Football, the greatest spectator sport on Earth, is a game people live and breathe to watch and die for. Football is an age-old game that has consistently outmatched any other game when it comes to giving us sporting legends. Pele, Maradona, Messi, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Cryuff, Kaka, Zlatan, Rooney – the list runs endlessly. Unsurprisingly, Hollywood has tapped into this vast market and given us cinematic experiences revolving around Football and its magic within. Presenting 15 greatest football movies ever…
The Big Green
The Big Green is a Hollywood Movie made under the Disney Banner. But do not let its kiddy approach fool you. The Big Green is based on high school football but it delivers a lot bigger social message of friendship and equality.
Escape to Victory
Escape to Victory is one of the oldest and greatest Football movies. The story revolves around a bunch of Allied Prisoners of War who go against a German Football team during the peak of the Second World War.
Bend it like Beckham
Bend it Like Beckham is another movie produced by Disney but unlike other Live Action Disney movies, this one has won many awards. The story is about an Indian Girl who loves football but somehow his Indian Culture gets in the way. It is a parody of sorts but completely worth it.
Kicking and Screaming
There are serious movies about this game and then there is Kicking and Screaming. Two fathers try to use their respective sons’ football teams to try and best the other guy. The movie is hilarious.
Green Street
The EPL is one of the fiercest and bloodiest Soccer leagues in the world and they are known so because of their loyal to a fault fans. Green Street is about the growing Football Hooliganism in the UK.
Goal
The Goal Trilogy is the greatest football trilogy ever but we are forced to only include the first Goal movie because of the impact it had on Hollywood Sports Drama. A Young man with a rough childhood is given an opportunity to play for one of the most famous EPL teams and the rest is history.
The Two Escobars
The Two Escobars is not fiction but a documentary based on the rise of Colombian Football and the hand of the Pablo Escobar (a big football fan) and the other great Drug Cartels behind it.
Mean Machine
The 2001 movie involves ex soccer legend Danny Meehan being sent to prison where he is tasked with leading the Prisoners’ Football team against a team made of Prison Guards in a friendly match.
Pele: Birth of a Legend
If you are a true football fan, you have to watch this movie. Pele is considered the greatest footballer ever. This is his story of how he arose from a Brazilian nobody to an international icon.
Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos
This documentary touches up on the subject of American Soccer, a land where the NFL football reins supreme rather than regular football. New York Cosmos is probably America’s greatest Soccer Club.
Rudo y Cursi
Rudo y Cursi is a Mexican movie about Tato and Beto, two talented, down on their luck football players working in a banana plantation until opportunity in the form of a hot shot sports agent arrives at their door.
The Game of Their Lives
This movie has Gerard Butler in it. That is enough f a reason to watch it. The story involves the 1950’s U.S Soccer team, who were considered the underdogs of Football at that time, taking on the world champions, the British National Football Team in a World Cup preliminary match.
Shaolin Soccer
And who said Chinese movies are only about Kung Fu?!?!? Well this movie is about Kung Fu but also about Football. The story involves a bunch of Shaolin Monks who use their martial arts to become Chinese Football Champions.
The Damned United
The movie features Michael Sheen in the lead role and tells the story of Brian Clough and his controversial 44 day tenure of Leeds United, one of the greatest English Football Clubs of its time.
Will
Will is not your regular Football movie but it happens to be my favorite of the lot. It tells the heart touching story of an Orphan (and Football Fan) that travels all the way across Europe to get to the 2005 Champions League Final in Istanbul.
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