Top 5 Most Perfect Football Movies Ever
September 7, 2010 in Random Slop by Matthew Cleek
OK, so maybe the title should read “My personal, all-time 5 favorite football movies whether they are actually the best or not”. I have loved football since early childhood. These are the movies that I will never forget.
5. Waterboy
This one is very different from most sports movies. Nothing inspirational. No resulting motivation. Not based on a true story. Actually, nothing of value except for the fact that I laughed until I cried. This may not have been because the movie was all that funny; it could have simply been the fact that we had a waterboy much like Adam Sandler’s character on our high school football team and I am sure that his mom is who the movie mother was modeled after. You can probably think of a mother-son relationship like this one somewhere in your past too.
4. Friday Night Lights
Until 2007, I had not attended a high school football game since my last appearance on the field in 1991. I regularly made fun of all the people who were so caught up in this scene. But a father will do a lot of things for his children that he would otherwise avoid like the plague; so, when my oldest daughter asked me to take her to a Dobyns Bennett HS football game where her friends would be. I loved it. In fact, I attended every home game that season. Since then, I have even traveled across the state to watch the hometown boys in action. Now I get it and Friday Night Lights captures it well. Go Indians!
3. Rudy
Though I am nowhere close to being a Notre Dame fan I am a big fan of classic football programs. This motivated me to watch the movie. By the end, I found myself cheering for a team that I generally pull against on Saturdays. Completely inspirational and worth seeing multiple times.
2. Remember the Titans
If Rudy is inspirational, this movie was inspirational on steroids. Racial issues are faced openly and directly. Amazingly, this was accomplished without sacrifice to the smash-mouth football that fans adore. Great, great movie!
1. The Program
I don’t believe there is another movie critic in the world who would put this film in the #1 spot on this list. But, for me, The Program is the greatest football movie of all time.
“Place at the table”
“Kill ‘em all, let the paramedics sort ‘em out”
“Let’s put the women and children to bed and go lookin’ for dinner boys”
I was in the throes of teenage rebellion when this movie came out. I loved everything about it. My friends and I lived out the scenes of this movie in real life over and over again (including the adrenaline rushing street death wish clip deleted after opening weekend). I know that this movie didn’t inspire me to become a better person, but it sure did inspire many of the memories created during my teen years. For that, I am thankful – thankful for the memories and thankful that I survived to tell about them. Let’s just hope my children don’t follow in their father’s footsteps.
bigmac33 said:
How can you leave out the original Longest Yard. Burt Reynolds actually looking like a college QB, and Ray Nitske the baddest linebacker on the planet. This movie had Jaws in it for goodness sake. The broken neck scene is a classic. The Blindside is also a great movie.
September 8th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Kelly West said:
what about Any Given Sunday!! One of my favs!! Shows a real insight to Pro football.
September 9th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Scott Morgan said:
Agree with mac on both of those movies, I am sure the original post was put up before Blind Side came out. There have been so many great Football movies that it would be hard to pare it down, the list is really good, but what about Brian’s Song?
September 9th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
foreverblue said:
Remember The Titans I think is best, because the story is true. The Blind Side is great also. Rudy is a good story but I hate ND
September 10th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
carrileland said:
Top 6:
#1 Friday Night Lights.
#2 Rember The Titans.
#3 Waterboy.
#4 Blindside.
#5 The Longest Yard (Both).
#6 Brian’s Song (Old One).
Rudy(too much useless bad language), The Program (not realistic, over dramatised), and Any Given Sunday (too much front office stuff).
Just my opinion.
September 14th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
jlsimmons said:
Not as popular or mainstream as most of the others, but I loved the movie “Necessary Roughness” with Scott Bakula, a young Jason Bateman, and Sinbad. You also had a young Rob Schnieder as the PA announcer. Kathy Ireland as the famale kicker was nice also. It still comes on TBS and TNT in that 2 am time slot every now and then and I watch every time. I mean when else can you hear about a homecoming queen being struck by lightning at halftime of thier “monsoon” game?
September 17th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Scott Morgan said:
I loved that movie. I have not seen it in years but as you said it is not as mainstream as the others, but it was still a really entertaining flick!
September 21st, 2010 at 8:02 am
preacherauron said:
Hmm no one mentioned “Radio” The one with Cuba Gooding Jr. I thought it was good and had heart. There was also that movie with the really fat guy in it about High school football in Texas… can’t remember the name at the moment. It was alright too. I think it was the one where everyone was like… “screw you coach” during the last game of the season, then played for themselves or something like that. Basically it was classic 90’s teen drama but in a football setting. Oh a main scene was the fat guy being drunk and throwing the beer bottles out and shooting them from the bed of his pick up and the “Qb with all the pressure to succeed on him” type guy comes out and talks him into playing or not killing himself or something like that. Someone help me out with that name.
October 1st, 2010 at 3:44 am
preacherauron said:
With all the press lately about players being in constant trouble and all the current news about player after player getting caught taking performance enhancers, as well as the hundreds of millions of dollars top programs make during one players career there… Can we really say that the “program” was over-dramatic? Seems more accurate now than ever.
October 1st, 2010 at 3:47 am