What makes a great basketball movie?
It doesn’t hurt to have a Hall of Fame player in a starring role. A riveting storyline is a plus. Bugs Bunny helps.
Mostly, though, it’s a know-it-when-we-see-it understanding of what makes the game special on the silver screen.
From a cartoon mashup to a Wesley Snipes/Woody Harrelson vehicle to a genre-defining documentary, here are the 10 best basketball movies of all time.
10. Semi-Pro (2008)
A lesser Will Ferrell comedy is still a Will Ferrell comedy. He stars as Jackie Moon, the headband-sporting owner/player/coach of the Flint Tropics. Woody Harrelson and Andre Benjamin (of Outkast fame) join the cast. Should you turn off your brain? Yep. Will you laugh? Absolutely.
9. Forget Paris (1995)
What is a boilerplate Billy Crystal romantic comedy doing on this list? That would be an unanswerable question, except for the fact that Crystal portrayed a snarky referee who interacts with basketball greats including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Charles Barkley and Isiah Thomas. Just skip to those parts. It’s worth it.
8. Teen Wolf (1985)
If Michael J. Fox acted like he played basketball, he would’ve never landed a role. Still, Teen Wolf is a campy, rewatchable classic, which Fox carries with his charisma and despite his utter dearth of dribbling capabilities. Seriously...a werewolf hoopster? What’s not to like?
7. Space Jam (1996)
If Michael Jordan acted as well as he played basketball, he’d have averaged 2.6 points per game. Still, you can’t make a list of the best basketball movies without including Space Jam. This collision of Looney Tunes luminaries (hey, Bugs!) and the Jordan brand is arguably the apex of product-placement crossover. Look out for the LeBron James remake, because apparently he needed to convince us he really, really wants to Be Like Mike.
6. Blue Chips (1994)
Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway can’t act. Or, to be generous, they can’t act nearly as well as they can play basketball. But they don’t derail this flawed-yet-engrossing story of “Western University,” a college basketball powerhouse brought low by a recruit-bribing scandal (here’s looking at you, USC). Extra points to Nick Nolte for chewing the scenery as coach Pete Bell.
5. Above the Rim (1994)
Hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur was building a fine film career before his untimely death in 1996. See Above the Rim, in which Shakur played the charismatic, conniving younger brother of a trying-to-make-good street-ball coach. The movie features compelling on-court action and riveting drama while mostly avoiding cliches.
4. Hoosiers (1986)
Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper headline the cast of this basketball movie that your hoops-obsessed uncle will absolutely cite as his personal favorite. Indiana. Overcoming adversity. A rafter-rattling championship run. It has it all. As The Natural is to baseball, Hoosiers is to basketball: quintessential, enduring, timeless, unmissable.
3. He Got Game (1998)
Watching Ray Allen act opposite Denzel Washington is like watching Bryon Russell attempting to guard Michael Jordan. Meaning: He did a slightly better job than you remember despite the towering impossibility of the task. Overall, this is a pure Spike Lee Joint: occasionally overindulgent, but mostly impactful and emotionally resonant.
2. White Men Can't Jump (1992)
A SoCal blacktop hustler meets his match in this breezy meditation on race and sports. Can Woody dunk? Maybe not. Does his trash-talking friendship with Snipes resonate? Heck yes. Can he listen to Jimi? Perhaps. But can he hear him?
1. Hoop Dreams (1994)
A pair of aspirational Chicago players receive an honest, unscripted treatment in this compelling doc. The 171-minute runtime is daunting. But this is required viewing for hoops-heads everywhere. Against the stiff competition of Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump, critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel named it the best movie of 1994.
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