TOP 5 : SPORTS MOVIES

In celebration of the countdown til Christmas, I'll be doing a top 5 countdown every day this week. In honor of "The Fighter" being nationally released this weekend, Top 5 sports movies is up first.

5. CADDYSHACK
I love comedy. So of course "Caddyshack" is going to make my list. Easily the best sports comedy of all time, 31 years later it's the most quotable as well. Walk out on to any golf course and you'll find at least one person rambling about being a Cinderella story, or someone "being the ball." Try to find a funnier character in a sports film than Bill Murray's. Not possible. Continuing on three decades of success and acclaim, this one is a true classic.

4.THE NATURAL
From a film standpoint, this may be the best on the list. Rather than everything just happening on screen like some sports movies, everything is framed perfectly, culminating in the iconic last scene of the ball crashing through the lights. I also always liked that it wasn't a stereotypical underdog story. Instead you have a gifted athlete learning from his mistakes, and reclaiming his spot at the top.

3. WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP
Lower on most lists, I love this movie. With the exception of  "Caddyshack", most sports movies you watch once from time to time to refresh your memory. That, or you have that one friend that has never seen it, at which point you make them physically sit down and watch. The best part about this movie is how real it in relation to everyday guys. Not everyone can be undersized and make a NCAA football team like Rudy, but anyone can head down to the park for pickup basketball.

2. RAGING BULL

One thing I always look for in a sports movie is how real the sports portion is. Does it seem too scripted and choreographed, or does it feel like you're actually there? Raging Bull is the epitome of movie sport in this sense. There's no underdog, happy go lucky story here. It's real. It's graphic. Until whenever the next Manny Paquiao fight takes place, this is as close to boxing as you could hope to get.

1. ROCKY

The gold standard. The casting, imaging, etc. Everything is seemingly perfect in this movie. The quintessential underdog story, it's hard to not want to jump on your feet in the final sequence. It's even the reason why thousands of people, myself included, have ran up a set of stairs in Philadelphia pumping their fists and dancing around like idiots at the top. When it comes to sports film, there is no better.

So there you go. Is the list perfect? NO. There's another twenty movies or so that I could see myself replacing a movie in this list with. I almost put "Jerry McGuire" on the list just to talk about how I was at a bar with Cuba Gooding Jr. this weekend. I feel like it does do a good job of representing every side of sports cinema though. In regards to "The Fighter" which I saw this weekend, go see it. Its a very real representation of what it takes to be a boxer, and a very different twist on the classic underdog story that should win Christian Bale an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Thanks for reading and make sure to comeback tomorrow as I count down the Top 5 stadiums I have ever been to.