Sylvester Stallone as Rocky, whose story is now shorthand for triumphing against the odds
Sylvester Stallone as Rocky, whose story is now shorthand for triumphing against the odds
From boxing stars to wrestling has-beens: which of these sporting movies is a real knockout?
Cinema and sport go together like bat and ball, like Rocky and Adrian, like England and penalties. It’s little wonder that sports make great movies. Cinema is, at its most basic level, visual storytelling. As screenwriters will tell you, the first rule of movies is to “show, don’t tell”. Personal victories, character journeys, and all-round triumph are shown through external action. So, what could be a more effective way of denoting victory than crossing the finish line, hitting a home run, or knocking an opponent out cold? That’s perhaps why boxing, racing, and American sports have been regularly depicted across cinema history.
The below films have been selected as examples of cinematic sporting greatness. In a truly great sports film, the sport is absolutely crucial to the character – intrinsic to who they are and their journey. In some films, the sport may have a transformative power, or say something about the players and the country in which it’s played. For instance, sports have often been depicted as an essential way of American life – great victories are the American dream come true.
The best sports films will also say something about the sport they depict – sport as an expression of the human spirit – or explore why something as basic as knocking a ball around can become a life-affirming state of mind, part of a person’s sense of self. These are the 35 greatest sports movies of all time.
The Woody Harrelson-starring bowling comedy is a sometimes-forgotten score from the Farrelly brothers’ 90s pomp, coming between Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary. Roy Munson (Harrelson) is a bowling protege turned hook-handed sleazebag and loser. Such a loser, in fact, that his name becomes slang for being up a creek without a paddle. “A real Munson.” After discovering bowling prospect Ishmael (Randy Quaid) – an Amish manchild – Munson and Ishmael hustle their way to a high-stakes bowling tournament in Reno. The Farrellys aren’t afraid to roll their gags right down the gutter, though the film is often hysterical. The real comedy kingpin is Bill Murray as rival bowler Ernie McCracken – “Big Ern” – an obnoxious, self-serving womaniser who ranks alongside Murray’s roles in Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day.
34. The Iron Claw (2023)
Is professional wrestling a sport? Naysayers would scoff at the theatrics and predetermined fights, but it’s still driven by a desire to be the best. Championships are awarded not for winning legitimate matches, but for having the physicality and charisma to forge a strong connection with the punters. Not winning the world title is what drives wrestler-turned-promoter Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany) to push his brood of Texas-bred sons into the ring: to achieve the glory – and box office business – that he never did. The brothers, including Kevin (Zac Efron) and Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), become wrestling superstars but die one by one, killed by illness, drugs, and suicide – the supposed Von Erich curse. Historical quibbles aside, The Iron Claw – named after the Von Erichs’s trademark submission hold – is sadly true. If anything, the film tones down the tragedy (it omits another brother who took his own life), but captures Fritz’s claw-like hold over their fates.
Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Stanley Simons, and Harris Dickinson in The Iron Claw. Photo / A24
33. Battle of the Sexes (2017)
Released around the time of the Me Too movement and Time’s Up – when issues of gender equality and the power dynamics dominated social media – Battle of the Sexes says as much about the time it was made as it does the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs (played here by Emma Stone and Steve Carell). It begins as a gender pay gap dispute when King (Emma Stone) discovers that women tennis pros are getting just one-eighth of the prize money being offered to the men. “The men are simply more exciting to watch,” says tennis boss Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman). Riggs, a self-proclaimed tennis hustler, cottons on to the issue and offers King to play him in a publicity sideshow. Carell plays Riggs with a degree of sympathy – a clapped-out dinosaur with a marriage on the rocks – but it’s deeply satisfying when Billie Jean trounces him.
Andrea Riseborough and Emma Stone in Battle of the Sexes.
