Best Football Movies of All Time - Based on 130 Published Movie Rankings

Scene from Remember the Titans (2000), ranked number one football movie of all time.

Welcome to our Reel Fives pre-launch movie rankings for best football movies of all time. The rankings for football movies are based on our pre-launch rankings for its parent genre, sports movies, which captures sports film more broadly. The movie rankings on top football movies are based on the 130 movie ranking sources we found for sports movies. In the list of sports movies there were 105 movies and of those 17 movies were football movies; these 17 football films are ranked below.  As with the broader sports genre, these football movie rankings are based on rankings created by movie experts as well as rankings from polling sites that were found online.

Football runs deep in the American spirit and the film industry captures that in football movies through great plays, snarky one-liners, and compelling stories. Our rankings show that there is no one way to tell a football story. In Remember the Titans (2000), ranked the number one football movie, Coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) must win every single game to keep his job in a newly integrated school but deeply segregated town. While the movie is serious, it also has comedic relief through the interactions within the team. By combining serious themes, such as racism and integration, with humor the film is able to address the topic of segregation through football. Jerry McGuire (1996), ranked second, takes the football genre to a different level by focusing on sports agent Jerry McGuire and his sole client Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.). In taking the focus off the team dynamic, Jerry McGuire (1996) added depth to the football genre. The Blind Side (2009), ranked third, also took the focus off the football team. Instead the movie focused on one player (Michael Oher played by Quinton Aaron) and his relationship to the Touhy family, who take him in. The top three football movies show the different ways to tell a football story and that is what allows the genre to keep renewing itself. Of course there are football comedies, such as The Longest Yard (2005) (ranked fifth) and Varsity Blues (1999) (ranked ninth), that take a more humorous approach to football.

Best Football Movies of All Time
Percent of online top fives movies appear in shown
1 . Remember the Titans (2000): 20.9%
2 . Jerry Maguire (1996): 7.75%
3 . The Blind Side (2009): 6.20%
4 . Rudy (1993): 6.20%
5 . The Longest Yard (2005): 4.65%
6 . Any Given Sunday (1999): 3.87%
7 . Friday Night Lights (2004): 3.87%
8 . Brian's Song (1971): 3.10%
9 . Varsity Blues (1999): 2.32%
10 . We are Marshall (2006): 2.32%
11 . The Water Boy (1998): 1.55%
12 (tied). Invincible (2006): .775%
12 (tied). North Dallas Forty (1976): .775%
12 (tied). Little Giants (1994): .775%
12 (tied). Facing The Giants (2006): .775%
16 (tied). The Longest Yard (1974): .775%
16 (tied). Heaven Can Wait (1978): .775%

For a list of the 130 sources used for these rankings see our pre-launch rankings of sports movies.

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