrestles with the task of running the government and uniting the country while reconciling black aspirations with white fears.
With South Africa hosting the soon-approaching World Cup, the rugby team’s management is fired while the new black government coalition tries to change the team’s mascot and team name, The Springboks, in attempt to erase all memory of Apartheid.
Mandela quietly calls on captain Pienaar to reset the tone of the team and prepare the Springboks for the unlikely feat of winning the World Cup at home and uniting the nation.
Invictus gets its name from a poem by William Ernest Henley that Mandela holds dear as something that made him stand up when, imprisoned for 26 years, “all he wanted to do was lie down”. Like the poem, which speaks of the ability to take responsibility for one’s destiny, the film tells the story of South Africa’s steps forward in the work-in-progress of setting free the nation, both psychologically and socio-politically from its checkered past.
Invictus has so many important facets at work in a brilliant, exciting, but well-tailored storyline, that you’ll digest it for days. Do yourself a favor, and go see it.
Honorable mentions:
Big Fan, Green Street Hooligans, Rudy, Rocky Balboa, Bend It Like Beckham, Mean Machine, Field Of Dreams, A League Of Their Own, Murderball, Searching For Bobby Fischer, Radio, Remember The Titans, The Fifa World Cup Movie, Goal: The Dream Begins, The Rookie, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise And Fall Of Jack Johnson, Million Dollar Baby, and (of course) Dodgeball.
Andy Frye lives, breathes and writes about sports and life on MySportsComplex.blogspot.com and on the Facebook page of the same name.
Pictures borrowed from imdb.com
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