The 7 Best Baseball Movies

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In tribute to the baseball playoffs which are in full swing, I thought I would highlight my favorite seven movies about baseball and the fall classic.  If you want to add your own two cents, you can rank the category here.  And also check out our member rankings for other great Sports Movies.

Before I get started, lets talk a little bit about criteria.  I was looking for the baseball movies that gave me the best appreciation of the players that played the game and/or made me feel good about the game.  These are not necessarily the most technically accurate or most humorous, but rather these are Movies that embody the spirit of the game.


7.  Eight Men Out - We start with a downer film, but yet a very good movie that honestly portrays the early days professional baseball.  Eight Men Out follows the story of the infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox, nicknamed the "Black Sox", who threw the World Series for a big payday from gamblers.  Feeling spurned by a miserly owner, most of the players on the team conspired to lose the Series that they were heavily favored to win.  The film also follows the brilliant play of Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was part of the conspiring group but who chose not to cooperate and actually had a brilliant series.  It is a very good period piece on the early years of professional baseball.


6.  Bull Durham - This hilarious romp follows the players at the Durham Bulls minor league ball team, in particular an up and coming Pitcher (Tim Robbins) and a washed up Catcher (Kevin Costner).   Then you throw in sexy Susan Sarandon trying to woo both players and it makes for a fun filled romp around the bases.  


5.  A League of their Own - Following the All American Girls Professional Baseball league which was formed during World War II, this poignant film is both funny and touching.  Tom Hanks is brilliant as a "has been" alcoholic Manager that inherits a girls team, the Rockford Peaches, near Chicago.  It follows his transformation from reluctantly accepting the "insulting" job to gaining respect and admiration for his team of female players.  Geena Davis plays the teams star and Lori Petty is outstanding as her "overshadowed" younger sister.  The cast includes Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell and Jon Lovitz, who all give their career best performances in this one of a kind classic.


4.  Bang the Drum Slowly - One could call this tear-jerker a Brian's Song for baseball.  The movie includes a young and unknown Robert DeNiro as a rookie catcher who has been diagnosed with Hodgkins disease and is playing in his last season and Michael Moriarty as a veteran pitcher who befriends him during this sad but beautiful movie.


3.  Pride of the Yankees - I don't know what it is about Gary Cooper but I just love watching his movies.  There is a comfortableness in his roles that is just a joy to watch.  Of course, then you give Gary Cooper the role of Lou Gehrig, one of the greatest stories in baseball history, and it is a combination that is tough to beat.  The film follows Lou Gehrig's rise from a shy rookie to the baseball legend that he became.  Cooper delivers Gehrig's famous farewell speech, after learning he has an incurable degenerative disease later named Lou Gehrig's Disease, with such grace that you really feel as if you were there.


2.  Field of Dreams - I am not a huge Kevin Costner fan, per se, but this is Costner's seminal work -- in Field of Dreams he paints his masterpiece.  I love this movie and frankly it was really hard to pick a number 1 and a number 2 between my two favorites.  The movie follows the life of a couple in Iowa struggling to save their family farm but it is really much more.  The film is an exploration of four "unfulfilled lives" seeking one last shot at redemption, the tragedy of Shoeless Joe's brilliant career tainted by the Black Sox cheating scandal and of course America's love of the game of baseball.  The final scene in which James Earl Jones delivers his oration on America and baseball is also one of my favorite movie scenes ever.  The richness of his phenomenal voice, the cadence of his voice...I can listen to it over and over.  "If you build it, they will come Ray...they will come, Ray...they will come to Iowa for reasons they cannot even fathom..."   You can listen to this beautiful speech on Youtube.


1.  The Natural - From a baseball perspective, this movie has it all; a young star, scandal, an amazing comeback and all the while great baseball.  Ultimately, I chose it over Field of Dreams because it was more fully a baseball movie than Field of Dreams.  What an intriguing story, Roy Hobbs, once a great young prospect that only plays briefly in the majors because of a shadowy scandal with a woman (Kim Basinger) ending in his being shot.  Then Hobbs attempts a comeback 14 years later to try to save a franchise from an "evil" owner.  All the story elements are there and then a brilliant cast including Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close and Wilford Brimley carry it home.  I can still call up the song every time I think of Hobbs climatic home run...Da Na Na...Da da duuuu.  It is a must see for any baseball fan.


Enjoy the playoffs and the World Series.