In February 2025, I happened upon a Ranker list entitled “The Best Baseball Movies of All Time” (pictured below). After mentally registering a few points of disagreement, I posted the list to my Facebook feed underneath the comment: “This list needs some work.” I also added a “thinking face” emoji, as if to suggest, with only a hint of irony, that this was a matter of grave importance.
As it turned out, my sentiment was shared by many others. Dozens of people commented on the list, both adding to and subtracting from the selections made by Ranker’s voters. What appeared to be a matter of idle amusement actually provided a spark of controversy.
Now, to be fair, the Ranker list is pretty solid. Admittedly I don’t hold The Sandlot (1993) in the same kind of esteem, but it’s a fun a movie. “You’re killin’ me, Smalls!” “The kid is an L-7 weenie.” These lines are an indelible part of baseball culture and of American sports culture writ large. Something similar could be said about Major League (1989). Though a movie that I myself love, enduring as the ultimate vehicle for the humor of Hall of Fame announcer Bob Uecker (1934-2025), Major League never transcends the sports-movie clichés that are its stock-in-trade. Indeed, with this in mind, it’s unthinkable to put Major League ahead of The Bad News Bears (1976), which practically set the mold for zany sports comedies, featuring a washed-up, beer-guzzling coach (Walter Matthau) tasked with leading a batch of misfits and weirdos to a championship.
So, if I’m leaving (however grudgingly) these classics off my list of “Top Ten Baseball Movies,” which movies would make the cut? And how I would I rank them? This is an almost impossible task. Rotten Tomatoes has compiled a useful catalog of 67 baseball films, of which I have seen nearly 40. Whittling that number down to ten is not easy, particularly when only a handful of these movies won or were nominated for Academy Awards or other honors. So, with only a modicum of “objective” criteria to lean on, I have decided to formulate my list according to the following standards: (i) the degree to which the film in question explores or illuminates a certain aspect or attribute of baseball, (ii) the quality of the filmmaking itself, whether in terms of acting, cinematography, direction, score, screenplay, etc., (iii) my own personal attachment to or feelings about the movie itself. Admittedly, the last criterion is pretty woozy—on any given day, I would be just as likely to watch Major League as a movie like Sugar (see below), if only because Major League is as comfortable and familiar as a favorite T-shirt—but I will use it as a tiebreaker of sorts. Thus it’s fair to say that, when ranking the top three films on my list, the third criterion plays a crucial role. I will say more in due course.
Everybody Wants Some!! (dir. Richard Linklater, 2016)
Richard Linklater (1960-) is one of the best American auteurs of his generation, keeping company with the likes of Quentin Tarantino (1963-) and David Fincher (1962-). First, with movies such as Slacker (1990) and Dazed and Confused (1993), he practically defined low-budget, indie cinema in the 1990s. Later, with the so-called Before trilogy and his magnum opus Boyhood (2014), Linklater established himself as a master of cinéma vérité.
And yet, despite his lofty status, Linklater is no scion of Hollywood. Raised in and around Houston, he worked on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico prior to starting his filmmaking career. Before that, he played college baseball at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. He was a pretty good player, too. However, as the years passed, what Linklater really missed about baseball was not the games, still less was it the hard work. No, it was the time he spent with his teammates, especially during the early 1980s. Everybody Wants Some!! is a remembrance of these experiences. As he put it in a 2016 interview:
Culturally it was a fun and interesting moment to look back on. I saw my cast disco dancing and they’d say, “Wow this was fun. You did that?” and I’d say, “Yeah, we really did.” I’d see them getting into it and realize, “Yeah that was a pretty good time wasn’t it?” By the time I was shooting the movie I was just determined to get that across. Through rehearsals I was thinking, “There are not any clouds in the sky here, this was a pretty good time.” No matter what happens, it was all pretty good natured. … So this was really the end of an era.
For a '“baseball movie,” there’s not a lot of baseball in Everybody Wants Some!! And yet, it does something that no other film about baseball does: it focuses on the college game—at least prior to the “NIL Revolution”—and how the sport can foster interpersonal camaraderie, individual growth, and the underrated virtue of fun.
