The 30 Best Football Movies, Ranked

How many times have you watched a football game and thought "That's impossible?"

My bet is "many." Take Super Bowl games alone.  The Giants infamous "helmet catch" looks like CGI. The Falcons' stunning loss to the Patriots, brilliantly documented by the Secret Base team, is the stuff of sports movie fodder,  a level of ridiculous that, had it appeared on film or in a TV show, would have drawn almost universal criticism. The writers would be asked to take it down a notch. "That could never happen in football."

But it did. And it can. Whatever one thinks of football (and there are reasons to love and loathe it), there's zero question that no game is prone to wilder flights of athleticism or knife twists of fate. The very core of it is collisions and emotional sparks flying. It's why the best football movies — whether they take place on the field, in the stands, or in a pro team's front office — are often symphonies of feeling, less indebted to sense than Hail Mary tosses of storytelling. Football is just as good a canvas for Al Pacino's scenery-chewing as Harold Lloyd's screwball comedy, as right for searing anguish as redemption. Nothing is impossible.

 Here are the 30 best football movies, ranked. 

Adam Sandler kicked off his career with a series of legendary comedies, namely "Billy Madison," "Happy Gilmore," and "The Wedding Singer." Unfortunately, age prevented the "Saturday Night Live" alum from playing the hapless goofball forever. So he pivoted and began tackling more mature roles about middle-aged men struggling with work, family, and fame. Think "Punch-Drunk Love," "Anger Management," "50 First Dates," and 2005's under-appreciated football comedy, "The Longest Yard." Don't misunderstand. When I say more mature, I mean Sandler reduces the bathroom gags from 10 to five.

In the case of "The Longest Yard," a remake of the classic Burt Reynolds film of the same name, Sandler slides into a tough-guy role and allows his supporting cast to execute the dumb pratfalls and lowbrow humor while he watches from the sidelines. He's too cool for school, you see? And while the actor lacks Reynold's onscreen presence, his straight-man approach keeps the bumbling comedy from toppling over the edge.

At times, director Peter Segal confuses the material for a hip-hop music video, but still finds time for slow-motion sequences of male bonding on the football field. The final game between the guards and prisoners carries enough weight to make viewers fret over the outcome. "The Longest Yard" is far from an artistic triumph, but as far as football comedies go, the film goes down like a cold beer on a hot summer day.

The cruel reality of sports is the focal point of Taylor Hackford's long-winded but well-acted character study about a football great known as the Grey Ghost (Dennis Quaid) and his efforts to remain in the limelight when his football skills fail to produce the fame and fortune they once promised. The film chronicles his life from a fresh-faced college superstar to a broken man clinging to relevance in his later years following a few unsuccessful stints in the NFL. We watch his relationship with Babs (Jessica Lange) deteriorate due to his insecurities, and lament a handful of bad decisions that lead to financial problems, death, and heartbreak.

While a tad repetitive and messy, "Everybody's All-American" is still worth a look for its excellent performances, particularly by Lange and co-star John Goodman, and the darker truths about professional sports Hackford explores over the needlessly long 127-minute runtime. Legends are a dime a dozen, but few go on to live up to their potential and typically wind up in a bar regaling older folk with stories of their former accomplishments.

Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman in a football drama based on the 1987 NFL strike that led to replacement players stepping in for NFL stars? Count me in. "The Replacements" may be little more than a run-of-the-mill comedy, but a game cast of characters aptly carry the picture across the goal line.

Reeves stars as Shane Falco, a former football star who gets another chance to flaunt his talents when a strike forces Washington Sentinels coach Jimmy McGinty (Hackman) to stack his squad with alternates. Into the mix falls a ragtag group of grunts led by Orlando Jones, Rhys Ifans, and a young Jon Favreau, among others, and the band must learn to work together to prove their worth.

Directed by Howard Deutch, "The Replacements" leans a little too hard on raunchy laughs that make it resemble something akin to a 90s Adam Sandler comedy, for better or worse. However, the talent involved — particularly Ifans as a Welsh punter whose kicking skills are as breathtaking as his smoking habit — manages to raise the material to better-than-expected heights. At worst, "The Replacements" provides amiable amusement for anyone needing a Saturday night pick-me-up.