32. Slap Shot (1977)
The third collaboration from director George Roy Hill and star Paul Newman – following Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, both undisputed classics – this ice hockey comedy is a cult-like American favourite, particularly among ice hockey fans. Newman plays Reggie Dunlop, the grizzled, almost-past-it player-coach of a mill town team, the Charlestown Chiefs. With the local steel mill set to close, creating mass employment, the Chiefs are sure to follow. The team resorts to all-out violence in their games, helped by the oddball, gleefully brutal Hanson brothers (not to be confused with the band). The Chiefs’ violent tactics draw bigger crowds and help them reach the championship final. The charm is in the blue-collar grit, and while some of the humour has aged horribly the violence is still a blast.
Margot Robbie is magnificent as Tonya Harding, the Olympic figure skater at the centre of a still-hard-to-believe scandal. In 1994, Harding’s husband orchestrated an attack on rival figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. Harding was then implicated and banned from figure skating. Directed by Craig Gillespie, Harding’s story is framed as a blackly comic mockumentary – a story of natural talent versus establishment snobbery. Harding is pure white trash – a fact that judges will never let her escape. Sure, she stomps out her cigarette with the blade on her boot – while wearing tatty homemade costumes and doing routines to ZZ Top – but, as Harding says in one of the hilarious talking heads, she was also the first US woman to land a triple axel in an international tournament. “So f*** ‘em,” she says. The skating scenes are excellent – it’s a sport made for cinematic set-pieces – while scoring high for both hilarity and heartbreak.
Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding in I, Tonya.
30. Mike Bassett: England Manager (2001)
This much-loved mockumentary follows Mike Bassett (Ricky Tomlinson) as he leads England to near disaster at the World Cup. Inspired by the Graham Taylor documentary, An Impossible Job, there are plenty of daft gags – selecting players called Benson and Hedges because the squad has been scribbled down on a fag packet – but it’s more poignant than that. It captures the eternal disappointment of English football – the romance and misery that comes with it. Football is near impossible to recreate for film, so director Steve Barron keeps the camera firmly on the dugout and dressing rooms. A fan favourite scene comes when Bassett launches a bleeped-out halftime tirade during a 4-0 loss to Mexico. As a sports film, it’s the basic formula – Bassett gets his happy ending when England reach the semifinal – but, much like Bassett’s tactics, basic works. As Bassett would say himself, “England will be playing four-four-f***ing two.”
29. A League of Their Own (1992)
Penny Marshall’s baseball film is lightweight fare but hugely likable – a fictional yarn spun around the real wartime women’s league. Sisters Dottie (Geena Davis) and Kit (Lori Petty) are drafted from their dairy farm to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), which was set up to keep America’s favourite pastime going while the men were away fighting. Hard-drinking coach Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) is outraged at coaching girls instead of proper ball players – cue some of Hanks’s best outbursts, which are truly his comedy forte – but he soon takes them seriously. It has a streak of ball-walloping sisters doing it for themselves: the team, the Rockford Peaches (a real AAGPBL team), quickly realise they’re being paraded around as totty for the spectators, while Dottie gets press attention because, well, she looks like Geena Davis. The heart of it, though, is the sisterly tension between Dottie and Kit. In true sports movie tradition, it can only be resolved one way: a rollickingly good baseball game.
Geena Davis in A League of Their Own.
28. Foxcatcher (2014)
Steve Carell’s performance as multimillionaire-turned-murderer John du Pont sets the tone for this wrestling drama: an off-kilter, sombre oddity – but one that’s morbidly fascinating to watch. Directed by Bennett Miller, it tells the true story of du Pont’s Foxcatcher training facility, for which du Pont recruited wrestling gold medallist brothers Mark and Dave Schultz (Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo). A homoerotic father-son relationship between du Pont and Mark turns to coke-ravaged paranoia, building to the eventual tragedy when du Pont shoots Dave dead. Carell’s du Pont is a skin-crawling presence – a little lost boy whose various hobbies (birdwatching, vintage weapons, philanthropy, and grunting on the floor with trainee wrestlers) are all done to please his eternally displeased mother. Tatum is a powerhouse as Mark Schultz, who wrote the original book. Tatum plays him as a similarly lost, off-kilter soul – utterly disconnected unless he’s twisting men’s bodies on the mat.