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (dir. John Badham, 1976)
Like Everybody Wants Some!!, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings captures a side of baseball that is often overlooked—in this case, the Negro leagues. The first feature film by John Badham, who grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and went on to direct a number of prominent Hollywood films in the 1980s (WarGames, Short Circuit, Stakeout), Bingo Long is an early but notable sports comedy. It centers on the title character (Billy Dee Williams), a star pitcher in the Negro leagues who recruits a ragtag bunch of players to join a barnstorming team. As the team traverses the Midwest—a common occurrence in the 1930s, especially (but not exclusively) for Black players looking to make extra money—they are caught up in a series of hijinks.
Much of Bingo Long then, plays out like a comedy. And yet, the film ends with a peculiar but appropriate ambivalence. When star outfielder Joseph “Esquire Joe” Callaway (Stan Shaw) is offered a shot to play Major League Baseball, the great catcher Leon Carter (James Earl Jones, in a role presumably patterned after Josh Gibson) worries that the integration of baseball will destroy the Negro leagues. But Bingo, ever the showman, is already pondering new ways to entertain the fans. Produced by Motown legend Barry Gordy, Bingo Long remains (shockingly) the only feature-length, theatrical release to center on the Negro leagues (there have been a couple of television films, including HBO’s 1996 drama Soul of the Game). For that reason alone, the movie is worth watching. But it also sheds light on the uniqueness of Negro League baseball, showing how the players of that era turned ostracism and heartbreak into success and joy.
Eight Men Out (dir. John Sayles, 1988)
John Sayles has had an interesting career. After graduating from Williams College in 1972, Sayles started out as a writer, penning the Flannery O’Connor-esque novel Pride of the Bimbos (1975). A satire of American machismo, Pride of the Bimbos tells the story of a barnstorming softball team (“The Bimbos,” of course) led by a dwarf who dresses in drag. Other novels would follow, but Sayles soon focused his attention on screenplays, writing scripts (and occasionally acting) for a number of low-budget horror movies produced by the cult filmmaker Roger Corman, including Piranha (1978) and Alligator (1980). But this was just another step in his artistic development. As the 1980s unfolded, Sayles matured into an auteur in his own right, helming a number of acclaimed dramas that double as wry social commentary (The Brother from Another Planet, Matewan).
During this period, Sayles wrote and directed Eight Men Out. At its most basic level, Eight Men Out tells the story of the 1919 World Series, which pitted the Chicago White Sox versus the Cincinnati Reds. The 1919 White Sox have long been considered one of the greatest teams in baseball history, featuring the skillful knuckleball pitcher Eddie Cicotte (1884-1969) and the sweet-swinging outfielder Joseph “Shoeless Joe” Jackson (1887-1951). Yet, when the White Sox stunningly lost the Series, a probe led by baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis discovered that eight Sox players had conspired with gamblers to “fix” the outcome. The ensuing “Black Sox Scandal,” which remains in the headlines today, led to the banishment of all eight players from Major League Baseball. But was justice served? What makes Sayles’ treatment of the story so memorable is that it refuses pat answers. The “Black Sox” players were not just crooked, Sayles implies. No, they were caught up in a cycle of personal and systemic corruption that ranged far beyond the diamond. In this way, Eight Men Out can be seen as a retelling of the biblical “Fall of man,” in which the beauty and purity of the garden (or ball field!) is shattered by pride, resentment, and greed.
