David Hunter
I grew up in the late 1980’s and 1990’s and as such, I was bombarded (as most others of Generation Y were) with… the sports movie! Take a ragtag bunch of kids, get a known name actor as the misfit head coach, get a known name actor to oppose them as the jerk evil bad head coach, maybe get a love interest related to a kid protagonist, and let the two coaches wage war in the penultimate game. A lot of movies came out around this era covering nearly every single sports genre one could think of and most held up pretty well for future generations of kids and even adults who haven’t grown up.
So let us take a walk down memory lane and I’ll throw out my thoughts on the various sports movies that came to be during my years growing up. For fun I’ll even take a look at a few classic movies as well that can also be enjoyed by children. We’ll try to sort this by year so if you’re perusing for any recommendations, you can whittle your list down. With all that said, I will largely be targeting the late 1980’s and 1990’s. Depending on feedback, I may try to venture into some of the 2000’s films as well.
1976 – The Bad News Bears
Ex-Minor League coach Morris Buttermaker, played by Walter Matthau, takes over a little league team full of misfits and miscreants and turns them into a championship caliber baseball team.
This movie, despite its strong language at times, is the blueprint for every single sports movie to follow and as the leader it is fantastic. Matthau absolutely kills it on the screen and the team is full of memorable characters from Amanda (Tatum O’Neal) to rebel turned star Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley) and Chris Barnes playing Tanner Boyle who spouts off all sorts of racist talk at teammates and others alike.
At its best, the film really manages to sympathize Matthau’s character, who could easily have been made unlikable e.g. the horrible remake starring Billy Bob Thornton, while also letting the viewers want to see the underdog team win against the jock heavy talent-laden team. What really helped sell the movie and the team was that it was full of kids that looked and acted like kids. Some cursed, some swooned over the rebel, and others just were really awful but played anyway. Kids of all ages could identify with at least one of the players on the Bad News Bears.
Recommended Age: 8+ Years Old (some strong language, watch at your discretion)
credit to Hollywood Movie Jerseys
1977 – Slap Shot
A failing hockey team tries to make a name for themselves thanks to Player/Coach Reggie Dunlop through fighting and tenacity on the ice while the team deals with chaos off the rink.
This is definitely an adult movie and not for kids. With that said, it is hilarious in a way that few sports films are. Paul Newman absolutely kills it as Reggie Dunlop and the Hanson Brothers (played by Jeff & Steve Carlson and David Hanson) are probably the most memorable thing in a very memorable movie, which is quite the impressive feat. Their look alone became iconic and ingrained in the minds of most sports fans.
Recommended Age: 13-14+ Years Old (heavy strong language, sexual themes, watch at your discretion)
1986 – Hoosiers
Gene Hackman as Norman Dale comes back to a small town in Indiana and restores a basketball program to glory while falling for a local high school teacher and trying to help Shooter, played by Dennis Hopper, get off the wagon of booze.
It’s really well acted and overall the movie is much more a character piece centered around basketball than most other sports movies (although one could argue every sports movie is a character piece at heart). A lot of people love this movie and cite it as a classic and I cannot quite agree with that sentiment. It’s a good movie but it’s also a movie that a few actors largely carry: Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper, and Barbara Hershey as Myra.
Recommended Age: 9+ Years Old (deals with alcoholism, watch at your own discretion)
1986 – Wildcats
Molly applies for the open football coaching position despite knowing very little about the sport after serving as the high school track coach and in the midst of a divorce with her husband.
Goldie Hawn, as Molly McGrath, offers up a rare leading female role in a sports movie and does a respectable job. The plot does what it needs to do and the cast is mostly forgettable outside of Mykelti Williamson as Levander “Bird” Williams and early roles for Wesley Snipes (Trumaine) and Woody Harrelson (Krushinski).
Recommended Age: 7+ Years Old
1989 – Major League
An owner takes over the Cleveland Indians and hires coach Lou Brown to manage a team of random, nearly unheard of individual ballplayers so they can tank and she can move the team to Florida because they’ll build a new ballpark. Instead, the team defies her to the very end.
Arguably the best baseball movie ever made and a hilarious, albeit definitely adult, classic take on The Bad News Bears but with the Cleveland Indians. The characters are instantly recognizable and given their own quirks that are different enough to stand out: Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) as the old veteran Catcher. Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) as the rookie fireballing ace of the staff. Roger Dern (Corbin Bensen) as the longtime veteran who is eying retirement due to injuries and wanting a financial future. Willie Mays Hayes (Wesley Snipes) as the athletic, speedy centerfielder and finally Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert) as the power hitting foreigner who practices Voodoo.
