Sports Movies are those movies, which are basically based on the sports theme. These movies have a sports setting such as football or baseball stadium, arena, or the Olympics, etc., competitive event such as the ‘big game,’ ‘fight,’ or ‘competition’, and/or athlete such as boxer, racer, surfer, etc. that are fundamental and leading theme in the story. Sports movies may be story bound, fictional or non-fictional. Generally sports movies are very much liked by the audiences. The moral message given by the sports movies is that never give-up.
The sport movies may be of various categories. This may be: sports biopic, sports dramas, sports documentaries, sports fantasies and sports melodramas. In a true sports movie Sports should play a principal role. However, there have been some that extend the meaning of sport. The most popular sport theme in sports movies is the baseball, with basketball, football (soccer) and boxing in an ample range of movies. Track and field, horse racing, auto-racing, golf, ice hockey and wrestling have also proven to be well-liked sports subject.
A sports movie may portrait the real life character and there are many sports movies which have documented or portrayed real-life characters, such as: boxer James J. Corbett (Errol Flynn) in Gentleman Jim (1942), New York Yankees baseball player Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper) in The Pride of the Yankees (1942), baseball player Jackie Robinson as Himself in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950)
Other than some of the most classic and best sports movies, there are also those that are generally considered the ‘worst’ sports-related movies of all time, such as: The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978), a remake (the third movie in the series) of the 1975 movie with Walter Matthau, starring Tony Curtis as the coach (baseball), The Main Event (1979), a romantic comedy with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal (boxing), The Slugger’s Wife (1985), a romantic drama with Michael O’Keefe and Rebecca DeMornay (pro-baseball) .