The Guardian's Ten Best Sports Films

[Rowdon]

I bet nobody expected The Arsenal Stadium Mystery when they opened this list!
I have to confess I have never seen it.

I personally would have added "The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner" at least, but these lists are starting points, not set in stone, I suppose.

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[CaptainWaggett]

Good list (and The Arsenal Stadium Mystery is both fab and available from Network but while The Lady Vanishes certainly deserves its place, it's slight odd to illustrate it with a piccie of Lockers and Redgrave

[Mr Sloane]

I would have included Bull Durham as the baseball film a better example of a sports film( and a better film ).

No golf films how about Dead of Night or even Candyshack. Other notable ommisions Cool Runnings,The Natural ( how come baseball a sport I find boring makes good film drama ?)Slapshot, Burt's Longest Yard, The Swimmer,Horse Feathers,National Velvet,Requiem for A Heavyweight and A League of Their Own.

[ChuckEddie]

No Escape to Victory

[zettel45]

while The Lady Vanishes certainly deserves its place, it's slight odd to illustrate it with a piccie of Lockers and Redgrave

In what sense of the word is The Lady Vanishes a sporting movie? A Matter of Life and Death has a ping-pong game in it - maybe that should've been included too? Or what about M*A*S*H as an American football movie?

[CaptainWaggett]

In what sense of the word is The Lady Vanishes a sporting movie? A Matter of Life and Death has a ping-pong game in it - maybe that should've been included too? Or what about M*A*S*H as an American football movie?

You don't think re-enacting the Bodyline tour through the medium of sugar-lumps is a sport?

[zettel45]

You don't think re-enacting the Bodyline tour through the medium of sugar-lumps is a sport?

No I don't. A sports movie is one that focuses primarily on a sport and its surrounding world. So "Breaking Away" is a sports movie, as are "Raging Bull" and "The Hustler". But The Lady Vanishes is an espionage movie in which a couple of characters talk about cricket a lot.

Actually, the real problem with the list is that it only allows one film per sport. Frankly, there have been more decent boxing movies made than films about all other sports put together. And there has never been a single decent football film (including, I'm afraid, The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, which is no better than passable).

Oh, and Field of Dreams is truly, truly, truly awful.

[CaptainWaggett]

No I don't. A sports movie is one that focuses primarily on a sport and its surrounding world. So "Breaking Away" is a sports movie, as are "Raging Bull" and "The Hustler". But The Lady Vanishes is an espionage movie in which a couple of characters talk about cricket a lot.

Actually, the real problem with the list is that it only allows one film per sport. Frankly, there have been more decent boxing movies made than films about all other sports put together. And there has never been a single decent football film (including, I'm afraid, The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, which is no better than passable).

Oh, and Field of Dreams is truly, truly, truly awful.

Clearly humour isn't a quality highly by sports fans The Arsenal Stadium Mystery is a terrifc comedy thriller And The Lady Vanishes says more about cricket and its relationship to 'Englishness' than any amount of films that actually feature the game. Plus, it's far and away the best film on that list. Unless your idea of a good film is a formulaic story about a sportsperson overcoming odds to win the big fight

Surely everyone knows this is the best cinematic boxing match

[GRAEME]

You don't think re-enacting the Bodyline tour through the medium of sugar-lumps is a sport?

Oh come on! You can't include every film that mentions sport as a sports movie!

[CaptainWaggett]

Oh come on! You can't include every film that mentions sport as a sports movie!

It's hardly just a 'mention'

And I haven't even pointed out The Galloping Major's superiority over Seabiscuit (and not just because you get out before pub-closing time )

[Mr Sloane]

It does depend what you mean by sporting film, This Sporting Life is a case in point. It's not a film about Rugby League it's a film about people crippled by their emotions and incapable of dealing with their feelings. And not just the main characters we have a film heavy with latent longings and unfullfilled lives.

And re Field Of Dreams it is not truly,truly awful, over rated and cursed with the Hollywood need the daddies and sons to save I love you but well acted and directed yes and sentimental but what's wrong with the odd tear.

[RogerThornhill]

The Lady Vanishes is not a sporting movie. Having two cricket fans mentioning a test match at various points in the movie isn't too bad an idea if you like that sort of thing but these characters are merely incidental. You could remove all their scenes and that would make very little, if any, difference to the story.

