Football season has kicked off, and fans are about to be busy for the next few months.
Between NFL, college and high school football, there go your Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights.
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Fans still have Tuesdays and Wednesdays to take a timeout this season, and that leaves an opportunity to enjoy one of the many motion pictures made about the game that has become America's sports passion.
The following are my 10 favorite football movies. Do you have other choices? I understand because I ran out of room for favorites like "Paper Lion," "Heaven Can Wait," "Everybody's All-American" and more.
Here are my rankings.
No. 1: ‘North Dallas Forty' Author and former Dallas Cowboys receiver Peter Gent saw his NFL-exposing book turned into an exceptional movie about the game in all its facets: the business side of the owners and coaches, right along with all of the players' physical, mental and financial excesses. Nick Nolte is exceptional as the conscience of this film about men never growing out of playing games. Mac Davis playing a "Dandy Don" Meredith clone is superb. Wild-man John Matuszak plays himself to a tee, and how the players treat women eerily rings true 35 years later.
No. 2: ‘The Longest Yard' The 1970s were the age of the rebel, the antihero. Arguably no one was playing the part better than Burt Reynolds in that era. He was never better than as a pro quarterback known for game-fixing who goes to prison and learns behind bars what it really means to lead men and find respect — especially during a brutal game in which the inmates play the prison guards. For Reynolds' fans, this film is as iconic as his Bandit outwitting Smokey. A note: Take a pass on the Adam Sandler remake.
No. 3: ‘Remember the Titans' The heart can still swell with pride when thinking of Denzel Washington delivering one of those inspirational speeches as the coach who brings together a football team at a newly integrated high school in 1971. It's a great football movie, and the way that it weaves in drama and sentiment makes it a winner as a movie about more than the game itself. Regardless if it meets the based-on-a-true-story accuracy, it might inspire you to run through a wall for the cause.
No. 4: ‘Jerry Maguire' Tom Cruise delivered one of his most complex performances as a sports agent with a conscience (modeled on longtime super-agent Leigh Steinberg) who finds himself fired for his high morals and branded a loser. He's left with a secretary (Renee Zellweger) who wants to believe in him and his ideals and with a single client, played by Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr., an all-star receiver who trusts that Jerry will "show him the money."
No. 5: ‘Friday Night Lights' The story may originate in Texas, but Oklahomans know plenty about the passion for big-time high school football, from the glory of championships and the building of dynasties that turn teen boys into gods — until they graduate, at least. Director Peter Berg showed the glory along with the injury, the winners along with the losers, and Billy Bob Thornton played the coach we would follow into battle.
No. 6: ‘Brian's Song' "Brian's Song" focused on the true story of the friendship that developed between Chicago Bears running backs Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo, played so movingly by Billy Dee Williams and James Caan, respectively. They formed a warm, believable bond between brothers, one white and one black during a time of continuing social segregation. When Piccolo is diagnosed with the cancer that will kill him at a young age, it breaks our hearts. It's the movie that a generation of men were willing to admit made them cry.
No. 7: ‘Invincible' Mark Wahlberg has a gift for playing understated characters and underdogs. Vince Papale was both as a Philadelphia bartender who takes a flier and shows up for auditions when the new Eagles coach (Greg Kinnear playing Dick Vermeil) holds tryouts for a team in desperate need of talent. Wahlberg's character has some talent, but even more so heart and grit, and so does the film.
No. 8: ‘Horse Feathers' The Marx brothers could already see in the 1930s the shenanigans and lengths that some will go to win a high-stakes game of football. Their on-target madcap zingers aimed at the mix of high education and sports on campus became another of their classics, and the jokes hold up 80 years later, from the wacky plays to the crazy line calls: "Hey-diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle, this time I say we go up the middle!"
No. 9: The Waterboy' The movie is completely ridiculous, but leave your brain outside the stadium, remember that Adam Sandler hadn't worn out his welcome by this time, and you may just laugh yourself silly at this 1998 comedy about a lowly waterboy with a gift for channeling his rage at being bullied into brute-force tackling, making him the star of his college team. Just don't tell his mama, played by Oscar winner Kathy Bates as a Southern-fried gal who doesn't want her son playing "that foosball." Just go with it.
No. 10: ‘All the Right Moves' Tom Cruise is out on the playing field this time, starring as the player on a high school football team who hopes that his talent on the gridiron can earn him a scholarship and help him escape his steel-factory town. To make it happen, there will be battles with his headstrong coach, played by Craig T. Nelson.