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Football movies

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zincfinger

zincfinger

Gert Frobe-approved
I'm doing the Netflix thing right now, and I have a lot of sports movies that I like, but most of the football movies I've seen are crap. Anyone have a recommendation or two for the best-of-the-best football movies?

edit: they just made "Woody Hayes: Beyond the Gridiron" available at the end of this month per my request. Looking forward to that one.

edit #2: Am I the only one who has this thread not showing up in the "recent forum topics" list?
 
stxbuck said:
Any Given Sunday, Friday Night Lights, and Remember the Titans are all excellent. Varsity Blues is actually OK,IMO. Besides those, you are correct, not many good football movies out there.
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Personally, I thought Remember the Titans was garbage, and Any Given Sunday not too far away. Haven't seen Friday Night Lights or Varsity Blues. I've heard some good reviews of North Dallas Forty.
 
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Haven't seen Friday Night Lights, but heard it's good. I liked Any Given Sunday and Remember the Titans.
I liked The Program, The Replacements (mostly because that girl is smokin'), and of course....The Longest Yard.

I didn't like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, there isn't even any football in it.:biggrin:
 
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FindlayBucks said:
Haven't seen Friday Night Lights, but heard it's good. I liked Any Given Sunday and Remember the Titans.
I liked The Program, The Replacements (mostly because that girl is smokin'), and of course....The Longest Yard.

I didn't like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, there isn't even any football in it.:biggrin:
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They don't play football at Notre Dame anymore, so why would a movie about Notre Dame have football in it?:tongue2:

I liked Any Given Sunday, Varsity Blue(if you can get past the horrible southern accents), Friday Night Lights, and The Replacements(the first 10 times I watched it on Showtime, HBO, or Cinemax). Remeber The Titans was just a big cheese fest. Everyone loves each other after like a day and a half. Varsity Blue was cheesy too, but it is an MTV produced movie, and you kind of have to expect that.
 
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Knute Rockne, All-American is a great film, although severely dated because, as someone has already mentioned, Notre Dame doesn't play football anymore. If you're not a serious ND hater, you can enjoy this one. Otherwise, just go rent The Longest Yard again.
 
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OPINION FONT: Tis a shame, but for every good football film there are at least three good baseball films (and books). Maybe that's the key, baseball gets the better writers. I don't know about the film, but North Dallas Forty was a good read, which perhaps proves the point. Friday Night Lights was a decent film, one that I would watch again. Last Motion Picture Show and Paris, Texas are great films and football is in them, but nothing more than scenery.

It ain't for everyone, but the 60's Brit film, The Sporting Life, is excellent (if you're a serious film aficinado) with the story built around a rugby player. I think it may be the best "sports" film I've ever seen next to Bang the Drum Slowly (baseball, which gets back to my point, good books yield good movies... sometimes)

http://www.bfi.org.uk/search/htsearch.cgi?restrict=;exclude=;config=htdig;words=rugby:wink2:age=7
 
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cincibuck said:
Tis a shame, but for every good football film there are at least three good baseball films (and books). Maybe that's the key, baseball gets the better writers.
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I think the central problem with "football movies" is that most writers feel compelled to write lead or supporting roles for 22 characters who spend most of their time in the film delivering their dialog with helmets and masks on, whereas a "baseball movie" really only requires roles for 9 characters who are not hidden from the audience during their climactic scenes.

If you look at the great football movies versus the bad ones, the universal thread of the good ones (again, The Longest Yard, North Dallas Forty, Rudy) is that they're movies about one character and a few surrounding influences in their lives -- which happen to be football. The actual progression of the game, though it might appear in the film, really isn't critical to the plot in and of itself. For example, whether Crew's misfit team of prison inmates wins or loses at the end of The Longest Yard isn't relevant to the first 90 minutes of the film, in a manner made legendary by Rocky.
 
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