When pop culture historians look back at 2023, they will remember it as the year of live events. Taylor Swift’s Eras tour will be the chapter heading, but very quietly, it has also been a banner year for live sports. Attendance at pro baseball, basketball, and hockey games rose steeply, while the NFL continues to achieve record levels of popularity. After staying inside for parts of the last three years, people are ready to live their best lives by experiencing the thrill of the game—their favorite game, any game—-in person. Even MLS attendance is up 5 percent.
If you can’t get to the stadium or arena, you could instead head to your local movie theater, where an unprecedented number of sports movies have played in 2023. It started with 80 for Brady, which made $40 million in the doldrums of February despite featuring in its title the name of a player hated in 48 states. A month later, Creed III debuted to rave reviews and ended up earning $275 million worldwide. Then came six basketball movies in a two-month period: Champions, Air, Sweetwater, Somewhere in Queens, White Men Can’t Jump, and Shooting Stars. In the second half of the year, there were movies about baseball (The Hill), racing (Gran Turismo), Lucha libre wrestling (Cassandro), American wrestling (The Iron Claw), soccer (Next Goal Wins), swimming (Nyad), and rowing (The Boys in the Boat). These films replicate the thrill of watching live sports — or at least on TV — while deepening the stories behind the feats of athleticism.
For those who grew up in the sports movie boom of the ‘80s and ‘90s, when they were a reliable genre at the box office and a mainstay of cable television, it feels something like a return to our childhood home. Champions uses The Mighty Ducks as a template, right down to its inciting incident of a down-on-his-luck former athlete who gets arrested for drunk driving and is sentenced to coaching a team of misfits; in Ducks, it’s a Pee-Wee hockey team, while Champions centers its plot on a team of intellectually disabled adults. Creed III is a continuation of the Rocky franchise, while White Men Can’t Jump is a literal remake. Meanwhile, you can trace the lineage of The Hill, a faith-based film starring Dennis Quaid as the father of a disabled young man who ends up pitching in the minor leagues, back to Rudy, or if you want to go back even further, to weepies Brian’s Song and Bang the Drum Slowly. Many of the rest are pitched as Oscar-bait dramas, not unlike Chariots of Fire, Hoosiers, or Field of Dreams. They’re not all IP-driven, but they are driven by nostalgia all the same.
While this sports film explosion may seem to have come suddenly, there were actually several warning signs. Two years ago, there was this Oscar-nominated tennis movie called King Richard, even if some remember it more for what Will Smith did on Oscar night. Last year, there was only one mainstream sports movie, but it was a good one: Hustle, which starred Adam Sandler as a scout. Still, what has occurred in 2023 feels unprecedented, especially since we have all been told for years now that the sports movie — along with the courtroom drama, the studio comedy, and other mid-budgeted dramas — had no place in a cinematic landscape dominated by superheroes and other IP.
It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that this genre of film has re-emerged at a time when the superhero film is losing some of its luster. This year, The Flash, Quantumania, and Shazam: Fury of the Gods all flopped badly. It is obvious to even casual observers of the box office that comic book movies have peaked, and while they will probably never go away completely — Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Across the Spider-Verse still performed well, while Thor 5 is reportedly on the way — it feels like there is suddenly an opening for long-dormant genres to emerge and fill that space. The courtroom drama is one, with The Burial, Anatomy of a Fall, and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial suddenly available all at once. No Hard Feelings indicated an appetite for concept-driven comedies. And the sports movie is proving as sturdy and reliable as it has always been.
At the risk of overstating things, they fill a need for both the studios and the audience. Sports films are an attractive proposition for companies looking to make a profit in this uncertain era. They mostly feature ensemble casts, and you don’t need major stars for them. That’s helpful — we don’t really have as many bankable stars since Hollywood traded them for IP. More importantly, sports movies provide a catharsis for audiences we don’t really get in film anymore. The athletic competition in sports movies is more grounded than the CGI battles of Marvel and DC.
These movies also show the human body achieving real feats of excellence in a relatable and recognizable earthbound setting. They have the power to move us in ways that the little ones and zeroes of superhero movies rarely can. Stereotypical tough guys may rarely cry in real life, but they’ll sob like babies every time Rudy runs onto that football field or Ray Kinsella asks his dad if he wants to have a catch. These films are basically tearjerkers for men.
While there are some terrific women-driven sports films to be considered part of the canon — this year, 80 for Brady and Nyad qualify — a lot of these films are made with men in mind, and they provide that segment of the audience with a rare opportunity for emotional release and the chance to work through our irresponsibility (Champions), our childhood traumas (Creed III), or our unquenchable need to define ourselves through our work (Air). Journalists and authors have increasingly identified a burgeoning crisis of masculinity in America, and while it’s certainly a sensitive topic in a world that still holds far greater dangers for women, the movies can provide a useful and noncontroversial way to begin the conversation and maybe allow men to tap into the healing power of a good cry.