The most popular sports movies of all time

From boxing dramas to bowling comedy, surfing documentaries to slobs-versus-snobs bouts on the links, waste hoops showdowns to ninth-inning baseball standoffs, here are some of the best sports films of all time.

Friday Evening Lighting

It was never going to be simple to adapt Buzz Bissinger’s nonfiction story of one season with a high school football team from Odessa, Texas. How do you show all the real-life dirt and journalistic details without losing the need for drama in a sports movie? Director Peter Berg found the solution by mixing documentary-inspired handheld camerawork with the soaring emotions of the players’ life off the field, and then grounding the entire production with a rock-solid portrayal from Billy Bob Thornton as an emotionally involved coach. The TV show may have surpassed the film at this point, but the components that made the series great – interpersonal relationships, small-town sports mania, and nail-biting gridiron drama – were fully developed well before the small-screen adaptation began waxing lyrical about clear eyes and full hearts.

Senna

In the 1980s and 90s, Brazil’s Ayrton Senna was a national hero and the most photogenic driver on the Formula One circuit. He died in an accident at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. Asif Kapadia’s picture of the champion racer draws on home movies, press briefings, off-screen conversations and fly-on-the-wall film from the driving seat to piece together a turbulent career, including fierce rivalry with former colleague and French driver Alain Prost. Senna stands out as a fascinating, exceptionally talented man whose passion for motorsport was not always reciprocated by institutions more concerned with the show than safety. A documentary detailing his victories would be exciting enough, but Kapadia’s ability to encapsulate an athlete’s life simply through his deeds and achievements elevates this film beyond the genre.

When We Were Kings

Leon Gast traveled to Zaire in 1974 to capture the Rumble in the Jungle bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, and then spent almost 20 years pursuing funding to complete his film. The perseverance was rewarded: this Oscar-winning documentary, which has the advantage of a two-decade perspective and includes talking-head testimony from George Plimpton and Norman Mailer, training footage and images of the Greatest regaining the belt, is essentially the final word on the illustrious fight. At the time, Ali was the underdog, going up against an unbeaten heavyweight champion, which some people thought was stupid and others thought would lead to a massacre. When you see the charismatic boxer tearing through the crowded African streets while kids sing his name, it’s easy to believe that the people’s champ is unbeatable.

Slap Shot

Screenwriter Nancy Dowd was inspired by her brother Ned’s time spent in the minor leagues of professional hockey to create this colourful, profane homage to sports’ lost causes and the people who see them through to the end. Paul Newman plays a player/coach who uses questionable, violent tactics to improve the Charlestown Chiefs’ earnings. Although the ice rink mayhem is expertly directed by George Roy Hill, the film’s underlying sense of hopelessness is what really resonates with viewers. The Chiefs may be victorious, but the world constantly reminds them that they were created to lose. Salute to the Hanson brothers!

Bull Durham

“Crash” Davis (Kevin Costner), a middle-aged minor-league catcher, now values perseverance over success. It’s possible that his most recent mission (to tame the gifted but volatile teenage pitcher known as “Nuke” Laloosh, played by Tim Robbins) will feel more like a lazy babysitting job. But it also puts him in contact with Annie, a devotee of the self-created Church of Baseball, who takes on a bright, young player as a personal project every year. Bull Durham is both a lighthearted romance, a smart look at the less glamorous side of America’s pastime, and a parable about how the concessions of ageing are far preferable to holding to the past.

Caddyshack

Even those who don’t think it’s the best golf film ever made can’t deny that Caddyshack has a cult following. The film has become a classic because it’s so quotable and enjoyable to watch over and over again. There’s something for everyone, including people who despise golf. It should come as no surprise, then, that three decades after its release, it continues to be the epitome of shiftless, mildly inebriated sports movies and the inspiration for movies like The Big Lebowski. This one’s a chance to remember a time when the weed was good, the gators were unkillable, and everyone did, in fact, wind up with a date. Indeed, this is a Cinderella story.

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The editorial unit