The story itself is pretty forgettable, including the somewhat forced love story between Jake and Lynn (Rene Russo), but the characters themselves and especially Harry Doyle, played by real life broadcaster Bob Uecker, are hilarious and carry this movie entirely on their backs.
The sequel, made in 1994, is not nearly as memorable character wise and largely has the same plot as the first but still worth seeking out. The one memorable character to come out of this movie is Isuro Tanaka played by Takaaki Ishibashi.
Recommended Age: 13-14+ Years Old (heavy strong language, sexual themes, watch at your discretion)
1991 – Necessary Roughness
After undergoing NCAA Sanctions, a new coach must lead Texas State to success by only cultivating a roster from its student body without the ability to offer scholarships.
This isn’t that great a movie in terms of the sports side of things but it does have several fun characters and a good acting job from Scott Bakula as QB Paul Blake. The movie is probably most notable for featuring Sinbad as vegetarian teacher Andre Krimm along with a rare female performance from Kathy Ireland as Lucy, a soccer player recruited to be the team’s kicker. Eric “Samurai” Hansen is equally memorable for his bizarre antics on the field.
As a bonus, Larry Miller plays Dean Elias who is out to get Paul Blake and basically ruin the team as a means of getting the focus back on academics.
Recommended Age: 7+ Years Old (some strong language, watch at your own discretion)
1992 – A League of Their Own
Two sisters join up with the Rockford Peaches, a team in a startup women’s baseball league during World War II.
It’s somewhat disappointing that there are so few sports movies with a strong female lead so I decided to throw in this rather adult sports movie. The casting is superb with Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan, Geena Davis as Dottie Henson, and Lori Petty (a favorite actress of mine) as Kit Keller all standing out in particular from a cast that also includes Rosie O’Donnell and Megan Cavanagh.
The movie is, much like Major League, very adult in its tone but depending on the age range can be quite enjoyable as well. The casting and acting is superb and the baseball scenes really manage to hold up as well with the actresses in particular all legit playing to make it as authentic as possible. A great, rare, sports movie for any girls growing up.
Recommended Age: 10+ (some heavily strong language, some sexual themes, watch at your discretion)
credit to ChasingTheFrog.com
1992 – The Mighty Ducks
A drunk lawyer is punished and sentenced to coach a peewee hockey team, a sport he has distanced himself from long ago and begins to bond with his team of misfits through Charlie Conway and his mother, Casey.
Much like Major League, the story and plot really are not that memorable but what carries the film is the cast including: Coach Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez), Charlie Conway (Joshua Jackson), Coach Jack Reilly (Lane Smith) playing the villain, Fulton Reed the guy with a huge slapshot and big body (Elden Henson), the goalie Goldberg (Shaun Weiss), and Adam Banks the best pure talent poached from the Hawks by Bombay (Vincent Larusso).
The movie does not really start coming into its own until the second half, including the by then standard training montage, and the building up towards the big game finale between the Ducks and the Hawks.
The sequel made in 1994 is decent but not only memorable aside from new casting additions that are slightly older and a change in venues (the Junior Goodwill Games in this case).
Recommended Age: 6+ Years Old
1993 – Cool Runnings
Irving Blitzer gets requested by Derice Bannock to create their own Olympic Bobsled team for the Olympic Games after Bannock gets tripped in the 100-Yard Sprint.
This movie is a lot of fun, largely due to the comedic tones that are heavily played up despite some of the darker imagery towards the end of the movie. John Candy as Irving Blitzer does a great job as the salty coach who gradually grows to believe in his team. Derice Bannock as the leader (Leon), Sanka Coffie as the wisecracking comedic partner (Doug E. Doug), and Yul Brenner as the tough muscular backup (Malik Yoba) are probably the most memorable parts of this movie and largely, like most sports movies, help transcend it to something slightly more than just there on the screen.
It also is pretty rare to see a heavy black male cast carrying a kids sports movie and the actors do a great job of making their characters more memorable than they probably were written as on the page.
Recommended Age: 6+ (a few scenes be dramatic and intense)
1993 – Rudy
Rudy Ruettiger dreams of playing for Notre Dame and busts his butt to attend the college before finally making the squad but ends up being bench fodder until his Senior Year when his dream finally comes true.
Anybody who is anybody knows of this movie, even if they have never seen a single scene. An absolute pop culture staple aided by a fantastic acting job from Sean Astin as Rudy. Astin really carries this film, making it nearly impossible to not want to root for him in the face of his family and coaches. This may be the perfect performance in terms of how to make a character likeable and cheer worthy.
