The Super Bowl is right around the corner. What better way to get us in the mood than to fire up the DVD player and watch a few football flicks. To help you decide which gridiron classic to watch, we here at Crave have watched hundreds of hours of movies, from Blind Side to The Waterboy, to pick the our favorites.
Our 10 Top Football Movies Of All Time:
Honorable Mentions: The Replacements, Little Giants, and Division III: Football’s Finest.
Brian Reddoch is a CraveOnline reporter and rabid fan of all teams Seattle. You can follow him on Twitter @ReddReddoch or “like” CraveOnline Sports on Facebook.
Photo Credit: Getty.
Top 10 Football Movies
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#10 - Knute Rockne All American (1940)
“Win just one for the Gipper.” In one of the most iconic scenes in all of cinema, a dying Ronald Reagan’s George Gipp pleads to his Notre Dame coach, Knute Rockne. Sure, the film is filled with newsreels of actual games and inspirational speeches, but the true resonation today is the role made famous by Reagan. How many sports movies can be said that it helped an actor become President decades later?
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#09 – Any Given Sunday (1999)
One of those love or hate polarizing films. Oliver Stone takes a sports film and makes over the top in every aspect. The life or death decisions over player's health to “trying to move the team” is taken to extremes. Really, there are two football teams in Miami? And Albuquerque is getting an expansion team?? Despite all of that, there are plenty of name stars that make the film enjoyable. Plus Al Pacino and the frantic editing is so over the top it wraps back around to fun.
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#08 – Wildcats (1986)
I’m writing this article so I get to include my absolutely favorite football flick. If you haven’t seen it, then it is understandable you’ll laugh at the idea of Goldie Hawn taking over an inner-city high school team that is losing all the while balancing being a single mom. I’m telling you this is a great, funny, awesome football movie. It helps that it was the first film for Woody Harrelson, Wesley Snipes and LL Cool J … and Nipsey Russell is the high school principle (“peanut brittle?”). Seriously, go find this little known gem.
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#07 – Remember the Titans (2000)
There have been countless sports movies with the same basic plot. A coach (this time Denzel Washington) takes over a team that is struggling with integration, racism and a pursuit of greatness. Maybe a scene involving one race learning the difference of the other. Maybe someone learns to dance like the other side. Maybe some jokes about the different food. Frequently copied but never duplicated in the quality department, Titans leads the way of a specific sports genre.
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#06 - North Dallas Forty (1979)
An old school football movie about the way old football players used to play. Nick Nolte pays through the pain of the game with a combo of booze and painkillers. It was a big deal back in the day as it exposed the debauchery of the players and the lack of concern of the owners towards their health. Wow, times have changed!
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#05 – The Longest Yard (1974)
No, we’re not talking about the craptastic Adam Sandler remake. We’re talking about the badass Burt Reynolds film directed by Robert Aldrich of The Dirty Dozen fame. Reynolds plays a former NFL quarterback in prison who is forced to start an inmate team to play the guards… and get beat up in the process. The football action feels real thanks to former and current NFL stars. Reynolds was in the apex of his epic run of manly films and this one remains a must see.
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#04 - Varsity Blues (1999)
“I give it a ten! A ten! A fucking ten!” “Hey you wanna see the new Tweeder end zone dance?” “I don’t want [extended pause] your life.” While Friday Night Lights is a better “movie”, Varsity Blues is a better “film”. It is more memorable, more re-watchable, and more quotable. It balances the real issues of football while not getting overly dramatic like “The Program” or “Any Given Sunday” and has the right amount of humor that doesn’t steer it into goofy territory. Of course, the whip cream and “hot for teacher” scenes might very well be great cinema.
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#03 – Friday Night Lights (2004)
Based on the best-selling book and remade into a hit T.V. show, Lights is about the priority status small town Texas gives to high school football. Watching the film is a hard mixture of sympathy anger for the struggles the boys go through and the pure joy of their successes -- fear and ambition; pressure and adulation. The true story does a superb job of replicating real life.
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#02 - Brian’s Song (1971)
A heartfelt relationship movie seems like an unlikely movie to put second on the all-time best football movie list, but the real-life story was unlikely. Brian Piccolo (James Caan) is a dying white Chicago Bears running back and Gail Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) is the black man taking his job. It is a buddy movie wrapped in sports film. Most importantly, some very lucky kids were named after Brian Piccolo in the 70’s.
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#01 - Rudy (1993)
Sure there is more fiction than fact but the movie hits all the right notes for a great sports film. An underdog, undersized Rudy Ruetttiger has one dream in life -- to play for his one, true love, Notre Dame. He goes from not being good enough to get into the school, to the practice squad, to being on the actual game day roster. The ‘laying of jerseys’ is one of the all-time greatest movie scenes. Or maybe it was the crowd scene chanting “Rudy! Rudy!” It is almost impossible to pick a favorite moment.