27. Hoosiers (1986)
The Gene Hackman-starring basketball drama is one of several films on this list that makes its sport more than just a game. It’s part of the national identity, crucial to the fabric of smalltown America (see also: the baseball-based oeuvre of Kevin Costner). Hoosiers is set in 1950s Indiana, where Norman Dale (Hackman) is enlisted to coach a struggling high school basketball team. Dale faces stiff opposition – not from rival teams but from the locals – when his new-fangled ways upset the players and townsfolk. Players storm out and the town votes to banish him from their school. There’s a method to his stubbornness, though, as he whips the team into a more disciplined shape and restores the self-belief of alcoholic assistant coach Shooter (Dennis Hopper). Dale must win over the town before his boys can win the state championship. Which they do, of course, with a rousing last-gasp basket.
26. Fat City (1972)
While Rocky Balboa insists “I ain’t no bum”, Billy Tully (Stacy Keach) admits quite the opposite in this defeatist John Huston-directed boxing drama. Tully is a down-and-out former champ, who spends his days drunk and waffling on about a comeback. “Ever since my wife left, it’s just been one mess after another,” says Tully, an offhand comment that hits right in the heart. Fat City is sozzled with a potent measure of melancholy – an appropriately grim depiction of alcoholism. Tully trades verbal blows with fellow drunk Oma (an Oscar-nominated Susan Tyrrell), slurring through arguments about their dinner and past traumas. Meanwhile, hopeful young fighter Ernie (Jeff Bridges) – a wide-eyed 18-year-old with the world at his feet – learns the ropes. Ernie’s not especially good in the ring – the funniest moments land squarely on his nose. When Tully does make his return, he triumphs. But – unlike most movie boxers – the win doesn’t change his life. After the bell has rung, Tully’s still a bum.
25. Ali (2001)
Will Smith was born to play the motormouth side of Muhammad Ali in this biopic. Smith’s cadence and delivery are flawless, dubbing opponents “ugly” (though he saves some of the sharpest jabs for sports reporter pal Howard Cosell – a prosthetic-clad Jon Voight). Director Michael Mann, meanwhile, takes care of the fight sequences, beginning the film with a bout against Sonny Liston that Mann makes somehow both furious and soulful. Indeed, Mann’s Ali is not a typical A-to-Z, streets-to-glory sports biopic. It’s as much about Cassius Clay becoming a Muslim, his relationship with the Nation of Islam, and the politics of being a prominent black man within the powder keg of civil rights. It’s a portrait of a man who stands for more than sporting greatness. He’s a cultural and political goliath, delivering an anti-Vietnam speech like a one-two combo. The film builds to the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle”, which was also covered in the documentary When We Were Kings, listed below.
Will Smith as Muhammad Ali in the movie, Ali. Photo / Columbia Pictures
24. Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Two decades since its breakout success, Bend It Like Beckham is still hugely likeable, while also feeling like the most early 2000s film ever made. (Rubbish fashion! Mel C on the soundtrack! Shaznay from All Saints in midfield!) Doing for women’s football what The Full Monty did for male stripping, the film belongs to the British-Asian strand of homegrown social realism. Parminder Nagra plays Jess, who wants to play football against the wishes of her Sikh parents. Jess’s mother would much rather marry her off. “What family will want a daughter-in-law who can run around kicking a football all day but can’t make round chapatis?” asks her mother. There’s an underlying, uncertain sexual tension between Jess, coach Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), and tomboy best pal Jules (Keira Knightley, who was swashbuckling in Pirates of the Caribbean the following year). As is customary from British comedy dramas of the era, it’s a feelgood winner by the final whistle.
23. Field of Dreams (1989)
“If you build it, he will come,” say the cornfield ghosts, crossing over from the other side and entering the much-quoted cultural lexicon. It’s all part of the vision that convinces Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) to flatten his farmland and create a baseball diamond for the ghosts of long-dead ball players. When you put it like that it sounds ridiculous. But if you’re going to make a tear-jerker for men, you have to hit them where it hurts: the balls. Football, baseball, basketball, golf, or any other kind of ball-based sport. And that’s exactly what Field of Dreams is: a romance for men, in which the game is intrinsically tied to themes of fatherhood, family, and heady nostalgia. What could be more manly? After Bull Durham, it was Costner’s second baseball film in two years, though he hit almost everything out of the park at the time.
Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams.
22. The Hustler (1961)
“Fast Eddie” Felson (Paul Newman) is a pool hustler who doesn’t know when to quit. Quite literally: despite winning thousands from the pool hall kingpin Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason), he refuses to leave the table until Fats calls it a day. “I beat him all night and I’m going to beat him all day,” Fast Eddie says. He goes on to lose US$18,000 to Fats over an epic 24 hours at the pool table. Eddie hustles his way back to challenge Fats again. But it’s not all smoky pool rooms and swish-suited players. Eddie’s girlfriend commits suicide in a staggeringly bleak moment, which spurs him on to beat Fats. “How can I lose?” Eddie asks before he cleans up. Martin Scorsese directed a 1986 sequel, The Color of Money, in which Fast Eddie mentors Tom Cruise. Newman won an Academy Award for the Scorsese sequel, though it never captures the shady cool of this Robert Rossen-directed original.
Ron Howard directs an embellished account of the rivalry between British Formula One driver James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Austrian opponent Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl). In truth, the pair were good friends, but in the film, they’re diametrically opposed to the point of despising each other. Hunt is a charismatic, foppish ladies’ man – an instinctive talent. Lauda, on the other hand, is rat-like and unpopular – clinical about winning. Howard’s racing action is thunderingly good. Making no bones about the dangers of Formula One, scenes of them taking tight corners in heavy rain are tense enough to steer you off the sofa. Lauda is badly injured in a crash that leaves him disfigured (as actually happened), but the real pain comes when doctors vacuum out his lungs – an agony that drives Lauda’s comeback. The film’s creative licence is easy to overlook, revving up the rivalry to create sporting magic.
F1 rivals James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, left) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) in a scene from Ron Howard's Rush.
20. Bull Durham (1988)
Written and directed by baseball player-turned-filmmaker Ron Shelton, it’s one of the films that made Kevin Costner the all-American golden boy of Hollywood. And being all-American is absolutely at the heart of Bull Durham. It’s a joyous home run of apple pie film-making – a story about baseball as America’s favourite pastime, with all its eccentricities and its near-religious grip on the hearts of fans. Advancing from the minors to the major league – “the show” – is a tangible American dream. Based on Shelton’s real experiences in the minor leagues, it tells the story of veteran catcher Crash Davis (Costner), who’s recruited to the Durham Bulls to mentor dunderheaded pitcher Nuke Laloosh (Tim Robbins), but gets caught in a love triangle with baseball groupie Annie (Susan Sarandon). Nuke is called up to the show, leaving Crash to reflect on his dream that never came true. The brilliance is in Shelton’s character-rich banter – more on target than Nuke’s pitches.
19. Friday Night Lights (2004)
Based on the non-fiction book by HG Bissinger, Friday Night Lightsis now overshadowed by another adaptation – a five-season TV series. But Peter Berg’s film still hits with tough tackles and emotional heft. It’s set in Odessa, Texas, where the locals live and die by the success of their high school football team, the Permian Panthers. So, when the high schoolers reach the state championship final – led by inspirational speech-giver Coach Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) – the pressure is huge to the point of threatening. The film is hard going in places, with painfully toxic parenting and injuries that break hearts as well as ligaments. Indeed, when a running back tears his ACL, the town is wounded, but the real pain is in the eyes of the kid who’s lost his ticket out of Odessa. The Panthers ultimately miss out on the championship by a matter of inches and Odessa is forced to unite in defeat.