"The Blind Side" plays fast and loose with facts — so much so that its main subject, NFL star Michael Oher, publicly criticized the film – but still works as a crowd-pleasing drama thanks in large part to Sandra Bullock's Academy Award-winning performance. Based on Michael Lewis' book, "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game," John Lee Hancock's film chronicles Leigh Anne Tuohy's attempts to turn Michael Oher, a young, homeless teenager, into a football star after taking him into her home. Co-starring Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Kathy Bates, and Lily Collins, "The Blind Side" wears its heart on its sleeve and doesn't get much deeper than a Lifetime original movie.

No matter. The cast is excellent, and some of the football scenes crackle. Plus, we get a unique look at the college recruitment process, where coaches try to coax players into joining their teams, a fascinating exercise largely dictated by familial ties, one that places the Tuohy clan under a fair amount of scrutiny in the final act due to their unbridled loyalty to Ole Miss.

"The Blind Side" lacks an edge that might have propelled the picture to greater heights, but Bullock is great, and the story uplifts like all great sports pictures. Give the film a whirl, then read the true story.

"The Express" had the misfortune of arriving in theaters following a string of sports dramas during the 2000s, namely "Remember the Titans," "Radio," "Friday Night Lights," "The Longest Yard," "Invincible," and "We Are Marshall" — and those are just the football flicks. By 2008, audiences seemed to have grown tired of the genre, 2009's "The Blind Side" notwithstanding, and all but left "The Express" wallowing in obscurity.

Too bad. While relatively routine in its handling of Ernie Davis' true story, this otherwise solid production does a terrific job outlining the events that led to Davis becoming the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy. The film follows the superstar (played by Rob Brown) as he endures racism and other hurdles during his incredible run, and details his relationship with Syracuse University coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid), who hand-picks Davis as running back Jim Brown's successor. Director Gary Felder and screenwriter Charles Leavitt (based on the book "Ernie Davis: The Elmira Express" by Robert Gallagher) handle this true-life tale with panache, resulting in a sure-fire romp with more depth than your average sports film.

After watching "Concussion," two things are certain: The NFL has a big problem it needs to address, and Will Smith is a damn good actor. The Academy Award winner flaunts his stuff in this tale of forensic pathologist Bennet Omalu, who attempts to connect the dots between NFL players and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The more he learns, the greater the secrets Omalu uncovers, many leading to the most influential people in professional sports.

"Concussion" presents a darker view of football that too often gets swept under the rug. It's an engrossing film packed with outstanding performances (particularly by Smith), and a no-holds-barred realistic look at the National Football League, warts and all. Is the NFL problematic? Yes. Will anyone do anything to protect the players on the field? Time will tell, but at least men like Omalu are willing to put their careers on the line to bring these troublesome problems to light. Co-starring Alec Baldwin, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Arliss Howard, Paul Reiser, Luke Wilson, David Morse, and Albert Brooks, "Concussion" attacks challenging issues head-on, and raises interesting questions for audiences to chew on long after the credits roll.

Not necessarily a sports movie, per se, Warren Beatty's classic "Heaven Can Wait" revolves around a football star named Joe, who dies, goes to Heaven, and learns his death was an egregious error. He would have survived the accident, you see? As such, the powers that be grant him the opportunity to return to Earth and take over the body of a recently murdered multi-millionaire industrialist. Joe trains his new body for the big leagues and tries to pick up where his previous life left off, though his attempts prove more difficult than expected.

Light, often hilarious (thanks in no small part to Charles Grodin), "Heaven Can Wait" is an amiable comedy that offers a little bit of everything for everyone. Football is Joe's primary focus, but a romance between him and Julie Christie offsets his plans. At the same time, a subplot involving Grodin and Dyan Cannon as a pair of murderous lovers pursuing Joe's fortune supply a little (lighthearted) danger. Everything leads to a final game that's both poignant and heartbreaking, making "Heaven Can Wait" an old-time yarn worth revisiting.

"North Dallas Forty" takes a scalpel to the cold-hearted reality of professional football, and dissects the business side of the sport operated by money-hungry owners and general managers, with no empathy for the players. Following aging wide receiver Phill Elliott (Nick Nolte) during the final days of his run with the North Dallas Bulls, the Ted Kotcheff-directed picture pulls back the curtain and reveals a world of lavish parties, sex, and drugs. Painkillers are passed around like candy, and unruly behavior gets swept under the rug as long as the player committing the act benefits the team.

