Moneyball
Directed by Bennett Miller
2011
A film about a spreadsheet that plays like a thriller: Sorkin and Zaillian turn Billy Beane's 2002 Oakland roster into an argument between a broke general manager and every scout in his building.
★ 6.7
The Movies canon
Sourced and screened.
Every film chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 731 films or filter by genre, director, place, and year.
Browse all 731 films or filter by genre, director, place, and year.
Field of Dreams
Directed by Phil Alden Robinson
1989
They built the field on an Iowa farm and people still drive to see it: a man plows under his corn because a voice tells him to, and the last reel gets everyone.
★ 5.4
Bull Durham
Directed by Ron Shelton
1988
Ron Shelton played five years of minor league baseball and wrote what he actually saw: the mound conference about wedding presents is the funniest scene in any sports film.
★ 4.8
The Natural
Directed by Barry Levinson
1984
Randy Newman's fanfare is the sound of American sport: Robert Redford plays a player who arrives too old and too late, and the film treats baseball as an outright myth.
★ 4.4
The Sandlot
Directed by David Mickey Evans
1993
It has become the film American men quote at each other about being eleven: a new kid in 1962 learns baseball on a vacant lot, and the stakes are imaginary and total.
★ 3.9
The Bad News Bears
Directed by Michael Ritchie
1976
The children swear constantly, the coach drinks in the dugout, and nobody learns very much: Walter Matthau took a Little League team and made the least sentimental sports film ever released.
★ 3.3
Eight Men Out
Directed by John Sayles
1988
The 1919 World Series fix filmed as a labor dispute rather than a scandal: John Sayles shows eight underpaid White Sox taking money from gamblers, and an owner who pays them nothing.
★ 3.3