18. The Damned United (2009)
Starring Michael Sheen as Brian Clough – the best of Sheen’s impersonation roles – this acclaimed comedy-drama documents Clough’s disastrous spell as Leeds United manager in 1974. Clough, who criticised Leeds’ “dirty” football for years before accepting the manager’s job, riles everyone up before he’s even stepped foot on the training ground. As Clough, Sheen smirks so hard that it causes the air around him to permeate with hubris and ego. Obsession, not football, is the name of the game, as Clough strives to erase the legacy of previous Leeds gaffer – and his longtime rival – Don Revie (“B******s to Don Revie!”). Interspersed with real footage, it’s an affectionately nostalgic look at football as it was, with plenty of slopping mud and stadiums set in bleak concrete landscapes. It gets the odd yellow card for historical inaccuracy (both the film and original novel were sued by ex-players) and it lets Clough off the hook in the end.
17. Creed (2015)
The Rocky series has made more than one comeback. In 2006, the Italian Stallion – and Sylvester Stallone’s career – fought back with Rocky Balboa, a final victory for the muscly grandad of 80s action. But it was Ryan Coogler’s Creed that made the series relevant for the 21st century, starring Michael B Jordan as Adonis, the forgotten son of Apollo Creed, Rocky’s greatest opponent. It’s essentially a remake of the original. But whereas the original saw Rocky assert his masculinity by going the distance with Apollo – a kind of fictional reworking of Muhammad Ali, sport’s greatest black icon – Creed switches the perspective to make black masculinity the focus. Adonis fights to make his own name while making peace with his long-dead absent father. Rocky trains him while fighting his own battle with cancer. British boxer Tony Bellew plays the final opponent, but the best fight comes midway when Adonis – in a near-five-minute single take – gets his first win with a skull-rattling shovel hook.
Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Johnson in Creed.
16. This Sporting Life (1963)
This kitchen sink classic stars Richard Harris as Frank, a brutish, emotionally repressed miner. In love with his ice-cold widower landlady, Margaret (Rachel Roberts), Frank’s only means of release is through cracking skulls on the rugby pitch. Frank’s so up for a rumble that he even thumps his own teammates when they don’t play ball. Directed by British New Wave pioneer Lindsay Anderson, its scenes of rugby are savage – unlikely to encourage anyone to take up the sport – while the overall film is not unlike a scrum: a tough, dirty, merciless slog. See: Frank getting tackled into the mud after he’s professed his love for Margaret – to which she literally spits in his face as he lies defeated and in pain. And that’s not even the end of his agony. It’s a masterpiece of social realism – powered by Harris’s intensity – but the film was a commercial failure and effectively ended the British New Wave.
It took filmmaker Leon Gast a full 22 years to complete this Oscar-winning documentary about the “Rumble in the Jungle”. The legendary event took place in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1974, fought between George Foreman, the powerful young champion, and Muhammad Ali, a past-his-prime underdog. Gast collected an invaluable archive, weaving between the various elements that would intersect at the fight: Ali’s political heft; Don King’s wheeling-dealing; Zaire under the dictator Mobutu; the racial climate; and an accompanying music festival. More than anything, it’s a joy to spend 90 minutes so close to Ali. As Spike Lee describes in a talking head, he’s “a beautiful specimen... handsome, articulate, funny, charismatic... whooping ass too”.
When We Were Kings is the story of Muhammad Ali in the Academy Award-winning film following his most infamous match in boxing - the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" against George Foreman in Zaire.
14. Senna (2010)
Asif Kapadia’s documentary recounts the career and death of Brazilian Formula One champion Ayrton Senna, who was killed at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Using an impressive archive of footage, the film puts you behind the scenes of Formula One and – at a crucial moment – right in the driver’s seat. Senna is portrayed as an artist on the racetrack – a driver of God-given skill and intelligence. The thrust of the story is Senna’s heated rivalry with team-mate Alain Prost, though Senna also clashes with F1 bosses, particularly over safety measures. Senna watches a series of crashes – one of which killed driver Roland Ratzenberger – in the lead-up to his own accident. For the audience, there’s a tragic, knowing irony, and a palpable, gear-shifting tension. The footage is so candid that it creates an incredible experience: being up close and personal with a man who has no idea he’s about to die.
The movie depicts Ayrton Senna right down to his last seconds.
