Greatest football movies of all time
Here's a look at the greatest gridiron stories to ever hit the big screen.
Here's a look at the greatest gridiron stories to ever hit the big screen.
Here's a look at the greatest gridiron stories to ever hit the big screen.
"Horse Feathers" (1932): This Marx Brothers movie revolves around college football and a game between the fictional Darwin and Huxley Colleges. Groucho plays Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley College, and Zeppo is his son Frank, who convinces his father to recruit professional football players to help Huxley's team.
"Knute Rockne: All American" (1940) Pat O'Brien, pictured left, starred in this true-life tale about legendary Notre Dame football player and coach Knute Rockne. Future President Ronald Reagan played George Gipp, the team's star quarterback, halfback and punter who died at age 25 during his senior season. Gipp inspired Rockne's famous "Win just one for the Gipper" speech.
"Brian's Song" (1971): First aired as a television movie, the film, also released in theaters, tells the true story of friendship between Chicago Bears running backs Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) and Brian Piccolo (James Caan), and Piccolo's battle with cancer that end his life at age 26.
"The Longest Yard" (1974): Burt Reynolds stars as a pro football star-turned-prison inmate who forms a team to take on the facility's semi-pro team -- made up of guards. Reynolds also played a supporting role as the coach of the inmates in a 2005 remake of "The Longest Yard," starring Adam Sandler.
"Heaven Can Wait" (1978): Warren Beatty earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for playing a star Los Angeles Rams quarterback in the middle of a quandary after his soul is yanked too soon from his body by an anxious angel.
"North Dallas Forty" (1979): Nick Nolte (center) and Mac Davis (right) are among the stars in fictionally-based account of the Dallas Cowboys in the early 1970s.
"Rudy" (1993). Sean Astin starred in the title role of this football-flavored sports drama, which was inspired by the true-life story of Rudy Reuttiger, an undersized son of a steel mill worker (Ned Beatty) who refused to give up his dream of playing football at Notre Dame University.
"Jerry Maguire" (1996): While most of this film's story, about the titular superstar sports agent (played by Tom Cruise) who suffers a nervous breakdown and starts his own agency, takes place off the field, it still remains a football movie. Cuba Gooding Jr. won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for portraying the cocky Arizona Cardinals wide receiver who wants Maguire and his team to show him the money. And who can forget Renee Zellweger's "You had me at hello" line?
"Any Given Sunday" (1999): Oliver Stone directed this dizzying football drama about a fictional professional league. The film starred Al Pacino as aging coach stuck in dilemma between a fading quarterback (Dennis Quaid) and his rising backup (Jamie Foxx).
"Remember the Titans" (2000): Denzel Washington stars in this true-life tale about Coach Herman Boone (Washington), who is hired to coach a team in its first season as a racially-integrated program.
"Radio" (2003): This drama is based on the true story of T. L. Hanna High School football coach Harold Jones (Ed Harris) and a mentally challenged young man James Robert "Radio" Kennedy (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), whom Jones takes under his wing and lets help out with the team. Their friendship extends over several decades, during which Radio transforms from a shy, tormented man into an inspiration to his community.
"Friday Night Lights" (2004): Based on the acclaimed best-selling novel by H.B. "Buzz" Bissinger, the film chronicled the intense pressures of a high school football program in Texas. Directed by Peter Berg, the film starred Billy Bob Thornton as a new coach to the program, as well as Tim McGraw and Garrett Hedlund (both pictured) as an abusive, former high school star who pressures his son. The film spawned the acclaimed TV series of the same name.
"Invincible" (2006): Based on the incredible true story of Vince Papale (Mark Wahlberg), the film tells how bartender Papale tried out for the Philadelphia Eagles as a walk-on -- and scored a spot on the roster thanks to the gutsy risk taken by the team's new coach Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear).
"We Are Marshall" (2006): Based on a true-life story, the film recounts a tragic air crash that killed most of the Marshall University football team, as well as some fans and coaches, and how a new coach (Matthew McConaughey) recruits a surviving assistant coach (Matthew Fox) and some players in an effort to rebuild the program.
"The Express" (2008): Rob Brown portrays Syracuse University football player Ernie Davis, the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. Davis would become the No. 1 overall pick in the 1962 NFL Draft by the Washington Redskins, although he was later traded to the Cleveland Browns, but never played in the NFL. He was diagnosed with leukemia in the summer of 1962 and died less than a year later at the age of 23.
"The Blind Side" (2009). Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for playing Leigh Anne Touhy, who along with her family took in a homeless teen, Michael Oher (Quinton Aron), who went on to become a No. 1 draft pick of NFL's Baltimore Ravens.