The Battered Bastards of Baseball (dir. Chapman Way and Maclain Way, 2014)
The only documentary on my list—to be sure, documentaries about baseball could constitute a category of their own, given the prominence of Ken Burns’ 1994 television miniseries Baseball, not to mention recent releases such as The Comeback: 2004 Boston Red Sox (2024)—The Battered Bastards of Baseball is the literal and figurative heir to Jim Bouton’s famous book Ball Four: My Life and Hard Times Throwing the Knuckleball in the Big Leagues (1970). Bouton debuted with the New York Yankees in April 1962 and, despite his lack of arm talent, carved out a successful pitching career during the first half of the 1960s. He even appeared in the 1963 All-Star Game in Cleveland. Alas, increasing injuries and decreasing performance led the Yankees to part with Bouton in 1968, and he bounced around for a couple of years before retiring in 1970. It was during these latter years that Bouton wrote Ball Four with veteran sports journalist Leonard Schecter (1926-74). The book was immediately controversial, because it gave Bouton’s inside perspective on the off-the-field lives of professional ballplayers, including the carousing of Yankee great Mickey Mantle (1931-95). Now a pariah, Bouton was out of baseball until 1975, when he resurfaced with the Portland Mavericks of the Class A Northwest League.
Indeed, Bouton’s comeback is one of the main plot lines of The Battered Bastards of Baseball, though, as it turns out, the Mavericks were an interesting story in their own right. Owned by actor Bing Russell (1926-2003), father of Hollywood legend (and onetime baseball player) Kurt Russell, the Mavericks were an “independent” ball club, lacking any affiliation with Major League Baseball. Thus Russell could run the Mavericks however he wanted, and that meant an emphasis on fun—his own existential motto. From 1973 to 1977, the Mavericks filled their roster with castoffs, oddballs, and misfits (of which Bouton was the ringleader) and dominated the Northwest League in the process. Directed by Russell’s grandsons Chapman and Maclain Way, The Battered Bastards of Baseball both captures one of the game’s quirkiest backstories and serves as a reminder that baseball is played best when it’s played with dash, grit, and joy.
A League of Their Own (dir. Penny Marshall, 1992)
A League of Their Own could have been a mediocre movie. If it had been done with staid reverence or political grandstanding, it might have been nothing more than a niche contribution to baseball cinema. Instead, it’s a beloved classic. Directed by Penny Marshall, who remains best known for her role as Laverne DeFazio on the TV sitcom Laverne & Shirley (1976-83), A League of the Their Own tells the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), which was founded in 1943 by chewing gum magnate and Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley. And yet, the movie is less interested in historical minutiae than in capturing the spirit of the AAGPBL and its reception by players and fans alike.
The story picks up with World War II raging and the possible cessation of Major League Baseball. Cubs owner Walter Harvey (Garry Marshall, in a role clearly based on Wrigley) decides to front a women’s baseball league, and he dispatches scouts around the country to find worthy female players. A talented group is assembled, headed by elite catcher Dorothy “Dottie” Hinson (Geena Davis) and her plucky younger sister Kit Keller (Lori Petty). The AAGPBL is formed in and around Chicago, featuring teams like the Rockford Peaches and the South Bend Blue Sox. Yet, with questions about fan interest mounting, the AAGPBL’s owners agree that it would be beneficial if former Big Leaguers would participate. Enter Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks, in one of the best parts of his decorated career), a former All Star whose excessive drinking and bad temper have alienated him from men’s baseball. Hired to manage Rockford, Jimmy initially treats the job as nothing more than a payday. When he’s not berating his players (“There’s no crying in baseball!”), he’s dead-drunk in the dugout. However, as the team begins to gel, Jimmy sees not only that the players are making sacrifices to participate in the AAGPBL, but that they are good at baseball, too.
A League of Their Own was authored by the screenwriting duo of Lowell Ganz and Marc “Babaloo” Mandel, who at the time were coming off a string of popular comedies (Splash, Spies Like Us, and City Slickers). It no surprise, then, that A League of Their Own is a really funny movie. Hanks attacks his role with verve, and supporting credit goes to Jon Lovitz as Ernie Capadino, a burnt-out scout, and Madonna as Mae "All-the-Way-Mae" Mordabito, the league’s self-professed sex symbol. Still, it is Geena Davis’ performance as Dottie that anchors the film and links it to the real-life AAGPBL players. She is a loyal wife, a doting mother, a hard-working farmer, and a dominant power hitter—not just one or the other, but all at the same time.