13. White Men Can’t Jump (1992)
Written and directed by Bull Durham’s Ron Shelton, the basketball comedy is a slam dunk of early 90s-ness – all chunky Reebok Pumps, baggy shirts, and skew-whiff caps. Billy (Woody Harrelson) is a street baller who hustles – then teams with – Sidney (Wesley Snipes), a fast-talking personification of self-confidence. “It is hard goddamn work being this good!” The rapid-fire exchanges are a hoot – “Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing on a string” – as is the moment a ball player leaves a game to rob a shop for stake money. Shelton’s film is about a self-inflicted sporting tragedy: Billy is a winner on the court, but predisposed to be a loser everywhere else. After winning the two-man tournament with Sidney, he immediately fritters away his money by betting he can make a slam dunk. His girlfriend, Gloria (Rosie Perez) – an expert on foods that begin with the letter “Q” – fares better as a contestant on Jeopardy!
12. Ford v Ferrari (2019)
This motorsport biopic is like a perfect engine of a sports film. Telling the story of the Ford Motor Company’s mission to build a car to beat Ferrari at the Le Mans 24-hour race, it has all the right parts: a would-be champion out to prove himself; a cornerman who backs him up; hard-to-take defeats along the way; and an epic climactic contest. Christian Bale plays driver Ken Miles, while Matt Damon plays former Le Mans winner and car designer Caroll Shelby. Ferrari are the opponents on the racetrack, but the real opposition comes from the boardroom – specifically Josh Lucas as Ford’s smarmy, PR-minded VP. Still, director James Mangold crafts a full-throttle recreation of Le Mans, while Bale’s Ken shouts Britishisms at rival drivers (“Face like a smacked arse!”). Amusingly, the determination to win Le Mans stems from Enzo Ferrari calling Henry Ford II fat. In the film, anyway.
Christian Bale and Matt Damon star in Ford v Ferrari. Photo / Merrick Morton, 20th Century Fox
11. Warrior (2011)
The mixed martial arts drama from director Gavin O’Connor is gloriously Rocky-like, with a plot so contrived, so wrought with bruised masculinity, that its knockout blows and tap-outs hit like a release of raw, super-charged adrenaline. It stars Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton as estranged brothers Tommy and Brendan Conlon – one a mysterious war hero, the other a near-bankrupt family man – who end up fighting each other in a big-money MMA tournament. Their reformed father, Paddy (an Oscar-nominated Nick Nolte) watches on, always threatening to plummet back into abusive alcoholism. What better way is there to resolve 20 years of family trauma than belt each other senseless? The action is superb – see Brendan’s tension-pummelling fight against Russian monster, Koba (former WWE champion Kurt Angle) – but the action just wouldn’t hit the same way without that emotional wallop. Like Tommy and Brendan, the film’s tough on the outside but soft as warm butter underneath.
10. The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
The classic Lou Gehrig biopic was released just one year after the legendary baseball player died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Directed by Sam Wood, it’s pleasingly old-fashioned, with the 41-year-old Gary Cooper playing Gehrig as a college-age baseball prospect with gee-whizz sincerity. Gehrig’s immigrant mother disapproves of baseball but she’s soon won over when he starts hitting home runs in Yankee Stadium, part of a major league record that saw Gehrig play 2130 consecutive games. It’s an all-round celebration of a much-loved American icon, in which Gehrig is portrayed as the most wholesome sportsman who ever lived (he hits two home runs for little Billy in the hospital – “Oh gosh!” exclaims Billy). The old-timey, apple-cheeked charm takes a knock when Gehrig is diagnosed – a scene that Cooper plays wonderfully – before making his “luckiest man on the face of the earth” farewell speech. Not a final victory but still a moment of ultimate sporting greatness.
