Several sports films have come out this century and achieved critical and commercial success. Today, we’ll try and whittle them down to a handful of the best ones. We will cover films from all different types of sports, such as football, boxing and baseball. Some of the highest-grossing sports films have been football-based films. This includes the Adam Sandler remake of the 1974 classic The Longest Yard, one of the most notable examples of a classic sports film.
The film’s story revolves around an NFL player recruiting a group of prisoners and playing football against their guards, following a sentence he received for drunk driving. When it comes to the NFL, there are many different types of markets you can gamble on with minimum fuss. For some guidance when placing bets on upcoming NFL games, it is always worth taking a look at the latest NFL picks when making your choices.
The Longest Yard was a huge success in 1974, and the 2005 remake was also a resounding success. It also spawned a successful 2001 film based in the UK called The Mean Machine, which follows the same premise as The Longest Yard but with a soccer team. This is just one of the many football films that have been made over the years.
It isn’t just the NFL that has been featured in Hollywood; most sports have at least one defining film. For example, many people consider Moneyball to be one of the best sporting films to come out of the 21st century. The film stars Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill; Pitt’s character is a baseball coach and economics graduate who employs a computer-generated system to find the best players for his team without having the spending power of the bigger baseball dynasties. It is based on the true story of Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics coach in 2002. Not only was the film well received, but it was also nominated for several awards at the end of the year.
Another sport that has numerous films about it is boxing. Ever since the days of Sylvester Stallone’s legendary creation of Rocky Balboa in the 1970s, there has been a market for boxing films. One of the standout films of 2011 was The Fighter, a story based on the life and times of professional boxer Micky Ward. Ward was an extremely tough and underappreciated boxer, and the film focuses on his career and his struggles with his brother, who suffered from personal demons. The film won two Oscars and is considered one of the standout boxing films of the last 30 years.
Another boxing film that has made serious waves in the last decade is the Creed series of films. These films are based on the iconic Rocky Balboa franchise and feature Michael B Jordan as the son of Apollo Creed, fighting to earn the respect of the boxing fraternity. During the film, Creed aims to move out of the shadow of his father, who was the world heavyweight champion in the timeline of the first Rocky film. This has spawned a successful sequel and was nominated for several awards. The trilogy is currently in production and is scheduled to be released in early 2023.
Another boxing film that was considered a box office flop but was well received by critics was the 2001 film Ali, starring Will Smith as the legendary former heavyweight champion of the world. Despite losing money at the box office, the film is considered one of the top boxing films of the 21st century. In addition to serious drama films, other sporting films fit into other genres. One such example is the sports comedy film Talladega Nights, a Will Ferrell film released in 2006 based on the life and times of fictional NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby.
We have only scratched the surface of some of the best sports films this century has had to offer. While sports films may not have the same legacy or impact as other genres, such as horror or sci-fi, there’s still a sizeable market out there for such blockbusters.
No doubt there’ll be many more classics to come, as sports films generally tend to do well at the box office. Not only that, many spawn sequels or entire franchises, such as Rocky, which now has nine films set in its universe and spans nearly 50 years.
