The Athletic's Top 100 Sports Movies

Published March 30, 2020. When you grow up a sports fan, transferring that fandom from the backyard Wiffle ball game to the big screen at the local theater is a natural transition. We fall in love with movies that reflect our life experiences. We see our best friends in ?The Sandlot.? Or quote ?Happy Gilmore? relentlessly in the dorms. It?s why one person can find a movie like ?Field of Dreams? completely hokey while another turns to mush the moment Ray Kinsella?s dad pulls off his catcher?s mask and places it over his heart. We know what?s coming next. It means our opinions of these movies vary wildly. Especially when you work at a media company with 400-plus employees who are all sports diehards. And opinionated. So in trying to determine the Top 100 Sports movies of all time, we decided to make the process as democratic as possible. That meant a lot of rules, processes and restrictions. First, we asked everyone on staff to nominate their favorite sports movies. This list quickly got unwieldy. Within days, it was 300 movies deep. It included movies people desperately wanted on the ballot where the only sport was, say, guys in jeans playing beach volleyball. Even with extra time on our hands, we didn?t want people rating 500 movies. So we made some rules. To be considered, a movie had to be released in theaters at some point. That removed some really good television-only sports movies. (We?re looking at you ?? and ??.) For documentaries to make the final ballot, the doc had to be released in theaters (no TV docs) and be at least nominated for an Oscar; or added to the Library of Congress? National Film Registry; or make at least $1M at the box office; or be culturally significant. Finally, with a small panel of movie enthusiasts, we culled the list to make individual calls on borderline sports movies. Is ?The Big Lebowski? really a sports movie? When things got tough, they went bowling. So we think it is. But there?s a good debate to be had about many others. Next, we asked everyone to rate as many movies as they?ve seen on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being best. You could give Rocky a 100 as well as Space Jam, if you so pleased. And why wouldn?t you? In all, more than 120 panelists from The Athletic voted. The ratings were averaged out and sorted into the Top 100 below. To qualify for the final list, a movie needed at least 10 ratings from panelists. We hope it gives some entertainment inspiration for any extra spare time you might have. And it?s just the start. All week, we?re rolling out sports movie-themed stories. From a technical breakdown of Adam Sandler?s tackling skills in ?The Waterboy? to an oral history of the best dog basketball movie ever made. It?s going to be fun. We hope you enjoy. Grab your popcorn. Here goes.

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