I think this is the best baseball movie ever made. Here's my top 5:
1) Bull Durham
2) Major League
3) The Natural
4) Bad News Bears (original)
5) Eight Men Out
I think Field of Dreams is amazing, but I don't really consider it a true baseball movie (it's about one guy building a baseball field, instead of an acutal baseball TEAM).
Great lists. Here's my top movies:
1-Major League
2-The Final Season
3-The Rookie
4-Bull Durham
5-Moneyball
_____
6-The Bad News Bears (1976)
7-Bang The Drum Slowly
8-Trouble With The Curve
9-For Love Of The Game
10-Field of Dreams
*Mr. Baseball, A League of Their Own, Little Big League
http://minoringinbaseball.com/
solid list.
Season's Greetings!
With sports films I think you need to separate factual ones vs fictional ones. It's too tough to compare say Major League to Eight Men Out since one is based on true events and the other has freedom to write its own script.
Eight men out is my favourite non-fiction baseball film. By all accounts it seems very factual other than implying the banned players never played again after the series they threw (in real life they played another year).
I'd put Major league ahead of Bull Durham in the fictional category; Durham is solid but I prefer Major league due to having more interesting characters; BD focuses on two players, Major league focuses on 5 (ceranno, dorn, vaughn, harris, taylor). Both films had one actor with legit ball skills (Costner and Sheen) but Tim Robbins was a let down; he's a fantastic actor but clearly a terrible athlete- his character is supposed to throw 100 miles per hour but I'd be surprised if Robbins could even throw half that fast. Also there are some unbelievable parts of Bull durham; both Crash and Nuke skip over AA in each direction and Nukes first start he walks AND strikes out 18 batters.
Durham is solid though; Sarandon and Costner are good; one of Costners few films he doesn't mail in any scenes. Robbins did show his solid acting ability, weak throwing mechanics aside.
I'm a cricket fan, but LOVE a good baseball movie. You guys do baseball movies VERY well.
Here is my list:
1 - Field of Dreams
2 - 42
3 - Bull Durham
4 - The Natural
5 - A League of Their Own
Very strange. I had read that Bull Durham was supposedly the greatest baseball movie ever made, so as I had neve viewed it, decided it was time. All I can say is, WTF? This is a terrible film. Hardly any baseball in it at all. So I went on the Internet to validate my thinking, and yes, I found that Sports Illustrated did indeed call this a great baseball film.
So forgive me, I must have watched the highly edited version, because what I saw was a great, great disappointment and these are minutes of my life I will never get back. It is a terrible film. "The Bad News Bears" (original 1976) was a far better "baseball" film.
It just blew my mind. Oh well, a lot of people think highly other films that are way out there. Who am I to judge. Thank God we brought it home from the library and didn't spend a dime on it.
Very disappointing.
Bull Durham
Major League
Sandlot
Field of Dreams
The Natural
Bull Durham
Eight Men Out
Field of Dreams
Major League
The Natural
And let me add "Cobb" as a potential number 5. Overlooked. I used to read English Movie Magazines when I was bored in College in the Library, and they thought Cobb was a Great Film, an interesting pyschological look at the mind of a complicated man. I think one publication put it in their top 5 films of the year. Just a lil side note...
Dave "Crown Time" Blankenship for Time Man of the Year.
Field Of Dreams
Bull Durham
Major League
61*
Eight Men Out
Honorable Mention
Mr. Baseball is a fun movie
Some of my favorites...
The Stratton Story (bio of Monty Stratton)
Angels in the Outfield (Original...and the new version wasn't bad either)
Pride of the Yankees
Pride of St. Louis (not as well-known as Pride of the Yankees...this one was about Dizzy Dean)
It Happens every Spring (comedy/fantasy, with Ray Milland as a college professor who has a potion that can make a baseball jump off of wood, and he becomes a big-league pitcher)
I also enjoyed *61. which was about the 1961 home run chase between Maris and Mantle...the accuracy of the movie and portrayal of the characters was excellent.
No order:
Eight Men Out
The Natural
*61
Moneyball
Major League (also cuz it's funny!)
1-The Natural
2-Bull Durham
3-Pride of the Yankees
4-Field of Dreams
5-The Benchwarmers (mostly a guilty pleasure)