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The best football movies

 
 
Reply Mon 9 Oct, 2006 11:45 am
Well, we've done a thread on the best baseball movies, so it's time to turn our attention to football (that's American football, for our international friends who think that football is a sport where you actually kick a round ball with your foot).

I'll offer some non-traditional choices:

The Freshman (1925)
Horse Feathers (1932)
M*A*S*H (1970)
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View Profile JPB
 
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Reply Mon 9 Oct, 2006 12:08 pm
I'll take the easy ones Very Happy

Rudy
The Longest Yard
Brian's Song
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Reply Mon 9 Oct, 2006 02:21 pm
An even easier one - "Knute Rockne, All-American" - Pat O'Brien as Rockne and Ronald Reagan as "the gipper".
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View Profile McTag
 
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Reply Mon 9 Oct, 2006 03:12 pm
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis had a film with a good comedy scene of AMERICAN football in it.
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Reply Mon 9 Oct, 2006 03:14 pm
Burt Reynolds in MEAN MACHINE gets my vote!
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View Profile jespah
 
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Reply Tue 10 Oct, 2006 03:46 am
Necessary Roughness with Scott Bakula (not great but not mentioned yet)
The Longest Yard (the original one)
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View Profile JPB
 
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Reply Tue 10 Oct, 2006 06:06 am
Forest Gump
Paper Lion
North Dallas Forty
All the Right Moves
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Reply Tue 10 Oct, 2006 07:59 am
The traditional wisdom in Hollywood (pre-1980s) used to be that there were no good baseball movies. Not that Hollywood didn't make an effort -- there were lots of baseball movies made, but it's true that not many of them were good (Pride of the Yankees being perhaps the single notable exception). Then came The Natural (1984) and Bull Durham (1988) and Field of Dreams (1989) and suddenly Hollywood was making all sorts of good baseball movies.

In contrast, I've never heard anyone say that Hollywood can't make a good football movie, but I just haven't seen a whole lot of evidence to suggest that that's not true. Again, Hollywood hasn't lacked for effort, but either the film uses football as purely a backdrop (Black Sunday) or as a comedic prop (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) or it stars Adam Sandler (The Water Boy or the remake of The Longest Yard). None of those makes for a particularly compelling football movie (or, in Sandler's case, doesn't make for any kind of good movie).

So, is it true that Hollywood can't make a good football film?
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View Profile vinsan
 
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Reply Tue 10 Oct, 2006 10:28 am
Not actually a true Football movie but abt chasing your dreams via football .... Bend It Like Beckham.
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View Profile fishin
 
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Reply Tue 10 Oct, 2006 10:43 am
I wouldn't say that Hollywood can't make one, they, as you say Joe, seem to shy away from it or use it as a backdrop for something else.

Friday Night Lights is a good football movie and for some reason, Hollywood won't make a movie of similar quality about Professional football. The better movies seem to deal with High School football. (Maybe that's because there is still "heart" in HS football??).

Invincible is supposed to be a good flick but I haven't seen it yet.
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Reply Wed 18 Oct, 2006 08:58 pm
I will always be partial to Remember the Titans. And I agree, there's more heart in high school footbal then there is in pro. Because in pro, it's all about the benjamins.
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Reply Wed 18 Oct, 2006 10:19 pm
The Program
Varsity Blues
The Best of Times...not excellent but decent...Kurt Russell, Robin Williams.
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Reply Thu 19 Oct, 2006 09:29 am
"North Dallas Forty" with Nick Nolte is the finest movie on football ever made -- nobody has exceeded it's fine script and Nolte delivers a performance-of-a-lifetime.
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Reply Thu 19 Oct, 2006 09:33 am
The Replacements. Maybe not the best, but entertaining nonetheless.
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Reply Fri 20 Oct, 2006 03:11 pm
I just loved Invincible. One of the best movies I have ever seen.
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View Profile Greyfan
 
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Reply Fri 20 Oct, 2006 03:59 pm
What, no votes for The Water Boy?

My personal favorite is Brian's Song.

I thought Varsity Blues was achingly close to a good movie.

Best movie about a football player, though not the best football movie, is Everybody's All-American.
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View Profile kermit
 
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Reply Tue 14 Nov, 2006 01:55 pm
I'll go with The Waterboy
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View Profile kuvasz
 
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Reply Mon 4 Dec, 2006 10:03 pm
Lightwizard wrote:
"North Dallas Forty" with Nick Nolte is the finest movie on football ever made -- nobody has exceeded it's fine script and Nolte delivers a performance-of-a-lifetime.


like Wiz said North Dallas Forty; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dallas_Forty

The simple scene when Nick Nolte awakens after a tough game would be recognizable for anybody who has played the game at the college or pro level, sometimes you just feel like you're gonna' die when you wake up and every bone in your body screams out, then that's when you start reaching for the pills and needles.

Brain's Song too, but as a TV movie it did not have the impact of theater released films but I would bet lunch money not even a Dick Butkus would have a dry eye when it ended.

But as an old football coach, nothing tops Remember The Titans, it brings out so much of what the game does to mature a young man and the dipicts well the pure joy of playing the game. The speech made at dawn on the battlefield at Gettysburg was worth the ticket of admission.

Only Hoosiers is a better sports film. It is one of my top ten "Americana movies, on par with Twelve Angry Men, Grapes of Wrath, Singing in the Rain, Its a Wonderful Life, and To Kill a Mockingbird for exemplifying the mythos of an America fast slipping through our fingers as we rush on headlong to the future. The whole film is a cinematic banquet and the opening scene with Gene Hackman driving through the rural fields and towns of the American Midwest in late fall with the scenery, all those colors of foliage makes one weep in remembrance of things past we have known. I watched it over Thanksgiving and still get a chill when Jimmy Chitewood looks to Coach Dale and says. 'I'll make it."

If you have spent time coaching young men you know just what went through Coach Dale's heart at that moment when the trust they had in you was given back to them.
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Reply Sat 26 Jan, 2008 06:12 pm
watched the new Longest Yard last night.

it was definitely an homage to the 1974 original, with many of the same lines.

i thought the one-on-one hoops scene between sandler and michael irvin was more real than any of the football scenes...
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Reply Sat 26 Jan, 2008 06:37 pm
Re: The best football movies
da best football films 2 me id guess are:
the longest yard
mean mashines
bend it like beckham
and dats all i can think about lol
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