Friday Top Five: Football Movies

Football season is back!! Hooray! So, this week, I am counting down my top five football "movies", with one exception. There is a reason "movies" is in parenthesis and you will find out what it is in a moment.

05. Lucas (David Seltzer, 1986)
First things first, when Corey Haim was young, there was no one cuter in the whole world. In Lucas, he plays a dorky kid who is in love with an older girl. This girl falls for his friend instead of him and in order to prove he is a man, or whatever, he joins the football team where he proceeds to get hurt. The movie is as much about football as it is about falling in love and getting your heart broken for the first time. It's funny and touching and the quintessential 80's movie.

04. Rudy (David Anspaugh, 1993)
This is the sort of movie that makes grown men cry. There is a scene in this movie that will literally make the biggest, toughest, strongest man weep like a baby. (It's the jersey scene). But more than being a simple movie about football, it's about following your dreams, never giving up, and all that jazz. A seriously great football movie.

03. Remember the Titans (Boaz Yakin, 2000)
Besides starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Gosling, Remember the Titans is the true story of the first year of a racially integrated football team and the way they made history despite a whole lot of drama. I've seen this movie so many times, and it's probably a tad heavy handed and it's probably a bit cheesy, but I love it nonetheless.

02. Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe, 1996)
This, to me, is the role that proved that Tom Cruise could be a huge blockbuster action star, and a an actual good actor at the same time. Jerry Maguire is a sort of perfect beast of a movie. Is it a perfect movie? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Is the dialogue that is so oft repeated these days ring true all the time? Not really. But, Jerry Maguire is a pure joy to watch and the sort of movie that gets better with time.

01. "Friday Night Lights" (various, 2006-2011)
So, I told you there was a reason "movies" was in quotation marks. It's because there's no way I was going to take about anything doing with football without mentioning one of the greatest TV series I've ever seen. (It's based on a movie, if that helps). Friday Night Lights was the rare sort of TV show that was five seasons of near perfection (the only misstep I can think of was that whole Landry/Tyra killing someone story line). The show was as much about angst-ridden high school kids and real life drama as it was about football. It was My So-Called Life with football. It introduced us to the most realistic portrayal of a married couple on television - Coach and Mrs. Coach (Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton), who both acted the crap out of their roles and also had incredible, natural chemistry. Plus, the talent involved was incredible. This show launched the careers of so many actors - Chandler who will soon be seen in the new Scorsese, Britton was on American Horror Story and now Nashville, Taylor Kitsch was in a slew of box office disasters but still has a chance to be a star, Scott Porter stole scenes in The To-Do List, Minka Kelly was in The Butler, and, of course, Michael B. Jordan is wowing everyone in Fruitvale Station. The list could go on, but the truth of the matter is that Friday Night Lights is exceptional television, the sort of show that stays with you long after it has ended.


Now, get ready for an entire day of football on Sunday and go Steelers!