Do all sports movies feature a big competition?
It feels like every sports film ends the same way. But do they? I crunched the numbers of 1,910 sports movies to find out more about them.
Karate Kid: Legends hits cinemas this week, reviving one of film’s most durable formulas of the underdog facing off against a seemingly unbeatable rival with everything on the line.
This made me wonder - what percentage of sports movies feature a big race, competition or tournament?
I looked at the plots of 1,910 sports feature films to find out.
Sports movies as the underdog
Sports movies have held a steady place in global cinema for over a century. While their share of production has never rivalled genres like drama or comedy, the genre punches above its weight in cultural visibility. The past three decades have seen a clear increase in sports-themed titles.
Which sport takes the top spot?
Boxing has been the most popular sport throughout film history, featuring in 15.3% of sports movies.
It appears in everything from gritty indies to prestige dramas. Raging Bull, Ali, The Hurricane, Southpaw, Hands of Stone, Hard Times, The Great White Hope and The Set-Up all build stories around the ring.
One reason boxing may have been the 20th-century movie champ is that it lends itself nicely to a more straightforward story, well told. It offers a perfectly structured narrative, even for those unaware of the rules of the sport - one character, one opponent, and a clear win or loss.
But as boxing has started to wane on the big screen, other (more complex) sports are zooming past to take its top spot.
Football stories are more common than ever. The Blind Side, Varsity Blues, We Are Marshall, Undefeated, Invincible, Brian’s Song and Safety cover everything from college glory to grief and recovery. Soccer too, especially outside the US. The Miracle of Bern, Pelé: Birth of a Legend, Offside, The Two Escobars and Next Goal Wins all lean into the global side of the game.
Basketball has also surged. White Men Can’t Jump, Above the Rim, Love & Basketball, Hustle and High Flying Bird each bring a different angle, from playgrounds to pro leagues.
Even cricket, mostly absent in decades past, now has films like 83, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and Iqbal drawing big domestic crowds.
Making mat and winning nationals
On to our core question - what percentage of sports movies feature a big competitive event?
Almost all.
Even in the 1960s, which saw the lowest share, just over 84% of sports films included a final tournament, match, or high-stakes event.
In the current century, the number approaches universality.
Some movies do play with the expected formula - Million Dollar Baby puts its key fight at the midpoint, shifting the emotional climax to the aftermath of injury and a moral dilemma. The Wrestler, Foxcatcher, and The Rider also turn their backs on the tournament ending, focusing instead on decline, loss, or personal reckoning.
But these are the exceptions. The overwhelming majority of sports movies serve up a final competition as the climax.
And in two-thirds of cases, this showdown goes the way of our heroes.
Most sports movies seem to be built around doubt, such as a team no one backs, a coach no one trusts, or an athlete who’s already been counted out.
Hoosiers follows a side-lined coach leading small-town kids to the state finals. Creed spotlights a fighter with a famous name but no track record. Cool Runnings sends four sprinters to the Winter Olympics with no snow and no respect. The Replacements, Whip It, The Mighty Ducks, McFarland, USA, and Warrior all work from the same starting point.
And the counterpoint to this doubt is recognition. In Bend It Like Beckham, the goal clears space between two generations. Breaking Away makes a college bike race into a stand-in for a whole town’s worth. The Karate Kid sets up a crane kick that ends more than just a fight.
Doubt drives the story. Recognition closes it.
It’s a game of two halves
Before we end this journey on a winning high, we must acknowledge that it’s not always plain sailing (least of all in films about sailing).
Injury, trauma and sacrifice run through a surprising number of sports films.
North Dallas Forty shows players treated like disposable parts in a broken system. The Program has athletes pushing their bodies to the edge under pressure from coaches, boosters and each other. Concussion shifts the focus entirely, following the real-life doctor who exposed long-term brain damage in American football.
Racing films go the same way. Rush includes a fireball crash that nearly kills one of its leads. Borg vs McEnroe shows how mental pressure can damage just as deeply.
In boxing, Fat City centres on decline rather than glory. Raging Bull follows a champion whose greatest damage comes outside the ring. Girlfight highlights both physical and emotional cost, especially for fighters pushed to prove something bigger than themselves.
In fact, movies around boxing are the most likely to kill off a significant character, followed by soccer and ‘the other football’.
Notes
The data for today’s article came from OMDb, IMDb, Wikipedia and The Numbers. The ‘sports’ classification is IMDb’s genre tag.
Thank you for your extensive reply! So I’ve seen all but 1 of the films on which you based your statistic (I watched a different version of 2 Half-times in Hell). I guess we differ on definition of “major character”. In most of your list, the character who died was in the protagonist’s past or background, not necessarily even during the film. Or if present, a bit part. So I didn’t think of that as a major character. I did overlook Cool Kids Don’t Cry. United is a Busby Babes storyline. And I forgot another — Will — where the dad dies in the first 10 minutes — to me still not a major character. But yes, small sample size skews statistics. Thanks again for thinking about this!
Hi Stephen, I love your work, thank you for doing this. However, I am curious about your soccer/european football stat that 10% of such films have a major character die. I have reviewed almost 500 soccer movies (half of them documentaries), and of the 250-ish narrative films, I can't recall many major characters dying. The only ones I can think of are the features about the Busby babes. My hobby website is soccermoviemom.com.