None of this is particularly revelatory in our modern age of social media and 24-hour ESPN. In 1979, however, "North Dallas Forty" offered a cold, hard dose of reality. Elliott is an interesting fellow, a man at the end of the line who can't fathom a life without football, no matter how much the sport takes from him physically and mentally. His gradual realization of the cynical nature of the game is heartbreaking to watch, and Nolte delivers a tour de force performance that ranks amongst the actor's finest.

"North Dallas Forty" doesn't follow genre rules and aims higher than your average sports picture. That it remains relevant to this day speaks volumes about its effectiveness as a compelling drama about real people trying to stay afloat in a world propped up by money and greed.

I almost left "We Are Marshall" off this list, because for all intents and purposes it should be a better movie. McG directs the true story of a plane crash that killed 75 players and coaches of a college football program with all the subtlety of a neon pink sledgehammer, and most of the performances follow suit. Anthony Mackie, years before his MCU breakout, acts as though his character's life is on the line even when it isn't. Matthew McConaughey, years before the McConaissance, stretches his performing muscles and strains them. The film is frequently eye-rolling and, most of all, it's loud. 

But you know what? "We Are Marshall" also works. Anyone who's ever been to a game at The Big House or Tiger Stadium can tell you that volume is king in college football. 

Emotions run high, fast, and frequent, and "We Are Marshall" taps into this emotional rollercoaster adeptly, particularly during its manipulative but kind of gangbusters football sequences. That makes it more than worthy of inclusion on this list, even over better but less football-centric movies like "Heaven Can Wait" or "The Last Boy Scout." Those are movies with football in them. "We Are Marshall" is football. 

Early on in "Big Fan," Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt) waits on hold. In his hands is a sweat-drenched notebook. On his mind, nothing but vitriol. When Paul's call is accepted by "SportsTalk Radio," he unleashes all of his well-rehearsed hatred about the week's coming Giants-vs-Eagles game. "Listen up, Philadelphia Phil," he sneers, "and all you other brotherly love jabronis who've been talking smack all week on this show — get out your forks because you're about to eat your words!" He hangs up and the camera pans back to reveal the smallness of his room, a weathered football poster dominating most of it.

No film, much less sequence, has ever quite captured the masculinity parade of modern football fandom. The sport is gladiatorial. Your rivals don't lose so much as perish. And fans who thrive and emerge victorious are kings of all they survey, if only for some hours. "Big Fan" examines this dynamic in piercing detail as it watches Aufiero go from the world's #1 New York Giants fan to a beaten, prison-bound reprobate without ever losing track of the loneliness and insecurity that accompany both. It also offers one of Oswalt's best performances, a harbinger for the funny but deeply felt work he'd yield for "Justified," "Young Adult," and countless other films. 

But more than anything, "Big Fan" understands that fandom and football existence in codependence and reveals the toxicity in both. It's worth cheering for. 

"Any Given Sunday" was released two years before the Atlanta Falcons drafted Michael Vick and changed quarterbacking forever. And it was released decades before Colin Kaepernick decided to kneel during the National Anthem at a 49ers game, sending shockwaves through conservative America and much of football fandom. I mention all of this because "Any Given Sunday"  contains a scene where Jamie Foxx, as Steamin Willie Beamen, confronts Al Pacino about the sacrifices he's made for football and utters this prescient statement: "You some scared old man ... you feel like if I play my way, I just might win ... so I'm gonna stay who I am, and I'm gonna play my way, get my dollars up so that when you wave me, trade me, or injured-reserve me ... I'll be worth ten times what I am today."

This is to say that "Any Given Sunday," in its breathlessly cynical, heavy-handed, and brutally cinematic way, anticipated our modern conversations about Black lives and sports more fully than anyone could've guessed. What is Al Pacino doing in this scene if not saying "Stick to sports" (And were those words ever said to Aaron Rodgers)? The politics of "Any Given Sunday" don't make it good (some of them have aged poorly!) but its desire to say all the quiet parts concerning race, player health, and capitalism out loud is exhilarating, as are its bone-crunching football scenes.

 It is an uneven but necessary ride worth 10 times what it was decades ago.  

"Remember The Titans" is incisive. "Remember The Titans" is cheesy. More than any other film on this list, Boaz Yakin's inspirational football drama ping-pongs between profundity and meaty ham-fisted-ness yet emerges all the better for it because, somehow, this is a film which rings pathos from a bunch of youths in old-age makeup singing The Temptations at a funeral. In fairness, that's what happens when your adaptation of a true story is loose at best and the youths include a murderer's row of great acting talent (Ryan Hurst, Wood Harris, Ryan Gosling, and Donald Faison just to name a few). And the adults are the opposite of slouches, too.

