The 25 Best Sports Movies of All Time

The wins. The losses. The triumphant swelling music. There’s a reason we love sports movies. Here are the best of the best.

Happy Gilmore

This lovable comedy about a rough-and-tumble hockey-player-turned-golf-pro is a classic. The clash between the politesse of the golf world and the brawls of hockey make for hilarious moments. How can you not love a move where Adam Sandler punches Bob Barker? This film is one of Sandler’s best.

The Longest Yard

No, we’re not talking about the remakes, plural. The original stars a young Burt Reynolds. He plays a former NFL player who gets tossed in jail. While there, he leads a ragtag bunch of misfit prisoners in a game against the guards.

Burt Reynolds has a reputation for playing rough-around-the-edges characters, and “The Longest Yard” helped cement that reputation.

Cool Runnings

Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, it’s bobsled time! This comedy was loosely (very loosely) based on the true story of Jamaica’s first bobsled team.

Lead by coach John Candy, this lovable fish-out-of-water group of Jamaican sprinters tries to adjust to a new sport, and the cold of a Canadian winter to compete in the Calgary Olympics.

Rocky

It’s no wonder that Sylvester Stallone’s breakout role spawned a franchise with five sequels. People love David vs. Goliath stories. When no-name, down-on-his-luck boxer Rocky Balboa (played by Stallone) goes up against a world heavyweight champion, he gave us an underdog we could root for.

The music in the training montage became the gold standard for every training montage that followed.