An underdog team takes the field. A has-been suits up one final time for a last-gasp grab at glory. A never-was gets his or her shot to prove they have what it takes. Sports movies are never just sports movies — they’re tales of the human spirit triumphing over adversity, or metaphors for the little guy taking on the corporate Goliaths and grown-up rich kids and beating them at their own rigged game. Sometimes they smell like team spirit. Sometimes they inspire with examples of exceptional individualism. And other times, they prove that a well-timed explosion by a deranged groundskeeper trying to kill a gopher will help you go home a winner. But the great ones always make you want to stand up and do the wave in the theater.

1. Rocky – 1976

Photo: UNITED ARTISTS/PHOTOFEST

Imdb score: 8.1/10

To describe Rocky as a movie about prize-fighting is about as helpful as saying that Marty, which it resembles in many ways, was a picture about butchering. Marty, you’ll remember, was a not-too-handsome but essentially decent sort of fellow who just happened to work in a butcher shop in the Bronx. Well, Rocky is a not-too-bright but essentially decent young man who just happens to be a third-rate heavyweight working out of a second-rate gym in South Philadelphia (and on the side, for eating money, breaks the thumbs of delinquent debtors on behalf of a local loanshark.) On paper, neither character may seem terribly appealing, but on the screen they steal your heart away, but completely.

For the course of its two hours we learn that, given the incentive, a man can transform himself from a bum to a worthy contender — or perhaps more important, that America is still a place where a man can haul himself up by his own bootstraps provided he believes in himself and has the will to do so. True, the film presents Rocky with a particularly fluky opportunity — a crack at a championship match after the original challenger has dropped out. The champ happens to think that a bout with Rocky, who calls himself “The Italian Stallion,” would be good PR. No matter. It’s the rigorous training that Rocky puts himself through, the growing pride that he takes in himself — plus the doubts, plus his touching love for a shy and awkward slavey — that become the heart of this picture, and which touch the hearts of us all.

2. Remember the Titans – 2000

Photo: DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC/PHOTOFES

Imdb score: 7.8/10

"Remember the Titans" is a parable about racial harmony, yoked to the formula of a sports movie. Victories over racism and victories over opposing teams alternate so quickly that sometimes we're not sure if we're cheering for tolerance or touchdowns. Real life is never this simple, but then that's what the movies are for--to improve on life, and give it the illusion of form and purpose.

Denzel Washington and Will Patton are the stars, two football coaches, one black, one white, whose lives are linked for a season, even though neither wants it that way. In 1971, a high school in Alexandria, Va., is integrated, and the board brings in Coach Boone (Washington) as the new head coach, replacing Coach Yoast (Patton), who is expected to become his assistant. Yoast understandably does not want to be demoted in the name of affirmative action. Boone doesn't like it, either: He lost his own job in North Carolina, and "I can't do that to this man." But Alexandria's black residents gather on Boone's lawn to cheer for the first black coach at the newly integrated high school, and Boone realizes he has a responsibility. So does Yoast: His white players say they won't play for a black coach, but Yoast doesn't want them to lose college scholarships, so he swallows his pride and agrees to be Boone's assistant, leading the whites back to practice.

3. Friday Night Lights

Photo: HULU

Imdb socre: 8.6/10

For many people a drama about the travails of a high school football team in small town Texas might not sound like the most appetising fare. But Friday Night Lights, which makes a long overdue reappearance on British television on Tuesday – the first season was originally shown on ITV4 in 2007 – is one of the best American dramas of recent years. That is admittedly quite a claim in these days of Breaking Bad, The Wire and Mad Men. But Friday Night Lights's appeal lies in the fact that it offers something quite different from many other acclaimed shows: optimism.

The story of coach Eric Taylor, his pragmatic wife Tami and the various losers, dreamers, jocks and dropouts who make up their high school football team , Friday Night Lights is by turns family drama, sports thriller and a clear-eyed examination of the nature of the American dream.The show is set in the tiny town of Dillon, Texas, and the America presented here is a country of faith, football and firearms.

Friday Night Lights neither shies away from that (characters attend church as a matter of course) nor sugarcoats it. Episodes tackle race and class, and what life is like for those who don't embrace either God or football – those like the Taylors' clever daughter Julie, who dream of shaking Dillon's dust from their shoulders and reinventing themselves in a big city. We also see, heartbreakingly, that for a kid like the troubled Tim Riggins, playing football is likely to be as good as it gets; a high point that will be over by the age of 18.

Best of all the show manages to depict that most rare of things, a truly believable television marriage. The relationship between Coach Taylor and Tami is filled with love, humour and the odd disagreement about home decoration. It might have its rocky patches but the issues always seem organic rather that tacked on to give the plot a twist. In part that's a credit to the acting of Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton – Friday Night Lights is also a superbly well-cast show – but it's also because of the way the show presents characters and actions without fuss or judgment.

Ultimately what makes the show stand apart is its faith in humanity. Where Breaking Bad and The Sopranos unpick the dark heart of the American dream, Friday Night Lights is an optimistic hymn to the nation that wrought it. It knows life isn't perfect or wonderful, that terrible things happen – but it tells us too that life is worth living, that friends are worth celebrating and that even the smallest of dreams can be worth chasing. It is a show unafraid to wear its heart on its rough-edged sleeve, and all the more welcome for it.