“Some people’d say the most important thing a fighter can have is heart,” says Scrap-Iron (Morgan Freeman), a half-blind ex-fighter. Boxing trainer Frankie (Clint Eastwood) would refute that, though Million Dollar Baby – directed by Eastwood – is nothing but heart. Frankie is a crotchety, regret-ridden cutman who reluctantly trains white trash wannabe Maggie (Hilary Swank). “I don’t train girls,” he grumbles before she becomes a surrogate daughter. It’s a boxing film in its purest form, in which the inner battle is won by whacking someone else in the face, or by clambering back up after being knocked down. However, Maggie, who swiftly rises through the ranks, is fighting for both of their inner battles. Eastwood delivers a few emotional gut punches, Maggie’s ungrateful hillbilly family leave her wounded, but they’re merely a set-up for an out-of-the-blue, blindsiding tragedy that makes the last 20 minutes intensely difficult to watch. There are some losses from which there’s no coming back.
Actors Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank, star in the film Million Dollar Baby.
8. The Fighter (2010)
David O Russell’s boxing film plays with multiple layers of reality. Based on the lives of boxing half-brothers Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) and Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), it dramatises the making of a real HBO documentary on Eklund’s crack addiction, during which Dicky is sent to jail for crack-addled hijinks. Micky’s story, meanwhile, is a more formulaic underdog yarn. Held back by Dicky and his infuriating mother (Melissa Leo), he has to prove himself in his fights, shot with the hue and documentary feel of pay-per-view broadcasts. The film moves to the tempo of Bale and Leo’s animated (and Oscar-winning) performances, though Amy Adams is also tremendous as Micky’s girlfriend, Charlene, who’s all brass and sass. Dicky believes he’s making a boxing comeback – he harps on about the time he knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard (he actually tripped) – but the film’s big comeback goes to Micky during a big title fight, arguably the finest round of boxing in cinema history.
Christian Bale plays Dicky Ecklund in The Fighter.
7. The Wrestler (2008)
Darren Aronofsky’s downer wrestling drama marked a career comeback for Mickey Rourke. His character, 80s wrestling star Randy “The Ram” Robinson, has no such luck. Basking in past glories, Randy can’t leave the increasingly dim spotlight. He finds a kindred spirit in stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), though struggles to rebuild a relationship with his daughter. His story recalls Jake “the Snake” Roberts, a former WWE wrestler whose personal problems were shown in the eye-opening wrestling documentary, Beyond the Mat. Indeed, grapple fans will recognise this depiction of washed-up wrestlers as depressingly real: drugs, sparsely-attended fan conventions, and lifelong health problems. Randy also takes desperate measures for crowd adulation, allowing an opponent to staplegun his head in a “hardcore” match. Randy knows he’s just one match away from a fatal heart attack but, in the end, he can’t stay away. “This is where I belong,” he tells Cassidy before going to his final fight.
6. Raging Bull (1980)
Though it often ranks alongside Rocky as a contender for the best boxing film, Martin Scorsese’s biopic of Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) is a different beast – a punishing, grisly portrait of masculinity. The fights are not a battle for personal victory but an expression of the darkness within LaMotta. Not that the “Bronx Bull” doesn’t want to win. From the opening bell, LaMotta is frustrated that he can’t fight bigger-name boxers and later weeps when he throws a fight for the mob. When LaMotta loses the title – left a bloody, swollen mess – he points out that he hasn’t been knocked down. The boxing itself is masterfully staged – both balletic and brutal. It’s even comical when blood splatters over the judges at ringside. But the scariest violence erupts at home. Later, when LaMotta is jailed – now an overweight has-been nightclub owner – he hammers the wall with fists and headbutts. You almost feel the pain he inflicts on himself.
Raging Bull is often cited as one of the best films ever made, with Robert De Niro gaining 27kg for the role.
5. Chariots of Fire (1981)
If the chocking chords of Eye of the Tiger makes you want to go five rounds, the synthy brilliance of Vangelis’s Chariots of Fire theme will make you want to run down the beach in slow motion. The Hugh Hudson-directed Oscar-winner remains stirringly British stuff, telling the true story of runners Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. It’s high-calibre drama on and off the track: posh, worthy, and highly principled. Liddell is a devout Christian who refuses to run the 100m, his preferred race, because the heats are held on a Sunday – so Olympic chum Lindsay (Nigel Havers) offers Liddell his spot in the 400m instead. Liddell runs for the glory of God, spurred on to win by a bit of religious inspiration. “I believe God made me for a purpose,” Liddell tells himself as he outpaces cocky American runners. “But he also made me fast.”
