Whether you will watch the Super Bowl, chances are good that you’ve had to engage with some football talk. If the game isn’t for you, however feel-good cinematic experiences are, then make sure that check out these great football movies. The best football movies encapsulate the grit, the drama, the glory as well as even the absurd comedic potential of football.
Remember The Titans
Denzel Washington stars in what might very well be one of the greatest sporting movies of all time. The storyline for this movie is so powerful and the cast can’t be beaten.
Brian’s Song
Based upon the real life friendship between Chicago Bears players Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, this tear-jerker film follows the unlikely duo as their relationship develops after Piccolo is diagnosed with terminal cancer after becoming a professional player.
Gridiron Gang
A juvenile detention counsellor wants to turn the young inmates into a football team, however, faces many challenges along the way.
Leatherheads
Part romantic comedy and also part raucous sports feel-good, this movies starring Hollywood staples George Clooney, Renée Zellweger as well as John Krasinski this film follows a 1920’s football captain (Clooney) on a mission to make the sport far more exciting as well as watchable. He enlists celebrated war hero (Krasinksi) to assist him bring more attention to the sport, while both men compete for the romantic attention of a certain news anchor (Zellweger).
Rudy
You might ugly cry during this one! Watch this movie as Rudy fights against all odds to get accepted into Notre Dame and to make it on their football team.
The Blind Side
An Oscar winner, a true story as well as an absolute tear-jerker, The Blind Side recounts a destitute young man’s hard-pressed journey into football celebrity with the aid of a tender and strong woman.
Will
Will is a little boy who is a massive fan of Liverpool F.C. He’s living at a boarding school as his ailing father isn’t able to care for him after his mother’s death. Out of the blue, his dad arrives with tickets to go and see Liverpool play AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League Final. Unfortunately, Will’s father passes away shortly afterwards meaning Will can’t go. However, deciding to honour his father, Will makes the arduous journey to the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul to see the match anyway.
Fever Pitch
Many critics take this study of an Arsenal fan whose life rotates around his club as an exemplary study into the trend of middle-class fanaticism because events in the last 20 years have forced football to diversify from its traditionally working base.
Fever Pitch, which is based on Nick Hornby’s book of the same name, observes Paul as he manages a job as a teacher and then a newly-blossoming relationship with his passion for the Gunners which paralyses him on matchdays.
The action climaxes with Paul watching his beloved team take on Liverpool in the last game of the season, emulating the final in 1989 when the London club struck to clinch the title in injury time.
It’s a gripping and enthralling film, not to be confused with a dreadful remake starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore which moves the focus to Boston and the Red Sox.