MovieChat Forums > Any Given Sunday (1999) Discussion > Best sports movie ever?

Best sports movie ever?

posted 8 years ago by Renovatio (2990)
3 replies | jump to latest

I love this movie.... It's so good... Highly stylised, over the top and you can almost feel the sweat splash onto the screen... Visceral!

all of this and it gets the emotions right, the politics right, the scheming and the conflicted interests...

This is possibly the best sports movie ever, yet I dont hear people referencing it, talking about it, or emulating it... why?

Is it too masculine and stylised a movie for contemporary audiences? I can get why critics dont like it, as they probably have bad memories of sports in general and mostly underappreciate Oliver Stone's visual and aural mastery...

This movie should have won Oscars

[–] stickman38 (3408) 3 years ago

No way, it's not the best but it's good. Like another thread in here mentions, the camera work is very odd in this movie. I'm really not sure why Oliver Stone decided to shoot this movie in what I would call "freak out mode"? LOL!

It's all over the place. Zoom in, zoom out, put the camera low, put it high etc..etc.. I don't get why Stone did this? Unless he was just experimenting with funky uses of the camera, otherwise I think it hurt the film to some degree. And Stone knows what he's doing when making films, so yeah, strange choice. With that being said, I still think it's good and would give it a 6.8 out of 10.

Although, the ending definitely leaves it open for a sequel that never came to pass. I guess this one wasn't successful enough to justify a follow up. I mean, according to IMDB, it grossed over $100 million on a $55 million budget. That's probably not good enough for a sequel. The sequel would probably be better than the original because you would be pulling for Tony to crush his former team. lol.

[–] [email protected] (2030) 7 months ago

For Americans maybe but it doesn't have that universal appeal and another thing vital to make it beloved, heart. This is more like a seedy side of sports, but everyone is seedy.

[–] e3e34ifj (1912) 7 months ago

It's definitely the best film about American football. This is one of those movies where I think it's crazy that it's not considered an all-time great, that the majority of people think it's okay at best. Huh? This film is really interesting. If this isn't the best sports movie, I'd say that distinction could maybe go to Bull Durham, Rudy, or White Men Cant Jump.