4. Moneyball (2011)
Based on the non-fiction baseball book by Michael Lewis, it follows Oakland Athletics manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) through the 2002 season. Beane, a former player himself, took the team on a 20-game winning streak by using sabermetrics, building a team based on statistics and on-base percentages rather than star power. While most sports films have their punch-the-air moments on the playing field, there’s relatively little baseball action. The big victories play out in the boardroom or through the backstage administration. Scenes of Beane and economist Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) analysing the players’ stats are deeply engrossing. Beane has to go to bat for his own convictions – challenging the “medieval thinking” of baseball management – and finds tough opposition from the old guard, including real-life coach Art Howe (a brilliantly belligerent Philip Seymour Hoffman). They succeed in changing the game but fall short of winning the division series.
Brad Pitt as baseball scout Billy Beane in Moneyball.
3. The Set-Up (1949)
Watched now, Robert Wise’s boxing noir feels like the black-and-white blueprint of every great boxing film since. Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan) is a past-his-prime journeyman who faces a hotly-tipped younger challenger. “When you’re a fighter, you gotta fight,” Stoker says, determined to prove he’s still got it. What Stoker doesn’t know is that his cornermen have made a deal to throw the fight. Much of it takes place in the locker room, where the fighters – united with a sense of punch-drunk camaraderie – do some pre-fight philosophising, Meanwhile, Stoker’s gal (Audrey Totter) paces outside the arena, convinced that a knockout blow could end it all. The fight itself is a magnificent piece of film-making – a crisply shot, shadowy slugfest, rich with atmosphere and bloodlust. (One middle-aged woman is especially bloodthirsty – “Kill him! Kill him!”) In the end, hanging up the gloves is a victory.
2. Hoop Dreams (1994)
This basketball documentary began life as a short film for public television but became a three-hour inner-city opus, and a definitive cultural artefact of 1990s America. Director Steve James followed black teenagers Arthur Agee and William Gates, teenage basketball prospects from Chicago, for five years as they aimed for scholarships and NBA careers. The kids are full of big-hearted optimism. But watching the film through adult eyes, the reality feels more cynical – the school system that profits from the kids, and the sponsors and college scouts who circle them. Their dream is about more than NBA stardom – it’s about playing their way out of the projects and realising the aspirations of their struggling families. Agee has to leave a prestigious school but tastes basketball glory at a public school; Gates, meanwhile, can’t get the grades and suffers knee injuries. The on-court drama is almost too perfect. You feel those injuries, but they don’t hurt as badly as the missed hoops.
1. Rocky (1976)
There’s only one champion of sports cinema. The Italian Stallion, himself, Rocky Balboa. Though he’s not cinema’s first sporting underdog, Rocky’s story is now shorthand for triumphing against the odds – a fighter who proves his mettle by going the distance with the champ. The real muscle is Sylvester Stallone’s pathos, but the Rocky formula – including, of course, the training montage – is so beaten into the cultural consciousness that its iconic moments have an inspirational power. Punching the meat. Running up the steps. The trumpeting sound of the Rocky theme.
When ranking Rocky against other sports movies, you see it’s in a different weight class. It’s just not a fair fight. The entire Rocky series – six Rockys, three Creeds – occupies a huge space in the genre and the collective sporting psyche. Most sequels pack a wallop (winning the title in Rocky II, Eye of the Tiger in Rocky III, defeating communism in Rocky IV) though they’re essentially the same film – proof that the formula is undefeated. It’s a formula that’s defined almost every other sports film since – whether those other films copy Rocky’s moves or fight against him – and bleeds into other genres. Almost 50 years on, Rocky is still the sports film to beat. Yo, Adrian, he did it.
Rocky was made on a budget of less than US$1 million but became a cultural phenomenon.
