Top Five Football Movies of All Time

The NFL kicks off its football season this week, and we at The Movie Brothers are pumped! We’re huge football fans, and in honor all things great about football – from chili and beer, to chips and friends screaming and cheering on their favorite teams – we’ve brought you our Top Five Football Movies of All Time. And in case you were wondering what out favorite team is… LET’S GO BUFFALO BILLS!!!

5. Any Given Sunday
Oliver Stone can politicize anything, including football. But he did a very nice job with this film, shooting a fast-paced, sexy movie, combining it with a great cast headed by Al Pacino and Jamie Foxx. It looks at the money and madness that goes into football. Is it a tad overly dramatic? For sure. But it certainly is a great football movie. Oh, and Al Pacino’s awesome speech… fantastic.

4. Knute Rockne All American
This one has that iconic moment, where Ronald Regean, playing George Gipp, gives those famous words: “Win one for the Gipper.” This has classic football moments all over — Notre Dame, All-American Knute Rockne, and yes… old Ronny. And it definitely deserves a place on this list.

3. Jerry McGwire
Show me the money was a pretty awesome part of this flick, but the movie is so much more than the famous catch-phrase. It’s a movie that crossed over two genres with unbelievable success — romantic comedy and sports. But it works, big time. Even if your significant other isn’t a football lover, it’s a movie you’ll both enjoy. Great acting, humor, sharp writing and direction, and, of course, plenty of football.

2. Brian’s Song
Based on the real-life relationship between teammates Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, this is a fantastic movie that shows the bond established by two men competing for the same job. They broke boundaries as roommates, teammates, and inspired people by their strength of friendship when Piccolo discovers that he is dying. It’s a great movie, and definitely deserving to be called one of the greatest football movies every.

1. Rudy
You have to have a heart made of iron not to love this story. It’s the ultimate tale of the little guy who works harder than anyone and finally gets a shot at his dream. It’s a bitter-sweet moment when he does, but it’s a great movie, and a believable, earnest performance by Sean Astin, with strong support by Ned Beatty and Jon Favreau. This was the first movie that jumped out at us as the best football movie. If you’ve never seen, it’s definitely worth a watch.

Lies and Illusions

Wes Wilson (Christian Slater), a best-selling author, has a self-help book about honesty that has saved millions of relationships. But when his fiance Alicia (Sarah Ann Schultz) is abducted and declared dead, Wes suddenly finds himself hunted by hired killers, beautiful spies, and a ruthless criminal mastermind (Cuba Gooding Jr.) with a taste for both style and violence. What does Wes have that an international smuggling ring wants? Why did his late bride-to-be keep a secret room full of weapons? And who can he trust when nobody is what he or she seems to be? Directed by Tibor Takács (Mansquito, Mega Snake, Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep)

Matt
Rating: 2 out of 10

You never go full retard.

Christian Slater ignored that common Hollywood, unspoken rule when he made this epically bad movie. And just a public service warning: this DVD is in Red Boxes everywhere. Do not be fooled by a catchy title and sexy description. It’s awful.

Slater, who has fallen so far in his career, plays a wimpy love writer who says things like, “Ow! My ribs!” after being kicked, or, “You shot him!” after witnessing a man being shot. This is bad writing, pure and simple.

Gooding, who I once thought had great potential, has done nothing since winning an Oscar for “Jerry Maguire.” Well, I guess he was pretty good in “Radio,” but again, you never go full retard. His interpretation of a bad guy in this film is the over-pronunciation of words. You can’t entirely blame him. There was nothing on the page to work with.

This movie is full of horrid dialogue, awkward looking fight scenes, plot lines that never connect and directing that looks like it was made for TV. There are plenty of mistakes, too. A wound will be on different sides of Slater’s face after a cut, his wristwatch changes sides from right to left and back again to right, and in one scene, Alicia rips a windshield wiper from a car and stabs a man in the cheek with it who is wearing a mask, but the damage to the mask and blood are gone seconds later in the next shot. There are full on car chase scenes for 10 minutes complete with shootouts, near hits of pedestrians, and vehicles smashing through carts and canopies, but no police are in sight. The police don’t come until Slater gets shot and someone says, “Call the police,” and sirens are heard immediately.

After seeing this movie, I had to shout, “That movie was bad!”