Football

Springboarding off my Baseball marathon, which has been very fun and enlightening, discovering many great baseball movies, and re-discovering countless more, I would love to explore the world of the Football movie a little more. Baseball is my favorite sport, and as such, I have seen a good number of the films I included as part of that marathon, but I have only recently become more engaged in the sport of Football. There are certainly fewer movies centered around the sport than Baseball, but there is great opportunity in Football to explore films I have never seen before. I tried as best I could to include a good mix of styles and eras of film.

As always, I encourage you to follow along and be a part of the discussion! Enjoy!

  1. The Freshman (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, 1925)
  2. Horse Feathers (Norman Z. McLeod, 1932)
  3. Knute Rockne All American (Lloyd Bacon, 1940)
  4. Trouble Along the Way (Michael Curtiz, 1953)
  5. Paper Lion (Alex March, 1968)
  6. Brian’s Song (Buzz Kulik, 1971)
  7. The Longest Yard (Robert Aldrich, 1974)
  8. Semi-Tough (Michael Ritchie, 1977)
  9. Heaven Can Wait (Warren Beatty & Buck Henry, 1978)
  10. North Dallas Forty (Ted Kotcheff, 1979)
  11. All the Right Moves (Michael Chapman, 1983)
  12. The Best of Times (Roger Spottiswoode, 1986)
  13. Wildcats (Michael Ritchie, 1986)
  14. Lucas (David Seltzer, 1986)
  15. Johnny Be Good (Bud Smith, 1988)
  16. Everybody’s All-American (Taylor Hackford, 1988)
  17. Necessary Roughness (Stan Dragoti, 1991)
  18. The Last Boy Scout (Tony Scott, 1991)
  19. Rudy (David Anspaugh, 1993)
  20. The Program (David S. Ward, 1993)
  21. Little Giants (Duwayne Dunham, 1994)
  22. Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe, 1996)
  23. The Waterboy (Frank Coraci, 1998)
  24. Varsity Blues (Brian Robbins, 1999)
  25. Any Given Sunday (Oliver Stone, 1999)
  26. The Replacements (Howard Deutch, 2000)
  27. Remember the Titans (Boaz Yakin, 2000)
  28. Radio (Mike Tollin, 2003)
  29. Friday Night Lights (Peter Berg, 2004)
  30. The Longest Yard (Peter Segal, 2005)
  31. Invincible (Ericson Core, 2006)
  32. Gridiron Gang (Phil Joanou, 2006)
  33. We Are Marshall (McG, 2006)
  34. The Game Plan (Andy Fickman, 2007)
  35. Leatherheads (George Clooney, 2008)
  36. The Express (Gary Fleder, 2008)
  37. Big Fan (Robert D. Siegel, 2009)
  38. The Blind Side (John Lee Hancock, 2009)
  39. Undefeated (Daniel Lindsay & T.J. Martin, 2011)
  40. Draft Day (Ivan Reitman, 2014)
  41. When the Game Stands Tall (Thomas Carter, 2014)
  42. My All American (Angelo Pizzo, 2015)
  43. Concussion (Peter Landesman, 2015)
  44. Paterno (Barry Levinson, 2018)