Top 10 Football Movies

So you say you couldn’t care less about the Packers and the Steelers, but you still would like to share in the spirit of the nation’s biggest sporting event? What to do?

Get food and beverages, invite some friends over (or not) and watch a great football movie. There are dozens to choose from, and not all are so great. Here are some of our favorites.

10. Because Super Bowl XLV is being played in Dallas, you might want to consider North Dallas Forty (1979), based on a memoir by former Cowboys player Peter Gent. I haven’t seen it, but my friend and sometimes film critic Ken Stroebel assures me it is one of the best football movies ever made. And Ken knows football movies.

9. Black Sunday (1977) – This one was suggested by New London Patch editor Dirk Langeveld. It stars Bruce Dern as a deranged (and very angry) blimp pilot who is determined to go out with a bang – by crashing his blimp into the Orange Bowl during Super Bowl X. That game, by the way, was played by Dallas and Pittsburgh. With Bruce Dern in the starring role, how bad could it be?

8. Sandra Bullock won an Academy Award for her performance in Blind Side (2009). Based on a true story (aren’t they all?), Bullock and Tim McGraw play a rich couple who adopt future NFL prospect Micheal Oher, presumably saving him from a life of poverty and despair. A week after Bullock won the Oscar, her marriage fell apart. But that’s another story.

7. Jerry McGuire (1996) – I really like this movie, mostly because of Cuba Gooding’s performance. And Tom Cruise was OK, too. Both actors made other football movies that weren’t as good. Gooding starred in Radio (2003), which was a risky part for him to say the least, and a much younger Cruise starred in All the Right Moves (1983), which some consider a football classic.

6. I’m not a big Adam Sandler fan (I blame that on my kids), so I avoided movies like Waterboy (1998) and Sandler’s remake of The Longest Yard (2005), in which Burt Reynolds has a small part. Reynolds, of course, starred in the original 1974 version, a thoroughly entertaining film that belongs on everybody’s top football movie list. And if you can find Semi-Tough (1977), you’ll get to see Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson together. In a football movie. How weird is that?

5. I’m going to mention The Replacements (2000) even though I can’t stand Keanu Reeves. But I love Gene Hackman, and you’ll get to see your old friend John Madden again. Also, watching it could be eerily prophetic as we look ahead to the 2011 season.

4. I realize there are many Notre Dame fans who are disappointed that the Irish are not playing in this year’s Super Bowl. If you are one of them, you might enjoy Rudy (1993), another true story, supposedly inspirational, certainly much-loved by many (I think you have to be an Irish fan). Here’s a better idea: Knute Rockne All American (1940). Now that’s a movie. After Ronald Reagan single-handedly “won one for the Gipper,” he went on to single-handedly win the Cold War. Talk about inspirational.

3. There are no football movie “best of” lists that do not include Remember the Titans (2002), and for good reason. Denzel Washington is always good, and in this film he is superb. This is a classic football movie, but like many on this list, it is about much more than football.

2. Another coach movie, Friday Night Lights (2004), drew rave reviews. I haven’t seen the movie, but I got totally hooked on the television series of the same name. The movie stars Billy Bob Thorton. So, again, how bad can it be?

1. Any Given Sunday (1999) is yet another coach movie. It stars Al Pacino, who gets to pace the sidelines, ranting and raving in his best Al Pacino… ranting and raving. ("No, YOU’RE out of order!") The movie’s title is repeated millions of times every year, mostly by stunned football fans whose teams failed to show up, or somehow did the unimaginable by pulling off a huge upset. Think Seattle vs. New Orleans this year in the playoffs. Or, looking back to Super Bowl XLII, think…

On second thought, let’s not go there.