Movies - TV
The 14 Best Football Movies, Ranked
By SCOTT THOMAS
14. Varsity Blues
"Varsity Blues" may be operatic and silly, but the primal howl at its core is genuine. It isn't the best football or high school football movie on this list, but the great scenes and seminal soundtrack it offers are All-Pro-worthy just the same.
13. We Are Marshall
McG directs the true story of a plane crash that killed 75 members of a college football program with all the subtlety of a neon pink sledgehammer. Although the emotions of the film run high, fast, and frequent, it still manages to tap into this emotional rollercoaster adeptly, particularly during its manipulative but kind of gangbusters football sequences.
12. Invincible
“Invincible” is surprisingly gritty for PG Disney fare, much closer to Coach Bombay's DUI in "Mighty Ducks" than the fantasy zombie onslaught of "The Big Green," and it has zero shame about being a sports movie. It embraces both the inherent corniness and unabashed triumph of the underdog story.
11. Big Fan
No film, much less sequence, has ever captured the masculinity parade of modern football fandom the way “Big Fan” does. It offers one of Patton Oswalt's best performances, but more than anything, it understands that fandom and football exist in codependence and reveals the toxicity of both.
10. Jerry Maguire
"Jerry Maguire," isn’t just a romantic comedy, it’s a solid football movie, one which fully encapsulates how sports becomes a mirror for what matters in our lives. Furthermore, Rod Tidwell is, without a doubt, the most iconic and electric football player ever committed to film, one that justifiably netted Cuba Gooding Jr. his Oscar.