In case you need a little help getting psyched for Sunday’s Super Bowl, Netflix offers a variety of football movies for your viewing pleasure. Some are good. A few are great. Many are cliched and goofy. Here’s a few to choose from:
Rudy: Inspired by a true story, this is the tale of a player with more heart than talent who ends up on Notre Dame practice squad, and actually gets into a game for the Fighting Irish. Bring the Kleenex.
Undefeated: This is an Oscar-winning documentary of how an inner-city school’s football team finally makes it to the school’s first-ever playoff game.
Radio: A high-school football coach befriends a developmentally disabled man, and inspires his community.
Necessary Roughness: Easily the pick of this cinematic litter. Another ragtag college team rallies behind a mature quarterback. Worth watching if only for Robert Loggia’s inspirational locker room speech.
Friday Night Lights: One part sports movie and one part soap opera, this movie that became a TV series is about the coach of a small-town Texas football team poised to win the state championship.
Underdogs: A coach inherits a losing team, and inspires the gang of misfits to rally behind the quarterback.
