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Mar 5, 2011

Best sports movies

Best sports movies
Spring training and March Madness are in the air. The stories of our sports heroes say a lot about us as a people, rooting for the underdog, appreciating toughness or getting a look behind the scenes to what really happens. Here are some of the best sports movies ever.

Hoosiers
The best movie of all time? Some think so. Start with a true story, add this legendary actor, throw in a beautiful love interest and some scrappy farm kids who believe in themselves, and this can only end one way.
Miracle
This gold medal champion team provided the moment that brought about this famous line in sports history. The lead role in the film based on that true story was played by a former child actor.
Raging Bull
Start with a legendary actor at the top of his game, add this renowned director, and you have a classic boxing flick showing the violence of the American way.
Brian's Song
A football bromance based, in part, on this Hall of Famer's biography, whose role in the movie was played by this brilliant actor, has subplots of race relations and cancer. Don't be surprised if even the toughest football fans cry at this one.
Field of Dreams
With a haunting refrain that is often paraphrased, this baseball movie is quintessentially American, with a father-and-son plot line that makes grown men weep.
Bull Durham
What more could a guy want than to play baseball and get to a share a bathtub scene with this actress? Add a cliché lesson and a classic speech, and you get behind the scenes of the national pastime.
Rocky
This classic launched the rather violent career of you know who as well as the musical theme, which few who hear it ever forget.
Hoop Dreams
Chronicling the pro basketball aspirations of two Chicago inner-city youths, this classic documentary followed their whole high school careers and left us with a gritty portrait of reality.
Breaking Away
It's "Hoosiers" on bikes. Seriously, this may be the best bicycling movie ever: It paints its college town location in a good light, and it even won an Oscar.
Eight Men Out
It's one of the saddest stories in baseball, but things have turned out well for ballplayers today. This 1988 movie gives us a look at an event and a trial that rocked the baseball landscape forever.
Chariots of Fire
It's a four-time Oscar winner from 1981 about runners in the 1924 Olympics, which got its title from this old poet. Will we ever get the theme music out of our heads?
The Hustler
This isn't really a sports film, unless you count pool as a sport, but it's very much about winning and losing, and stars an actor at the beginning of a brilliant career and another who was known best for this TV role.
Million Dollar Baby
A well-regarded boxing movie with a twist, this film stars a well-respected actor and director and won four Academy Awards.
The Longest Yard
Cross a football movie with a prison flick and what do you get? Maybe this actor's finest hour. Wonder if Michael Vick ever saw this movie?
Bend It Like Beckham
Perhaps the best soccer movie ever, the bending comes from this star player's ability to kick the ball so it curves -- hopefully into the goal.

Source: Special