Movies about sports are generally not very good, especially ones based on actual athletes or teams. There's something about the subject that doesn't translate well to the big screen. Maybe it's because a cinematic retelling seems prosaic compared to the actual drama of the contest. A caveat...I don't include in the category of sports movies Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull or Jules Dassin's Night and the City. Though the first deals with boxing and the second with wrestling, neither of those great films is really about the sport they portray.
My favorite pure sports movie—and of many others apparently—is Hoosiers. It's not only a darn good film with terrific performances from Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey and Dennis Hopper (a comeback role after a lengthy stint in rehab), but I have personal reasons for liking it too. I'm a "hoosier" after all, and the film's evocation of small-town rural Indiana still tugs at my heartstrings. Hoosiers was shot in and around New Richmond, IN and the climactic scenes were shot in historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
I also know a little bit about the supercharged environment of Indiana high school hoops that Hackman's character encounters. My dad played high school ball and remembers watching the Milan High School team—and their star Bobby Plump—that shocked the sports world by winning the state championship in 1954. It's their story that the movie is based on. This is a classic David versus Goliath tale told with all the cinematic cliches of the genre, but it works wonderfully well.
Watch New York Times film critic A.O. Scott give a video essay on Hoosiers here.
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