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Worst | Baseball | Basketball | Football | Golf | Hockey | Tennis
SI.com asked seven Sports Illustrated experts to reveal their choices for best
representation of their respective sports on the silver screen. Here are their
selections.
| Rick Reilly's Top 5 Worst Sports Movies of All
Time |
While my own special Irving G. Thalberg award goes to Field of Dreams, which is perhaps the most overrated sports movie ever (Shoeless Joe batting
from the wrong side, Kevin Costner coming out of the Wooden Post acting school,
etc.), here are, without doubt, no more arguments, the worst sports
movies ever
made:
| Amazing Grace and Chuck (1987): I actually went to the premiere. I
would've left, but they blocked the exits. Alex English, as the Boston Celtics'
"Amazing Grace" Smith, gives perhaps the worst performance in movie
history. The man is dull in real life, let alone with a camera in front of him.
Anyway, he decides to give up his basketball career in support of a schoolkid
who is protesting nuclear weaponry. God, it was bad. How they got Gregory Peck
to act in it for scale I'll never know. One-third of the way into the movie, you
were praying for somebody to hit the red
button.
|  | Caddyshack II (1988): May Jackie Mason spend eternity five-putting in
hell for
this.
|
 | Ladybugs (1992): A film in which a star male soccer player disguises
himself as a girl in order to play on a girls' team. If that isn't disgusting
enough, Rodney Dangerfield wears
shorts.
|
 | Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998): A golden retriever who also happens
to be a high school basketball superstar changes sports and becomes a high
school football star. Somewhere, a struggling screenwriter
weeps.
|
 | The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000): The holes in this bomb were big
enough for Casey Martin to drive a Peterbilt through. If Matt Damon was a stud
golfer, why did he swing like George Bush? If Will Smith was heaven-sent, how
come he was such an annoying idiot with a 23-handicapper's swing? Tell me again,
why did the legendary Bobby Jones, probably the greatest sports hero of his day,
decide to retire after a pointless exhibition match? And why would Walter Hagen
offer to take a total nobody on tour with him? And since when are you allowed to
have two caddies on every hole? And what kind of caddy quits on 17? If
Hollywood does this to the TV adaptation of my book Missing Links I'll
return with a
2-iron.
|
| Tom Verducci's Top 5 Baseball
Movies |
(With apologies for not including The Munsters episode in which Herman
tries out for the Dodgers. Still can't believe it wasn't made into a major
motion
picture.)
|
| The Natural (1984): The cinematography is gorgeous and Robert Redford
is athletically convincing, but what makes the movie are the best grizzled
manager and bench coach ever to hit the screen. Not even Joe Torre and Don
Zimmer were this
good.
| | | Bang the Drum Slowly (1973): A young Robert DeNiro as a journeyman
catcher who's dying. Enough
said. | |
| Bull Durham (1988): Funny, authentic, well acted and superbly
written.
| |
| Pride of the Yankees (1942): A golden era of Hollywood and baseball
captured by one legend (Gary Cooper) portraying another (Lou
Gehrig). | |
| Major League (1989): Like a movie-screen-sized box of Junior Mints.
Empty calories, but
fun.
|
| Alexander Wolff's Top 5 Basketball
Movies |
|
| Hoop Dreams (1994): See this documentary, and Arthur Agee, William
Gates and their families will forever seem a part of your own
life.
| | | Drive, He Said (1971): A gem about authority and the academy, set at
Ohio U. during the height of the '60s. Jack Nicholson is at his demented best,
and Bruce Dern has an unforgettable role as a college
coach.
| |
| Go, Man, Go (1954): A black-and-white classic about the Harlem
Globetrotters, from back when people took the 'Trotters seriously. The film
helped further the integration of pro
ball.
| |
| Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975): Think blaxploitation flix were all
shoot-'em-ups scored by Isaac Hayes? This '70s period piece offered a jaunty
theme song, a star turn for Jamaal Wilkes and the inspiration for Cedric
Maxwell's
nickname.
| |
| The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979): OK, Cahiers du Cinema
won't be including it on any of its Top 10 lists. But this kitschy bit of
celluloid, with such diverse characters as Jonathan Winters and Julius Erving in its
cast, would do Bill Maher's booker proud. And has there ever been a better
title?
|
| Peter King's Top 5 Football
Movies |
|
| The Longest Yard (1974): I know it's strange that I have this movie ranked so high. But Eddie Albert is the perfect warden, and Burt Reynolds is the perfect ballplayer.
| | | Jerry Maguire (1996): Peter King career highlight: Meeting Cuba
Gooding Jr. right after he won the Oscar for this movie and telling him how great he
was in it. "I really appreciate that," the man named after a country
said.
| |
| Brian's Song (1971): Wow.