Field of Dreams (dir. Phil Alden Robinson, 1989)
Field of Dreams is the most poignant of all baseball movies; it’s also the weirdest. Based on W.P. Kinsella’s 1982 novel Shoeless Joe, the story combines elements of historical fiction, magical realism, and theological speculation to produce something sui generis—a tearjerker that treats baseball as a mystical site of self-discovery and interpersonal reconciliation. Starring a young Kevin Costner, who at the time was on a run of hit films (The Untouchables, No Way Out, Bull Durham), Field of Dreams centers on an Iowa farmer named Ray Kinsella. Though happily married and moderately successful, Ray has reached a point in life where the future seems predictable and the past irretrievable. He has regrets; there are things he would like to do over. But life only moves in one direction, and he cannot foresee a time or a place where he will be able to heal past wounds, particularly those involving his deceased father John (Dwier Brown).
Things begin to change when Ray hears a voice while working in his cornfield. The voice tells him, “If you build it, he will come.” Ray is understandably puzzled, but then he has a vision of a ballpark along with the ghost of baseball great Joseph “Shoeless Joe” Jackson. Ray takes this as a sign that he is supposed to build a field in the middle of his crops, though he is not sure why. He must answer this question, piece by piece, as the story unfolds. To be sure, Field of Dreams has a labyrinthine plot, but suffice it to say that Ray’s field becomes a site of hierophany—a place where the sacred breaks into the profane. In addition to Jackson, other disgraced members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox are given a second chance to play ball; a reclusive and discontented writer (James Earl Jones, in an iconic role) is finally afforded the possibility of human community; and a Minnesota doctor, who once played in the Major Leagues but never got a chance to bat (see the film clip below) returns to get his shot against big league pitching. In each case, life’s mistakes and missed opportunities are put right on Ray’s “field of dreams.” And so it is with Ray himself, who, in the film’s stirring conclusion, is able to have a catch with his father yet again.
Perhaps it shouldn’t all work, but it ultimately does. This is because Field of Dreams touches on a number of universal questions and themes. The longing for forgiveness, the hope that all things will be made new (Revelation 21:5), the innate search for an eternal happiness—Field of Dreams vividly imagines these religious possibilities, linking them with baseball’s own richly symbolic signs and structures. Even the most hardened skeptic has to watch it with a box of Kleenex nearby.
Sugar (dir. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, 2008)
Baseball movies often highlight how much fun the game can be. In a film such as Everybody Wants Some!!, this vantage point is obvious. Still, even in an Eight Men Out or a Field of Dreams, the joy of the sport is implicit. The tragedy of Shoeless Joe’s banishment from baseball is precisely that he can no longer play the game that makes him happy. Famously, when Ray Kinsella first meets Joe Jackson on his self-made baseball diamond, the wandering spirit asks him, “Is this heaven?” Not quite realizing the implication of Shoeless Joe’s question—namely, that the baseball field is heaven on earth—Ray chuckles and answers, “No, it’s Iowa.”
Yet, what distinguishes the 2008 drama Sugar is that, without lapsing into cynicism, it throws cold water on the idealism of other baseball films. The story begins in the Dominican Republic. A talented right-handed pitcher named Miguel “Sugar” Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) is poised to pursue a career in Major League Baseball. His family is counting on his financial success, and the addition of a devastating new pitch to his repertoire seems to confirm their expectations. Eventually Sugar is assigned to a Single A affiliate in Iowa, where cultural and linguistic isolation pays the price for on-field achievement. Alas, an injury derails his progress, and the lack of close friends is discouraging. The arrival of a new pitching phenom from the D.R. proves to be the last straw: Sugar absconds to New York City, where he hopes to chase a different version of the so-called “American Dream.” The movie ends with Sugar playing amateur baseball with Dominican friends. No longer a MLB prospect, Sugar is now just a “working man,'“ looking for fellowship and recreation.