[Mr Sloane]

The Lady Vanishes is not a sporting movie. Having two cricket fans mentioning a test match at various points in the movie isn't too bad an idea if you like that sort of thing but these characters are merely incidental. You could remove all their scenes and that would make very little, if any, difference to the story.

I think I will reply as I suspect the Captain may have fainted away.

The Lady Vanishes without Charters and Caldicott would be like Hamlet without the prince.

[RogerThornhill]

I think I will reply as I suspect the Captain may have fainted away.

The Lady Vanishes without Charters and Caldicott would be like Hamlet without the prince.

My point is that The Lady Vanishes isn't a sporting movie so it shouldn't be included in a list of sporting movies. In Fawlty Towers the "Major" makes many references to cricket but that doesn't make Fawlty Towers a sports programme.

[zettel45]

The Lady Vanishes says more about cricket and its relationship to 'Englishness' than any amount of films that actually feature the game. Plus, it's far and away the best film on that list.

That still doesn't make it a sports movie. A sports movie is one set in and around the world of a particular sport, not one that merely mentions a sport in passing - no matter how insightful those mentions are.

If you're right, then here a few more "sporting" movies Alan French somehow missed:

M*A*S*H - American Football
A Matter of Life and Death - Table Tennis
Planes Trains and Automobiles - American Football
The League of Gentlemen - Boxing
A Night to Remember - Football, Poker
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Baseball, Basketball, Fishing
Get Carter - Horse Racing
The Philadelphia Story - Yachting
Falling Down - Golf
Our Man in Havana - Draughts

And so on, and so on.

It does depend what you mean by sporting film, This Sporting Life is a case in point. It's not a film about Rugby League it's a film about people crippled by their emotions and incapable of dealing with their feelings. And not just the main characters we have a film heavy with latent longings and unfullfilled lives.

But if that means This Sporting Life isn't a sports movie, then it also means there's never been a single sports movie ever made. ALL sports movies use sport and the world surrounding it as a metaphor for other things. Rocky isn't really about boxing - it's about late redemption, the ability to change, etc - but it's a sports movie for all that because [stating the bleeding obvious alert] it's set in and around the world of a particular sport. And so is This Sporting Life.

Sorry, but it seems to me French was just lazily trotting out a few of his favourite movies and finding any old excuse to shoe-horn them in.

And Field of Dreams really is awful - not because it is sentimental, but because it is boring. In fact, it's even more boring than baseball, and that's really some kind of achievement.

[Rowdon]

Rocky has been mentioned, but not for inclusion in the list. Am I alone in thinking it's good? And is not responsible for its offspring?

[zettel45]

Well, Rocky is certainly much better than the increasingly ludicrous sequels, and it's effective enough in its way. For me, though, it's mainly interesting as a piece of film history: the first half of the film is incredibly grimy and "realistic" - it's straight out of the 70s' Hollywood New Wave playbook. After that, though, it launches off into this fantasy world where hard work (and the superhuman ability to absorb punches) allows an also-ran to match a world champion. It's almost as if 80s' heroic cinema is being invented before our eyes; the film says "enough of all this moody deprivation - I want a consoling myth". It's interesting that they didn't let Rocky win the fight at the end - seemingly they weren't yet sufficiently self-confident to go that far. Rocky II corrected that, of course.

[Steve Crook]

Sorry, but it seems to me French was just lazily trotting out a few of his favourite movies and finding any old excuse to shoe-horn them in.

What else do you expect in a Sunday newspaper? The vast majority of it is written by Polly Filla and Phil Space

My Mum still gets a Sunday paper every week - despite my admonitions - and then promptly throws at least 3/4 of it away as being of no interest to her

Steve

[zettel45]

What else do you expect in a Sunday newspaper? The vast majority of it is written by Polly Filla and Phil Space

The vast majority? Have you done a statistical analysis on this Steve? What're the percentages?

I usually find plenty of interest to read in a Sunday paper. Sure, there are whole sections I don't bother with and a certain amount of fluff even in the ones I read but to dismiss the whole paper on that account seems ludicrous.

Anyhoo, French's piece was in the Guardian online. Lord knows if it's in the Observer too.

[CaptainWaggett]

Still, it's hardly surprising that they trot out these lists when some people do take them really seriously