4. Rudy – 1993

Photo: Amazon

Imdb score: 7.5/10

Rudy is a 1993 American biographical sports film directed by David Anspaugh. It is an account of the life of Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, who harbored dreams of playing football at the University of Notre Dame despite significant obstacles. It was the first film that the Notre Dame administration allowed to be shot on campus since Knute Rockne, All American in 1940.

In 2005, Rudy was named one of the best 25 sports movies of the previous 25 years in two polls by ESPN (#24 by a panel of sports experts, and #4 by ESPN.com users). It was ranked the 54th-most inspiring film of all time in the American Film Institute's "100 Years" series.

The film was released on October 15, 1993, by TriStar Pictures. It stars Sean Astin as the title character, along with Ned Beatty, Jason Miller, Robert Prosky and Charles S. Dutton. The film had supporting roles from Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, being both actors' first film roles. The script was written by Angelo Pizzo, who created Hoosiers (1986), which was also directed by Anspaugh.

5. Bull Durham

Photo: Youtube

Imdb score: 7.1/10

Bull Durham is a 1988 American romantic comedy sports film. It is partly based upon the minor-league baseball experiences of writer/director Ron Shelton and depicts the players and fans of the Durham Bulls, a minor-league baseball team in Durham, North Carolina.

The film stars Kevin Costner as "Crash" Davis, a veteran catcher brought in to teach rookie pitcher Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) about the game in preparation for reaching the major leagues. Baseball groupie Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) romances Nuke but finds herself increasingly attracted to Crash. Also featured are Robert Wuhl and Trey Wilson, as well as popular baseball "clown" Max Patkin.

Bull Durham was a commercial success, grossing over $50 million in North America, well above its estimated budget, and was a critical success as well. Sports Illustrated ranked it the #1 Greatest Sports Movie of all time. The Moving Arts Film Journal ranked it #3 on its list of the 25 Greatest Sports Movies of All-Time. In addition, the film is ranked #55 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies." It is also ranked #97 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Laughs" list, and #1 on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the 53 best-reviewed sports movies.

Former minor leaguer Ron Shelton hit a grand slam with his directorial debut, one of the most revered sports movies of all time. Durham Bulls devotee Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon)—who every year takes a new player under her wing (and into her bed)—has singled out the loose-cannon pitching prospect Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins), a big-league talent with a rock-bottom maturity level. But she’s unable to shake Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), the veteran catcher brought in to give Nuke some on-the-field seasoning. A breakthrough film for all three of its stars and an Oscar nominee for Shelton’s highly quotable screenplay, Bull Durham is a freewheeling hymn to wisdom, experience, and America’s pastime, tipping its cap to all those who grind it out for love of the game.

6. 42 – 2013

Photo: Warner Bros.

Imdb score: 7.5/10

Pretty when it should be gritty and grandiosely noble instead of just telling it like it was, 42 needlessly trumps up but still can’t entirely spoil one of the great American 20th century true-life stories, the breaking of major league baseball’s color line by Jackie Robinson. Whether in the deep South or the streets of Brooklyn, life here looks spiffy and well-scrubbed enough to appear in a department store window, while the soaring musical accompaniment seems to be stamping all the protagonists’ passports for immediate admission to that great ballpark in the sky. All the same, lead actors Chadwick Boseman and Harrison Ford cut through the artifice with engaging performances as Robinson and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, respectively, and audiences who don’t know much about the first black man to play professional baseball will be suitably impressed. Hit-starved Warner Bros. should be able to stir moderately good attendance domestically, although foreign prospects, as always with baseball yarns, are slight.

7. Moneyball

Photo: Sony Pictures

Imdb score: 7.6/10

Moneyball is a 2011 American biographical film directed by Bennett Miller and written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. The film is based on the 2003 nonfiction book by Michael Lewis, an account of the Oakland Athletics baseball team's 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane's attempts to assemble a competitive team. In the film, Beane (Brad Pitt) and assistant general manager Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), faced with the franchise's limited budget for players, build a team of undervalued talent by taking a sophisticated sabermetric approach to scouting and analyzing players.

Columbia Pictures bought the rights to Lewis's book in 2004, hiring Stan Chervin to write the screenplay. David Frankel was initially set to direct with Zaillian now writing the screenplay, but was soon replaced by Steven Soderbergh, who planned to make the film in a semi-documentary style featuring interviews from real athletes, and having the real players and coaches on the team portray themselves. However, prior to its July 2009 filming start, the film was put in turnaround due to creative differences between Soderbergh and Sony over a last-minute script rewrite. Soderbergh exited, and Miller was hired to direct, with Pitt becoming a producer and Sorkin being hired to provide rewrites. Filming began in July 2010, taking place at various stadiums such as Dodger Stadium and Oakland Coliseum.

Moneyball premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and was released on September 23, 2011, to box office success and critical acclaim, particularly for its acting and screenplay. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor for Pitt and Best Supporting Actor for Hill.

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