Written and directed by indie filmmaking duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Sugar is the rare baseball movie that dares expose the dark underbelly of the professional game. Indeed, for every success story, there are dozens and dozens of Sugars—anonymous players grinding it out in small towns across America, most of whom will never be promoted to the Big Leagues. For these players, baseball’s pro iteration is a source of anger and disappointment. Nevertheless, its purer elements—the smell of fresh-cut grass, the pleasure of playing with friends—never goes away.
Bull Durham (dir. Ron Shelton, 1988)
Bull Durham is, by many accounts, the greatest baseball movie ever made. It has also been called the greatest sports movie ever made. I couldn’t honestly quibble with this reputation. Written and directed by Ron Shelton, who bounced around minor league baseball from 1967 to 1971, Bull Durham is a funny, observant, and often philosophical exploration of the game. The movie stars Kevin Costner as Lawrence “Crash” Davis—a veteran minor league catcher, who is now playing out what may be the last year of his career. After starting the season in Triple-A, Crash is sent down to the Single-A Durham Bulls. He has a new job: to mentor a young, cocky, and irresponsible pitching phenom named Ebby Calvin "Nuke" Laloosh (Tim Robbins). The various exchanges between Crash and Nuke, both on and off the field, are the most memorable parts of Bull Durham, giving Shelton a chance to impart nuggets of baseball wisdom gathered from his own playing days. Here are a few favorites:
“Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You'll never make it to the Bigs with fungus on your shower shoes.”
“You be cocky and arrogant, even when you're getting beat. That's the secret. You gotta play this game with fear and arrogance.”
“Relax, all right? Don’t try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls. It’s more democratic.”
“A player on a streak has to respect the streak.”
“When you get in a fight with a drunk you don't hit him with your pitching hand.”
And yet, beneath Shelton’s authentic and razor-sharp banter, a deeper story unfolds. Crash is a good player—a really good player, as we ultimately learn—but he has come to the realization that he’s not going to “make it.” Yes, he had a brief stint in the Major Leagues, where “you hit white balls for batting practice, the ballparks are like cathedrals, the hotels all have room service, and the women all have long legs and brains.” But it was not meant to be. While players such as Nuke are given every chance to succeed, Crash was only given one chance—and a fleeting one at that. He loves the game, but it has not loved him back.
In this regard, Crash has much in common with Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon), the part-time English professor and Durham Bulls “superfan” who dates one Bulls player each season. Crash and Annie, it turns out, are kindred souls. In loving baseball, they have learned—slowly, painfully—that they need to love something more than baseball. Hence, even though Bull Durham concludes with Crash contemplating a career as a manager, it is telling that the movie’s final scene depicts Crash and Annie in her living room, alone, dancing together.
Moneyball (dir. Bennett Miller, 2011)
Most baseball films, even excellent ones, could be described as “cult films.” They have large and passionate fanbases, who think nothing of rewatching them again and again. Over time, these movies even spawn a kind of subculture, where devotees buy T-shirts and other paraphernalia associated with their main characters or most popular lines. Yet, no matter how beloved within a given community, cult films rarely penetrate mainstream culture. They are typically ignored by critics and fail to resonate with general audiences. So, while fans of Major League may enjoy quoting the movie while discussing baseball, most viewers of the annual Academy Awards ceremony will have no interest in watching Major League. much less in saying, “Juuuuuuust a bit outside.”
Moneyball is different. Attached to arguably Hollywood’s most bankable actor (Brad Pitt), and adapted for the screen by two decorated scriptwriters (Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian), the film was always intended to reach a wide audience. That the project was based off a bestselling work of nonfiction—Michael Lewis’ 2003 book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game—also seemed to portend a lucrative run at the box office. With so many big names involved, a big-name director was recruited as well, namely, Steven Soderbergh. Yet, when Soderbergh’s esoteric vision clashed with that of the film’s executives, Columbia Pictures brought in talented new director Bennett Miller, fresh off his celebrated 2005 film Capote. In the end, the result was a box office hit and a critically acclaimed film. Moneyball would receive six Academy Award nominations, and it racked up a host of wins on the broader awards circuit, including the American Film Institute’s “Movie of the Year” and “Best Actor” and “Best Screenplay” at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. In an objective sense, then, Moneyball is the most successful baseball movie of all time. No other baseball film has achieved such industry-wide recognition.
