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Our All Time Favorite Baseball Movies

Chadwick Boseman in 42 the baseball biopic from Warner Bros.
Chadwick Boseman in the baseball biopic 42 from Warner Bros.

Just a few days ago, the Boston Red Sox brought home another World Series Championship in a face-off against the L.A. Dodgers. For avid followers of baseball, the end of the season is at times bittersweet. While it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of it all, it’s just as easy to forget that it’s a long wait until spring training!

But for both baseball and movie fans, there’s always one place you can turn to in times like these: the movies.

Here at Reelgood, we’re big fans of classic sports film. So in honor of the end of baseball season, here are our all-time favorite baseball movies:

The Natural
Type: Drama, Sport
Release Date: 1984
Director: Barry Levinson
Starring: Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger
Rating: 82% RT, 7.5/10 IMDb

A promising baseball player is injured on his way to a tryout and doesn’t return to the game for over a decade. When he comes back as a Major League Baseball rookie, he’s essentially an old man. Robert Redford plays Roy Hobbs who surprises everyone and manages to bring what was only a mediocre team to victory time and again, despite all expectations. What’s great about The Natural is seeing Robert Redford at the height of his career with cinematic greats like Robert Duvall and Glenn Close by his side.

The Sandlot
Type: Children, Comedy, Drama, Family
Release Date: 1993
Director: David M. Evans
Starring: Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, James Earl Jones
Rating: 56% RT, 7.8/10 IMDb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec9W8JbFykw

The Sandlot is one of those rare movies that manages to bridge the gap between a movie that is just for kids, and a movie that adults love as well. The same cannot be said for the movie’s sequels, which shall remain nameless. (But really isn’t that hard to figure out.) This film about a group of neighborhood boys playing ball in the summer of ‘62 is sweetly nostalgic and innocent. The best thing about it is it’s not only about baseball but also about the magical time that is childhood.

Major League
Type: Comedy, Sport
Release Date: 1989
Director: David S. Ward
Starring: Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Wesley Snipes
Rating: 82% RT, 7.2/10 IMDb

One of the only pure comedies on this list, Major League is about a group of underdogs who were hired specifically to fail. Things don’t go quite to plan, however, when the teammates manage to pull off a miracle or two, seemingly fueled by their sheer unbridled determination.

The Rookie
Type: Drama, Family, Sport
Release Date: 2002
Director: John Lee Hancock
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Rachel Griffiths, Jay Hernandez
Rating: 84% RT, 7/10 IMDb

While the plot feels a lot like The Natural, The Rookie brings a lot to the table as well. When a high school chemistry teacher and baseball coach agrees to try out for a major league team, he is the last person on earth who expects that he will make it. Dennis Quaid was the perfect person to play Jim Morris, who was a real person and actually played for one year with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

A League of Their Own
Type: Comedy, Drama, Family, Sport
Release Date: 1992
Director: Penny Marshall
Starring: Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Lori Petty
Rating: 78% RT 7.2/10 IMDb

A League of Their Own is the fictional story of a team who played with the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, a league that was created in 1943, when there was a shortage of male players due to World War II. With some great performances by Geena Davis, Lori Petty, and Tom Hanks, and unforgettable lines like “there’s no crying in baseball!”, A League of Their Own is an absolute classic.

Moneyball
Type: Comedy, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Family
Release Date: 2011
Director: Bennett Miller
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Rating: 94% RT, 7.6/10 IMDb

Another true story, Moneyball takes a bit of a different angle and asks: what do math and baseball have in common? Well, as it turns out – a lot. Putting together a winning team is easy if you have the right numbers. But convincing the higher ups that you’ve got magic in your hands is a bit harder. This movie earned Jonah Hill his first Oscar nomination for best supporting actor and was a turning point in his career.

Field of Dreams
Type: Fantasy, Drama, Family, Science-Fiction
Release Date: 1989
Director: Phil Alden Robinson
Starring: Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Gaby Hoffmann
Rating: 98% RT Critics, 93% RT Audience, 8/10 IMDb

Field of Dreams is a movie about baseball, the relationship between a father and a son, and trusting your gut. With a little bit of magic, watching this one unfold is sure to give you butterflies in your stomach.

 The Bad News Bears
Type: Comedy, Drama, Family, Sport
Release Date: 1976
Director: Michael Ritchie
Starring: Walter Matthau, Tatum O’Neal, Jackie Earle Haley
Rating: 97% RT, 7.3/10 IMDb

The Bad News Bears contains what is probably one of Walter Matthaus most memorable performances. Here he plays a drunken ex-ballplayer who is enlisted to coach a group of un-coach-able young players. With little hope that he can turn the team around, he appoints a talented young pitcher in the hopes that she can teach the rest of them a thing or two.

42
Type: Biography, Drama, Sport
Release Date: 2013
Director: Brian Hegleland
Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Alan Tudyk
Rating: 80% RT, 7.5/10 IMDb

This 2013 biopic stars Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman in the role of one of the most famous baseball players of all time: Jackie Robinson. The film follows Robinson’s trials and tribulations as he goes from underdog to top dog during his successful career with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

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