Recommended Age: 7+ Years Old
1993 – The Sandlot
Scotty Smalls moves to a new neighborhood with his mom and stepfather and upon joining a group of neighborhood kids who love to play baseball, he soon gets them into the biggest pickle of all.
Hands down, this may be my favorite sports movie ever. Incredibly quotable, many memorable scenes, and some surprisingly solid acting from the kids as the parents are largely absent or in the background. This is a sports movie for kids largely through the eyes of kids and it nails it. The latter half kind of stalls a bit but still stays solid on the whole.
The acting jobs, as mentioned are surprisingly solid: Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry), Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez (Mike Vitar), and Ham Porter (Patrick Renna) are the main standouts but each character has enough of a difference that any child can gravitate towards them.
One of the highlights of this movie is that for almost 3/4ths of the film there really is no antagonist. It is basically a kids movie backdropped against a small town and through the connecting joy of playing baseball. The July 4th scene in particular is a memorable standout moment.
Recommended Age: 6+ Years Old (some strong language but nothing too bad)
Credit TheWiseGuise.com
1994 – Hoop Dreams
Two young boys growing up in Chicago struggle to become college basketball players in their dream routes to becoming NBA players.
An absolute classic in the documentary genre and an equally engaging basketball movie in and of itself. Given that it’s a documentary, it still remains relatable to kids with similar aspirations and is very realistic in both its ending along with the fact that it’s as much a study of these two boys growing up and their chase as opposed to just the sports side.
Recommended Age: 8+ Years Old
1994 – Little Big League
Billy Heywood, played by Luke Edwards, is suddenly granted at age 12 the ability to own and manage the Minnesota Twins and does so running the team with help from co-manager Mac Macnally (John Ashton) and star player Lou Collins (Timothy Busfield). Ashley Crow plays Jenny Heywood, Billy’s mother, and inevitable love interest to Lou Collins.
It is a pretty forgettable movie with some characters being memorable as much for their looks such as John “Blackout” Gatling played by Bradley Jay Lesley. There are small hints of possible character depth such as young Mickey Scales (Antonio Lewis Todd) and Jim Bowers (Jonathan Silverman) but it never really rises above it’s pretty anemic script.
The only highlight of this movie is managing to turn beloved fan favorites Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson into the evil bad guys threatening the hopes and dreams of the Minnesota Twins.
Recommended Age: 7+ Years Old
1994 – Little Giants
An elite town coach of a peewee team forgoes choosing his niece, setting up a scenario where she forms her own team (including kids literally off their front porches!) with her father as coach while the two teams do battle for the rights to be the sole peewee team in town.
Everything about this movie is surprisingly solid and nearly every character gets their own little moment to shine. I’d argue for a kids sports movie, this is an outright classic given some of its competition. The casting is absolutely superb with Rick Moranis playing underdog brother Danny O’Shea to Ed O’Neill’s Kevin O’Shea. Kevin is great as he basically plays a successful Al Bundy as head coach of a star loaded peewee squad. One of the fun things is also how quotable the movie is. Any kid who has seen this movie probably immediately knows the quote, “Spike don’t play with girls.”
The kids aren’t too memorable outside of Becky “Icebox” O’Shea (Shawna Waldron) in a rare female protagonist lead role, Devon Sawa as pretty boy quarterback Junior Floyd, and Spike Hammersmith (Sam Horrigan). Those three largely carry the movie on the kids side and Becky offers up a great rolemodel for young girls who want to get into sports movies as well.
Main highlights of the movie include the legacy of the dirt playground play, ‘The Annexation of Puerto Rico’ along with the cameo by then NFL Stars including John Madden, Emmitt Smith, Tim Brown, and Bruce Smith.
Recommended Age: 5+ Years Old
1994 – The Air Up There
Jimmy Dolan, a college assistant coach, wants a big promotion and ventures to Africa to try and recruit Saleh to come back with him to America but first must overcome the mining company trying to take over the land Saleh lives on.
I’m an admitted sucker for anything Kevin Bacon and this is a pretty inoffensive basketball movie. Kevin Bacon largely carries the movie and casts a ragtag squad to take on the much more talented team under the mine company’s leadership. Charles Gitonga Maina as Saleh also puts forth a really nice performance that makes him instantly likeable to any viewer watching and it’s very easy to want to see him succeed and cheer him on.
Recommended Age: 7+ Years Old (some scenes may be a bit dramatic and intense)
Conclusion
There we are. A smattering of sports films covering all sorts of sports genres. Hope you enjoyed and found some titles you can enjoy with your children.
Credit to Janne Moren for feature image