Remarkably, however, it does not fail to reach its core audience either. Moneyball is not just a great movie; it’s a great baseball movie too. In what may be the best performance of his long career, Pitt plays baseball general manager Billy Beane—a washed-up former player, who is now tasked with leading the Oakland Athletics franchise. Beane’s struggles as a player taught him that traditional modes of scouting are too imprecise, too subjective. For a cash-strapped team such as the A’s, there must be a better way to find, evaluate, and develop talent. After all, baseball is a business, and Beane’s job, per ownership, is to put the best team on the field with the least amount of money. With this in mind, he turns to Peter Brand (Jonah Hill, in a role based on sports executive Paul DePodesta), a Yale-educated number cruncher who convinces him that advanced statistical modeling (Sabermetrics) can neutralize the competitive advantage enjoyed by big-market franchises such as the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees. Though roundly criticized both within and without his organization, Beane uses Brand’s methods to construct his 2002 roster.
The question is: will it work? The joy watching of Moneyball is seeing how this process unfolds. For most of the movie, Beane doesn’t really believe that his newfound strategy will prosper; he just thinks that he has no choice. So his story also features a redemption arc of sorts. After a failed playing career, in a sport defined by failure, the haunted Beane finally gets to enjoy that which has eluded him for decades—success.
The Natural (dir. Barry Levinson, 1984)
Do I think that The Natural is a better movie than either Bull Durham or Moneyball? Nah, not really. With a running time well over two hours, The Natural could definitely use an edit (though Barry Levinson’s unfortunate 2007 “director’s cut” is actually longer). Moreover, despite being played by Hollywood legend Robert Redford (1936-), the movie’s protagonist Roy Hobbs lacks the wit and magnetism of both Bull Durham’s Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) and Moneyball’s Billy Beane (Brad Pitt). Finally, where the other two films aspire to and largely achieve cinematic realism, The Natural opts for legends and symbols. If you’re the kind of person who is put off by villains dressing in black and heroes (and heroines) dressing in white, then you likely roll your eyes at The Natural.
Nevertheless, I have no qualms about placing it atop my list. First, the source material is excellent. Based on Bernard Malamud’s eponymous 1952 novel, which itself drew on the tragic story of former All-Star first baseman Eddie Waitkus (1919-72), The Natural centers on the preternaturally talented Hobbs—a Midwestern baseball prodigy whose career is nearly ended when he is shot by a deranged fan. Nearly two decades later, Hobbs resurfaces as a seemingly broken-down bench player for the last-place New York Knights. His beleaguered manager Pop Fisher (a well-cast Wilford Brimley) resents being handed a roster full of “nobodies,” but a fluke accident forces his hand: Hobbs finally gets his shot. Brandishing his bat dubbed “Wonderboy,” a relic from his childhood years, Hobbs goes on a hot streak, elevating the Knights in the process. Yet, when his former mistakes come back to haunt him, Hobbs’ comeback, along with that of the Knights, is put in jeopardy.
Commentators have underlined Malamud’s use of the Arthurian legend in devising his story, but, as I wrote a couple of years ago, what I particularly love about The Natural is how it explores the existential tension between past and present, necessity and possibility. Hobbs’ dream was to be “the best there ever was,” but with the help of childhood friend and high school girlfriend Iris Gaines (Glenn Close), he comes to embrace the reality of who he is. Consequently, in the movie’s dénouement, punctuated by Randy Newman’s famous score, Hobbs unforgettably manifests the advice that every hitter has heard dozens of time: live in the moment.
Professor, Mark Graham suggested that I ask you about your upcoming book because I'm putting together my own writing project and we have opposing views on Political Theology. My email is rjrecio5@gmail.com if you would be kind enough to respond. I'm a graduate student at Villanova looking to enter a PhD program.