Emotionville. James Caan's better here than in The
Godfather.
| |
| Any Given Sunday (1999): Shocking news for you: Lawrence Taylor can
act.
| |
| TIE: Rudy (1993): OK, I'm a cornball. But I rooted for
Rudy.
Diner (1982): I've never seen a more realistic movie about a city in my life.
Baltimore is portrayed perfectly by Barry Levinson.
|
| Alan Shipnuck's Top 5 Golf
Movies |
|
| Caddyshack (1980): Is there any
doubt?
| | | Follow the Sun (1951): Equal parts schmaltz and inspiration, a
priceless historical document on the life -- and, especially, comeback -- of Ben
Hogan.
| |
| Happy Gilmore (1996): Inspired
idiocy.
| |
| Tin Cup (1996): If for no other reason than the line about Lee Janzen,
chili peppers and a certain hard-working part of the human
anatomy.
| |
| Tie: Something About Mary (1998) and Goldfinger (1964): Of all
the many cameos the game makes in mainstream movies, these are my two favorites:
Sean Connery, as 007, hustling Auric Goldfinger out of £5,000 with his
smooth, natural swing, and Cameron Diaz belting balls at the driving range,
because, well, she's Cameron
Diaz.
|
| Kostya Kennedy's Top 5 Hockey
Movies |
|
| Slap Shot (1977): The classic and still the best, with such immortal
dialogue as: "What hit you?" "An object. In the face." Rent
it tonight. It's the only Hall of Famer in the
bunch.
| | | Mystery, Alaska (1999): Formulaic in a Rocky sort of way, but a
nice film nonetheless. Russell Crowe acts well, and you get a good sense of life
in a small, cold, hockey-crazy
town.
| |
| Strange Brew (1983): There's a lot of beer in this movie, and Rick
Moranis is funny when he's not annoying. Hockey serves as a metaphor for both
good and evil ... why, of
course!
| |
| The Mighty Ducks (1992): A bunch of cute little guys (including Emilio
Estevez) on
skates.
| |
| Happy Gilmore (1996). A bit of a reach, perhaps, but Adam Sandler is a
hockey player before he rips up the
links.
|
| Jon Wertheim's Top 5 Tennis
Movies |
While basketball has Hoosiers, football has North Dallas Forty,
baseball has Costner and even friggin' bike racing has Breaking Away,
tennis has yet to be championed on the silver screen (Anna Kournikova's
forgettable cameo in the forgettable Me, Myself and Irene
notwithstanding). In fact, when it comes to celluloid, the sport is usually
(mis)portrayed as an earmark of a rich stuffed shirt whom we are supposed to
regard with scorn and contempt. (See: Ned Underhill in the 1985 cinematic
triumph Fletch.) Still, a few movies have given tennis the props it
deserves:
|
| Pat and Mike (1952): A Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy comedy. Hepburn
plays a professional golf and tennis star, and Tracy is her manager. Don Budge,
Alice Marble and Gussie Moran play themselves.
| | | Strangers on a Train (1951): Alfred Hitchcock's thriller stars Farley
Granger as a nationally ranked tennis player entangled in a murderous web.
| |
| Spring Fever (1982): Starring Carling Bassett as well as Indiana's
Shawn Foltz. The epitome of straight-to-video, but the premise is
brilliant.
| |
| Trading Places (1983): If only for the semi-classic line uttered by
one of Dan Ackroyd's turncoat partners: "... And she stepped on the
balls."
| |
| The Christian Licorice Store (1971): Beau Bridges as a confused tennis
pro. Don't
ask.
|
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