When you love something, you want to immerse yourself in it as much as possible. It is why soccer fans don’t tend to just watch matches but also take part in the likes of Sunday League games or five-a-side matches with friends. It is also why sports films are so popular, whether it be a film like Tin Cup, which explores the world of golf, or Seabiscuit, the film about the life of the horse of the same name. American football is no exception when it comes to a sport around which there are a load of great films, which we’re going to take a closer look at here.
Two Minutes to Go
It is fair to say that Two Minutes to Go won’t be remembered by many, not least of all because it is now considered to be lost. Yet it is only right that we mention it here on account of the fact that it was the first known film to be about American football. It was a comedy-drama that was directed by Charles Ray, who also starred in it, being released by Associated First National on the 17th of October 1921. Also featuring the likes of Mary Anderson and Lionel Belmore, it was an hour long and set the groundwork for other films about the sport to be released in the years that followed.
Three Little Pigskins
There aren’t many comedy films about American football, mainly because the sport engenders far too much emotion for it to be laughed at by those that love it. Even so, it would be impossible not to talk about Three Little Pigskins when you realise that it is one of the famous movies made by The Three Stooges and was the fourth entry in a series of films released by Columbia Pictures and starring the comedy trio. It also featured Lucille Ball and was filmed over a period of five days between the 25th and the 30th of October 1934.
The plot of the movie sees an unwitting Three Stooges get involved in a scheme to promote a college football team by dressing up as football players. The trio get mistaken for actual athletes by the owner of a professional team, Joe Stacks. Stacks’ girlfriend mistakes them for the famous ‘Three Horsemen’, which leads to a series of comedic misunderstandings. The mistaken identities then lead to some physical altercations as well as a chase scene, with the movie reaching its climax when the three take part in a game and are accused of deliberate sabotage.
The Longest Yard
It is likely that the version of The Longest Yard that you know and love will depend on your age. The original was made in 1974 and starred Burt Reynolds and Ed Lauter, amongst others. The remake, on the other hand, was made in 2005 and starred Adam Sandler in the Burt Reynolds role and Reynolds himself in a supporting part. It is the original that we’re going to talk about here, although it is worth bearing in mind that many of the plot points might sound familiar. It is set in a prison after former star quarterback Paul “Wrecking” Crewe is arrested following a police chase.
The convicts in the prison don’t have a huge degree of respect for Crewe because he was dismissed from the NFL for ‘point shaving’. The warden is hoping that Crewe will coach a team of prison guards that he has put together in order to win the championship. Crewe makes a team of prisoners for an exhibition game, refusing to give in easily and eventually winning the game 36-35. At the end, one of the guards is told to shoot Crewe when it appears is if he’s trying to escape when in reality he was only going to retrieve the game ball to give to the warden.
All the Right Moves
There aren’t many actors who appear in two of the movies in this list, but Tom Cruise is one of them. All the Right Moves was made at the start of the 1980s and sees the Top Gun star appear as Stefen “Stef” Djordjevic, a Serbian American defensive back who is a B student academically but talented at sport. He wants to get out of the depressing small Western Pennsylvania town in which he lives by gaining a college football scholarship, coping with his life thanks to the love of his girlfriend, played by Lea Thompson, and the support of his teammates.
When Djordjevic’s team lost to Walnut Heights High School in the big football game, the coach criticises one of the players and Djordjevic stands up to him, getting kicked off the team as a result. The locals take against this, vandalising the coach’s house. Although Djordjevic wasn’t a part of it, he is spotted by the coach and what follows is a film about his personal battles and his relationships off the field. When the coach is offered a coaching role at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on the West Coast, he offers Stefen a place there, which is the best engineering school in California.
Jerry Maguire
The other major American football movie in which Tom Cruise stars is Jerry Maguire, which is all about a football agent who leaves his major firm in order to set up on his own. If you have ever heard anyone say ‘You had me at hello’ or ‘Show me the money’ and wondered what they were referencing, it’s this. Maguire is forced to leave ‘Sports Management International’ and tries to take his clients with him, but the majority of them choose to remain with SMI. The only one who doesn’t is Rod Tidwell, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., who decides to join him.
Maguire is also joined by a 26-year-old single mother named Dorothy Boyd, played by Renée Zellweger. In the months that follow, Tidwell’s career goes from strength to strength as Maguire’s relationship with Boyd and her son progresses from the personal to the professional. Towards the end of the film, Maguire secures a $11.2 million contract for Tidwell to play for the Arizona Cardinals, whilst other players choose to join his sporting agency having seen the work that he did for Tidwell and the more personal approach that he took to his work as an agent.
Any Given Sunday
There is an argument to be made that Any Given Sunday may be the definitive American football movie. Directed by Oliver Stone and starring the likes of Al Pacino, Danis Quaid and Jamie Foxx, it is based, at least in part, on the novel On Any Given Sunday, which was written by NFL defensive end Pat Toomay. Part of the reason why it is considered to be such an important film by those who know the sport is the fact that there were numerous cameos from former players, such as Warren Moon, Ricky Watters and Emmitt Smith, amongst others.
The film is about a once-great team, the Miami Sharks, who are struggling to make the playoffs for the Affiliated Football Franchises of America under their veteran coach Tony D’Amato. What follows are the trials and tribulations of a team looking to get back into the playoffs and then win them, driven on by a rookie quarterback who only plays when the first and second-choice quarterbacks are injured. Although they lose the final championship game, the coach ends up being signed by an expansion team in New Mexico and chooses to take the rookie quarterback with him.
Friday Night Lights
Also made into a TV series by the same name, Friday Night Lights was made in 2004 and co-written and directed by Peter Berg. It stars Billy Bob Thornton as the coach of the Permian High School football team in the town of Odessa, Texas, as they look to win a state championship. It is based on the book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream which follows the 1988 Permian High School Panthers team, meaning that it has the sense of verisimilitude that not all football movies are able to boast. It won the Best Sports Movie ESPY award.
The story revolves around the star running back James “Boobie” Miles, who gets injured and tears his ACL, being told following an MRI scan that he can’t play again for the rest of the season. Miles lies to the coach about the result of the MRI, however, and so the coach puts him into an important game out of desperation. He is soon injured again, resulting in a loss. The team is eventually successful in the playoffs, facing Dallas Carter High School in the championship game, which they lose. At the end of the film, it is revealed that the coach led the team to an undefeated season the following year.
The Blind Side
The snobbish nature of Hollywood is such that many sports films are looked down upon. The same cannot be said about The Blind Side, however, which resulted in an Oscar win for Sandra Bullock as the mother of Michael Oher, an offensive lineman who had to overcome an impoverished upbringing in order to play in the National Football League. A commercial success that grossed more than $300 million at the box office, the movie was made on a budget of just $29 million. Although the film itself received mixed reviews, Bullock’s performance definitely did not.
The film centres around 17-year-old Oher, who had been in foster care throughout his life but kept running back to his mother, who had a drug addiction. He is eventually taken in by Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, who work to help him make it as a player in the NFL. At the end of the movie, we learn that in real life, he was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the 2009 NFL draft, allowing him to play in the National Football League. In 2023, however, the film was the subject of controversy when it was alleged by Oher that he had signed a conservatorship agreement with the Tuohys, meaning he didn’t make any money from the film.