Movies About Unusual Sports

Some sports just don't translate that well into cinematic form. If I were to ask you to name a movie about baseball you might quickly come up with "Bang the Drum Slowly" or "Field of Dreams." If I were to ask you to name a football movie you may forward "North Dallas Forty" or "Brian's Song." Basketball, hockey and even tennis have been featured in a number of movies although you will be hard pressed to come up with a great movie that is actually about tennis. Some of the most entertaining movies ever made, for one reason or another, are about those sports that don't bring to mind many more movies that the ones listed here.

Roller Derby

Does anybody actually know how scoring is accomplished in roller derby? A very funny episode of "King of the Hill" touches upon this aspect of this odd sport when Luanne and Peggy become roller derby teammates. While "Rollerball" might spring to mind when asked to name a movie about roller derby, neither the James Caan original nor the remake actually qualify. The only movie title that should ever pass your lips when asked to name a movie about roller derby is the Raquel Welch classic "Kansas City Bomber." You won't learn much about how scoring is accomplished in this movie about one of the weirdest sports of them all, but you will learn just incredibly creepy the men who run women's roller derby are.

Bicycle Racing

The kind of all movies about bicycle racing isn't really about bicycle racing, but the sport is central to the theme and plot. "Breaking Away" features a very young Dennis Quaid and Daniel Stern and is one of the few inspirational sports movies that avoids delving into total bathos. Forget "Rocky" and give me "Breaking Away" as the most uplifting sports movie of the late '70s.

Bobsled

A great movie could be made about this thrilling, high speed sport. "Cool Runnings" isn't it, but it's pretty much all you've got. This is a weird movie about a weird moment in a weird sport. It would figure, wouldn't it, that the only movie you could possibly name about the sport of bobsled takes place mostly in Jamaica rather than Norway or Germany.

Bowling

When it comes to bowling, you've got two camps. One camp is devoted to "The Big Lebowski" and the other knows that the only real movie about bowling is "Kingpin." Nothing wrong with "The Big Lebowski" except that it all falls apart if you don't have Jeff Bridges in his best performance ever. The bowling aspect of "The Big Lebowski" simply isn't that interesting. On the other hand, "Kingpin" is consistently hilarious film that hangs on the bowling aspect of it. Yes, true, it would fall apart if either Woody Harrelson or Randy Quaid were less than perfect, but the bowling part of this truly weird movie would still stand up.

Curling

"Men With Brooms" is the only movie I can think of about the sport of curling. Must admit that I haven't yet seen "Men With Brooms" but that is my own failing and nothing to do with my bizarre love for the sport of curling. At times, mostly during the Winter Olympics, I wish I was Canadian so I could appreciate this beautiful sport even more.

Mexican Wrestling

"Nacho Libre" is the only movie that will ever need to be made about this weird little subgenre of a weird sport. Read my review of "Nacho Libre" to understand why I consider this to be the most overlooked comedy of the 2000s and how I can possibly tie this Jack Black flick to the aesthetic theories of Theodor Adorno.