The 12 Most Underrated Sports Movies Of All Time

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While movies like Remember the Titans, Major League, Hoosiers, The Blindside, Little Big League, Rocky, Field of Dreams, Caddyshack and Rudy are heralded as some of the greatest sports movies of all time, and for good reason, I feel as though quite a few Great Sports Movies often get overlooked.  In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find any of these on common Top 10 lists.  They almost never get mentioned and it’s a shame.

To me, these 12 movies are some of the greatest sports movies of all time, that no one ever talks about.  I’m VERY curious to see if you agree.  Please go ahead and let me know in the comment section below how you feel about any of these 12.

Over the Top

Perhaps the greatest (if not only) movie ever made about Arm Wrestling.  This was during a time where everything Sylvester Stallone touched turned to gold.  I’m not sure why this one missed with fans so badly but I loved it.

You had the classic bad guy in Bull, with the classic Hero in Lincoln Hawk.  He is estranged from his son until they make a cross country trip together as Hawk is transporting his son from military camp to his dying mother in the hospital.

The movie has its classic ups and downs, but when you mix in the several big-time wrestlers involved, along with strong men competitors, it had a legit tough guy feel to it.  It took a sport no one cared about and made it interesting.  It’s a must watch if you haven’t seen it.

Necessary Roughness

This one is perhaps the greatest sports movie NO ONE talks about.  With the exception of my friend Joe, I cannot think of a single other person I have ever met, that has admitted to seeing this movie. It came out in 1991 under the radar starring Sinbad, Kathy Ireland, Scott Bakula, Jason Bateman and several bigger names.

Without getting too much into it, I can tell you these small details.  Scott Bakula gets talked into playing quarterback for the fictional Texas State college football team. He is 34 at the time and hasn’t played since High school.  They get him enrolled at the school but a team of only 17 players after massive violations, predictably goes winless until the final week.

In typical Hollywood fashion they play the undefeated top ranked University of Texas Colts (not Longhorns) in the final game.  Do I really need to explain what happens next?

No Holds Barred

The only good movie the WWE and Hulk Hogan ever made together.  This was at the perfect time towards the tail end of the 80’s boom period of wrestling.  In a weird way it kind of foreshadowed what was to become with Ted Tuner and WCW shortly after this movie came out.

Between Zeus as the unstoppable bad guy, and Mr. Brell as the evil villain, this movie covered every aspect. Mix in the female lead of Samantha Moore, who reminded me of a sexy Ms. Elizabeth gone bad character, and it had it all. The only problem was Hulk Hogan trying to act, once you got past that, you were good to go.

King Pin

People love the Big Lebowski, but it doesn’t hold a candle to this movie.  Woody Harrelson at his best playing the down and out Roy Munson.  The one liners in this one are endless, and when you bring in Bill Murray as the foil, how can you go wrong?  This is a movie I can watch 5 times in one day and not get tired of it. It’s the movie for the underdog in all of us with a kickass sound track ( I own it) to boot.

Great White Hype

I LOVE this movie.  The cast they brought in is a who’s who of Hollywood in their prime!  Corbin Bernsen, Samuel L Jackson, Jamie Foxx, Damon Wayans, Peter Berg, Jeff Goldblum, Jon Lovitz, Cheech Marin and so many more.

Wayans plays the cocky champ James The Grim Reeper Roper who gets led around by the Don King style character, “Rev Sultan” played by Samuel Jackson.  Rev continues to back out on his promise of paying the champ 10 million dollars a fight, because he said no one watches boxing anymore.  His solution was to find a white boxer because people are tired of watching “black fighters fight black fighters”.  Only, in the actual words you know he said….

This leads to them scraping up “Irish” Terry Conklin from Cleveland who hasn’t fought since knocking out James Roper in the Golden Gloves. He gave his life up to music and drugs, and appears to suffer from brain damage but the Rev Sultan gets him his title shot.

White America eats it up and it breaks box office records only for Roper to dispose of Conklin in 56 seconds after being inspired by the movie Dolemite.  I can’t do this movie justice by writing about it, it is honestly one of the funniest movies you will ever watch. They cross almost every line but they are telling the 100% truth, and that is what makes it great!

White Men Can’t Jump

This movie was huge when it first came out, and now you never hear about it anymore. You have Woody the bartender from Cheers teaming up with Willie Mayes Hayes from Major League to play in streetball games of basketball.

Much like The Great White Hype, it tricks white men everywhere into thinking they too can play basketball and box.  All joking aside, this movie just fun to watch.  It is slow, but during the early 90’s hip hop and backyard basketball craze, it came out at the perfect time and is still very entertaining today.

Rocky IV

I love Rocky as much as the next guy.  It is by far my most favorite set of movies in any genre and shaped my life multiple times over.  However, the two best Rocky’s involved battles with Russia in my opinion. This one came out in the peak of the Cold War and involved Rocky avenging Apollo’s death against the unstoppable Russian Ivan Drago.

People often ask me when they find out I’m a huge Rocky buff, which one in the series was my favorite and without fail I tell them Creed 2 then this one. The training scenes in the mountains are incredible and the soundtrack to accompany them is out of this world. I LOVE this movie!

Hardball

This is another one no one speaks about and it blows my mind.  As someone who coached youth sports, I can tell you first hand the bullcrap politics that go on.  Far too many people focus on the bad acting of Keanu Reeves and look past the very special message in this one.

It is the only sports movie that has ever brought me to tears when little G Baby gets shot and killed. Reeves leads a rag tag group of inner-city kids from losing to winning all in one summer.  It’s very much like an inner city version of the Bad news Bears, but just a bid more edgier at the end.

The Wrestler

One of the most accurate movies ever done about the sport of Professional Wrestling. They take you behind the scenes and show you what happens to so many wrestling stars from the early 80’s and 90’s now wrestling for peanuts in local High School gyms around the country.

I love this movie for the lingo they use, the insider terms and just the extreme reality of what can happen.  This movie also jumpstarted Mickey Rourkes dead career and won several awards in the process.  Again, no one talks about it and you never see it on TV, and that is a real shame.

Blue Chips

Nick Nolte is a college basketball coach having trouble recruiting.  He gets talked into allowing bribes and suddenly big name recruits star showing up to play ball for the Western University Dolphins.

These recruits include Neon Boudeaux played by Shaq.  Also, Butch McCrae played by Penny Hardaway. That in itself was cool because at the time, Shaw and Penny were teammates in Orlando and two of the most popular players in the NBA.

Nolte does a tremendous job acting in this movie and you get to see just how stressful and corrupt it can be in college sports. This movie was light years ahead of its time too, because a lot of stuff in this movie begins to come out and happen in real life NCAA.

Creed 2

The greatest boxing movie ever made.  Stop whatever you’re doing and go watch it!  They could stop the entire Rocky lineage right now, and I’d be okay with it as Creed Two makes the perfect ending to it all.

Semi Pro

This movie is absolutely freaking hilarious.  Like Kingpin and Hype, I can watch this movie 5 times in one day and it will still be funny each time. Yet another movie with Woody Harrelson who I just realized showed up 3 times on this list.

It focuses on Will Ferrell trying to keep the “Tropics” alive in the old ABA by doing some crazy stunts including wrestling a bear.  They are hurting bad for money and the contest giveaways are epic.  They also traded a player for a washing machine.

Again, this is a movie I cannot do justice by writing about it, you need to watch it!