Super Bowl Fever: Top 5 Football Movies

By Beau Behan, Film Critic:

Selfies! Smiles! Photos! Super Bowl mania has arrived with Super Bowl 50 happening this Sunday. By now, fans have already planned their own celebrations. After all, Super Bowl Sunday is now an unofficial national holiday in the US, making Super Bowl parties front and center this time of the year.

Parties! Parties! Parties! Super Bowl weekend parties are not just relegated to watching Sunday’s game anymore. Many movie buffs have also made this weekend a yearly ritual of watching their favorite football films.

As a film critic, I would like to share with you my top 5 football movies of all time, and they are all based on real life events— true stories with powerful lessons that have resonated with me over the years.

Without further ado, here they are in ascending order.

5. RUDY (1993)

Description

Based on the true story of how Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger who painstakingly aspired to play football at the University of Notre Dame. Despite of significant obstacles, Rudy (Sean Astin) followed his dreams to play for the Fighting Irish. It teaches us a lesson that keeping your eyes on the prize with unrelenting passion and determination is the key to success.

Famous Line

“You’re 5 foot nothin’, 100 and nothin’ and you have nearly a speck of athletic ability. And you hung in there with the best college football team in the land for 2 years. And you’re gonna walk outta here with a degree from the University of Notre Dame. In this life, you don’t have to prove nothin’ to nobody but yourself.” – Fortune

4. FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (2004)

Description

A sports drama film and based on H.G. Bissinger’s book, “Fiday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream,” it stars Billy Bob Thornton (Coach Gary Gaines), and it recounts the details the historic run towards the state championship of the 1988 Permian High Panthers football team’s historic run towards the state championship. It is a story of grit, determination, ambition, and the close-knit ties among the citizens of the economically depressed town of Odessa Texas.

Famous Line

Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn’t let them down because you told them the truth, and that truth is you did everything that you could; there wasn’t one more thing that you could have done. Can you live in that moment as best as you can with clear eyes and love in your heart? – Coach

3. REMEMBER THE TITANS (2000)

Description

Based on the true story of coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington), it chronicles Coach Boone’s iron-clad determination to form a racially diverse football team at a Virginia high school after the educational desegregation in early 1970s.

Famous Line

This is where they fought the battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fighting the same fight that we are still fighting among ourselves today… You listen, and you take a lesson from the dead… I don’t care if you like each other of not, but you will respect each other. And maybe...I don’t know, maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men. – Coach Boone

2. BRIAN’S SONG (1971)

Description

The film is a narrative chronicling the close friendship between two players of the

Chicago Bears: Brian Piccolo (James Caan), a running back, and Gayle Sayers (Billy Dee Williams), a halfback, and their wives. Based on Sayer’s autobiography, “I Am Third,” it is a depiction of Piccolo’s battle with terminal cancer and Sayer’s unflagging support for his teammate and friend.

Famous line

I love Brian Piccolo. And I’d like all of you to love him too. And so tonight, when you hit your knees, please ask God to love him. – Gayle Sayers

1. KNUTE ROCKNE ALL AMERICAN (1940)

Description

A biopic, it is the story of legendary Notre Dame football player and coach Knute Rockne with Pat O’Brien in the title role. Also starring was the late Ronald Reagan as George Gipp, one of the players. A shining moment for O’Brien, he closely resembled Rockne, even projecting Rockne’s staccato speaking pattern down pat during his motivational speeches.

Famous Line

The last thing George said to me, ‘Rock,’ he said, ‘sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper. – Rockne