Five Incredible Sports Movies that Will Change Your Life Forever

To find truly defining sports movies that stand out from the crowd has been a daunting task. However, I believe that these movies, Facing the Giants, Remember the Titans, Rocky, Raging Bull, and Miracle, truly bring home the impact that sports have on not only the individual character, but also send out a message that resonates with everyone who watches them whether or not they themselves play or even like the sport(s). At the end of each review, I'll post a link where you can buy the movie, and you should! You won't regret it. :)

In no particular order, since they're all great in their own right, I'll begin with the two football movies on the list, Facing the Giants and Remember the Titans. Both have similar settings, showing the trials and tribulations of a high school football team as they learn to face adversity and succeed together, as a team. It is the thematic elements, though, that I feel deserve to be highlighted and also what makes these two movies shine.

Facing the Giants: Follows the story of Grant Taylor, who, at the beginning of the story, is a mediocre high school coach "facing" what appears to be a mountain of troubles spiraling out of his control. To get an idea of what he's going through, his car is about to break down, some of the fathers of the players are trying to get him fired, and he finds out he is the reason that his wife is not able to become pregnant even though they really want a child. When he feels that he's hit rock-bottom, he turns to God for help to get his life and team back on track. After this revelation, he creates a new coaching philosophy, one that praises God for each win and praises Him after each loss, that proves to bring the team, and his life, together in the face of gigantic odds. His team goes on to win the State Champions, the aptly named "Giants", and, in the end, Taylor learns that his wife is pregnant. The story closely follows the coach rather than the team in this sports story, showing the struggles he has endure managing his own personal life and the dreams of his team, and showing how centering on something outside yourself can help you rise to face the "giant" obstacles in your own life.

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Remember the Titans: This movie illustrates the struggles that a team itself must take in order to be successful. Standing in contrast with Facing the Giants, this story focuses more on the team rather than the coach himself. In the story, Coach "Coon" (Herman Boone) takes on the challenge to bring a racially segregated team together, no small feat given that it is set in 1971 in the south. Throughout the movie, Coach Boone uses strict and, at the time, radical measures to help his team realize how they need each other if they're going to win. The players learn that in being part of this team, they are individual parts of a bigger whole, a realization that Gary Bertier and Julius Campbell seem to embody as their conflict between each other (one being white, the other African-American respectively) dissolves into a sworn brotherhood that unites their team. That unity sees their team to winning the AAA State championship game, even when they are down one of their best players, Gary, due to a tragic automobile accident. They go on to become the runner-up in the national championships. The end of the film shows the team coming together ten years later at the funeral of Gary Bertier, showing that the unity built all those years ago still holds strong.

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The next two on this list are boxing movies. I believe that these two, Rocky and Raging Bull, symbolize how sheer determination and willpower can vault someone to fame and glory in the sports world. While both movies center on characters with this unbreakable determination, they differ on how each character handles what comes with it, and each scenario shown in the movies is worth watching.

Rocky: Probably one of the best known sports movies of all time and one of only two sports movies to ever win an Oscar, that alone being enough to earn it a place among the greatest. The story follows the dream of a small-time boxer, Rocky Balboa, and his climb to fame when heavy-weight champion Apollo Creed makes a decision to fight a small-time boxer like Rocky. The film illustrates that with determination and hard work, anyone can have a chance at the big-time, and even though Rocky loses the fight on a judges decision, he "went the distance" with Creed, and solidified his place as a world-class boxer.

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Raging Bull: This film, on the other hand, portrays a similar boxer, Jake LaMotta, and how his determination actually leads to his downfall in the boxing industry. To begin with, though, this film is beautiful in terms of its artistic direction, playing on expressionistic black-and-white photography. Not only that, Robert De Niro gives a stunning performance for his career here, both of which combine to give this movie an "expressive power of great magnitude". The story follows LaMotta and how his climb toward the top ultimately ends with him losing his family and his life due to his determination for the sport. It shows how Jake compromises his values, both for his family and brother and legally, which ultimately ends up in jail near the end. At the end of the film, however, the story pans back to the beginning sequence with Jake practicing his comic routine, showing that even after everything that happened, he can be redeemed, ending with the biblical line, "All I know is this: Once I was blind, and now I can see."

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I would like to end with the "feel-good" sports movie of the group, Miracle. This is based of the classic true story of how the United States Olympic Men's ice hockey team went on to win against the favorite for the gold, the USSR. Tensions were high at this time since it was during the "hottest" period of the Cold War, and this win especially resounded in all U.S. hearts at the time that America would persevere against the Soviets, no matter what.

Miracle: Set in 1980's, the story follows Herb Brooks, the United States Ice Hockey team's coach, who takes what looks like a ragtag bunch of college kids up against the, at the time, legendary ice hockey team from the Soviet Union at the Olympic Games. Through work and determination, and rigorous hours of hard practice, Brooks and his team train to take on what looks like an "unwinnable" game. Coming as a true "miracle" though, despite the long odds, Team USA goes on to carry the pride of a nation yearning for a distraction of current world affairs, aka the Cold War. The inspirational climax of the movie comes with the world watching the team rise to the occasion and beating the Soviet team, prompting broadcaster Al Michaels' now famous question that millions viewing at home heard, "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!". The film ends with the US team on the gold medal platform, Brooks clearly beaming with pride.

Click here to buy Miracle