Let's discuss Denzel Washington and Will Patton for a bit. Both actors are, to put it mildly, overqualified for the roles of Coaches Herman Boone and Bill Yoast, respectively. But when Boone exposes Yoast's micro-aggressions with pinpoint accuracy ("Which players you talking about, Coach?") or Yoast confronts an official for throwing the game in front of hundreds, the film takes on a Super Bowl-ready gravity. Washington and Patton refuse to treat the film like a regular-season game, and when Yakin rises to meet them "Remember The Titans" becomes more compelling than it has any right to be. Great teams win games in spite of themselves. That's how "Remember The Titans" plays, too. Crown it champion. 

"Do you remember those boyhood days when going to College was greater than going to Congress — and you'd rather be Right Tackle than President?" So begins Harold Lloyd's seminal silent comedy "The Freshman," which gave birth to the whole college comedy genre. You don't arrive at "Animal House" or "Old School" without it, nor "Pitch Perfect," "Neighbors," or countless other classics. Respect is due.

But the question isn't whether "The Freshman" is worthy of adulation so much as if it's a good gridiron movie, and the answer, resoundingly, is yes. Though the football played by Lloyd bears little resemblance to the padded, brutal mayhem of today's game, the film's triumphant final sequence captures the intersections of higher learning and athletics, from the aspirational to the exhilarating. Lloyd's comedic chops lend the sequence a heightened storytelling clarity that can go missing from sports movie bouts. So in its own wistful and old-fashioned way, "The Freshman" makes football as personal and visceral as any other film in cinema's canon. You might rather be right tackle than President after you finish it. 

When Adam Sandler decided to remake the seminal Burt Renyolds prison football movie "The Longest Yard," some were surprised at how gritty his take was. Such people probably never saw the original. More than any other film on this list, the 1974 "The Longest Yard" plants itself at the crossroads of crowd-pleasing and crowd-challenging, taking a righteously anti-authoritarian stance that explores man's fight for dignity in a system designed to humiliate them. Eddie Albert's Warden Hazen is nothing less than Richard Nixon-light, and the movie's morally dubious messaging raises chilling questions about what it actually takes to defeat those who wield power unjustly.

If that makes "The Longest Yard" sound heavy, rest assured it isn't. Robert Aldrich was an outstanding action director, and the no-nonsense approach he brought to "The Flight of The Phoenix" and "The Dirty Dozen" carries over here. Unlike the hyperactive cuts which define "Any Given Sunday" and "Friday Night Lights," the guards vs prisoners game of "The Longest Yard" is stark and straightforward. It smacks of authenticity, as does the Georgia prison where the film was shot.

But none of this would endure if Burt Reynolds' portrayal of Paul "Wrecking" Crewe wasn't one for his career Mount Rushmore, the role that made him a movie star and international sensation. Football makes icons of many, and through "The Longest Yard" it gave Reynolds the kind of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and boost that audiences remember for decades. No wonder Sandler wanted a shot at it, too. 

If you say "Friday Night Lights" to anyone — a friend, a stranger, even a football neophyte — they think of that score. You know the one. You're likely humming it to yourself now, the memory of those reverb-flecked guitar notes blooming in your heart. Explosions In The Sky's contribution to Peter Berg's 2001 classic is one of the all-time great compositions for sports TV or film, but its also the Rosetta Stone which unlocks why Berg's film soars. More than any other art ever realized, "Friday Night Lights" understands how football makes you feel. If you've played the game, this movie gets you. If you've ever watched football with awe, passivity, or horror, this movie gets you. And if football has ever shaped the gravity of your universe, then this film is maybe less eager to get you, but it does. 

Just look at the sequence where Boobie Miles cleans out his locker due to injury never to play football again, realized with career-best intensity by Derek Luke. Just listen to Coach Gaines' speech about "two more quarters", which stares down the existential dread of playing a game that can break your body and weaponizes it for transcendent performance. It has clear eyes, a full heart, and cannot lose, even as it catalogs unimaginable loss with brutal honesty. "Friday Night Lights" is every facet of football realized as cinema and it also birthed a near-perfect TV show.

 It is the best football movie by 100 yards. Turn that score up.