Top 10 Baseball Movies of All Time
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Honorable Mentions
Bang the Drum Slowly (pictured), Eight Men Out, 61*, Mr. Baseball, For the Love of the Game, Fever Pitch, and Angels in the Outfield.
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10. Little Big League
A family favorite, Little Big League succeeds where most kid baseball films fail. It doesn’t get cheesy despite its big-leap-of-premise of a little kid inheriting the Twins and then becoming the manager. Seriously, what kid wouldn’t want to do that? They make it work and smartly so. More importantly, there that all-important moment that every sports movie needs to be truly great – the inspiration moment that makes you want to cheer at the end.
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9. A League of Their Own
So many things could have gone wrong with a movie that asks Madonna to be funny and Tom Hanks to be a jerk. A League of Their Own is a walking contradiction that works in every possible way. The big lesson is that winning isn’t everything but at the same teaches us that “there’s no crying in baseball.”
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8. Pride of the Yankees
Sad and kid of sappy, this classic is a tearjerker if there ever was one. “I consider myself the luckiest man alive” speech is to sports movies what Les Miserables’ “I Dreamed a Dream” is to overly dramatic musicals.
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7. Moneyball
The scrappiest scrappy teams of all time is the scrappy lil’ ol’ Oakland A’s. They are so scrappy that you can’t help but root for Brad Pitt (has Pitt ever been scrappy???) in his fight against the old system of evaluating players using nothing but Jonah Hill (has Hill ever been a savior???).
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6. The Sandlot
You can find almost as many people who dislike The Sandlot as many as there are who love it dearly. No matter what, it has the greatest lifeguarding scene of any baseball movie ever. “You’re killing me, Smalls!”
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5. The Bad News Bears
Very frequently copied but never duplicated, this was the original film of a bunch of loveable losers coming together to win. Walter Mathieu’s half-drunk Buttermaker is both a mentor and a monster. Who doesn’t want to own a Kelly Leak Chico’s Bail Bonds jersey? Best of all is sparkplug Tanner Boyle – “Hey Yankees! You can take your apology and your trophy and shove ‘em straight up you’re a$$!” Amen, lil’ guy.
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4. Major League
Okay, maybe Bad News Bears was duplicated once. From “hats for bats” to “jussssst a bit outside”, Major League is one long string of one-liners. It is not only funny but also was a sad reflection of bad owners threatening to move teams for a better bottom line (see: Mariners and Giants going to Florida in the 90’s).
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3. Field of Dreams
This is why baseball movies have more great films than football or baseball. You can slow it down for a simple heart-to-heart catch with dear old (ghost) dad. Overall, Field of Dreams a ‘baseball as philosophy’ film that looks at our American history and how it can connect us all. Try not to get goosebumps when you James Earl Jones say, “People will come, Ray. People will come.”
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2. Bull Durham
Great sports movies go beyond the field of play to be a metaphor and Bull Durham hits it out of the park. Life, love and baseball lessons abound in this tale of Crash Davis struggles to earn a dubious minor league achievement. As Crash says, “we’re dealing with a lot of s*#!”, but its okay as long as you know candlesticks make a nice wedding gift.
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1. The Natural
A movie so filled with metaphor and imagery that homeruns become symbols of a man’s life. The score is now considered iconic as long with the imagery. Glen Close and
Michelle PfeifferKim Basinger may vie for the attention of Robert Redford, but it is Wilford Brimley’s pitch perfect Pop that displays the best chemistry. “I should have been a farmer!”
