Entertainment
The Best High School Sports Movies
The best high school sports movies will help you remember the good old days when life felt so innocent, and the future seemed wide open, waiting for you to step into it. The feelings of hundreds of people gathered together in a venue cheering on your team at the football game? The days when the only responsibilities you had were to wake up early, rush to get to school on time and cram for the next test? Our high school days have some of our fondest memories. It was a time when life felt so simple and so complex all at once.
So what are the best high school sports movies? The smell of popcorn and hot dogs, the sound of an excited crowd screaming at the top of their lungs, cheerleaders strutting out to the middle of the field in honor of their team and - oh the famous marching bands featuring the biggest nerd in school proudly playing his tuba all come to mind when we think about high school sports.
This list discusses the most popular high school sports movies, including The Blind Side, Hoosiers, The Basketball Diaries, and Remember the Titans, as well as some of the best cheerleading movies.
Ranked by
- 1Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Donald Faison
- Released: 2000
- Directed by: Boaz Yakin
In Virginia, high school football is a way of life, an institution revered, each game celebrated more lavishly than Christmas, each playoff distinguished more grandly than any national holiday. And ...more - 2Billy Bob Thornton, Derek Luke, Jay Hernandez
- Released: 2004
- Directed by: Peter Berg
A small, turbulent town in Texas obsesses over their high school football team to an unhealthy degree. When the star tailback, Boobie Miles (Derek Luke), is seriously injured during the first game of ...more - 3Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, Dennis Hopper
- Released: 1986
- Directed by: David Anspaugh
Failed college coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) gets a chance at redemption when he is hired to direct the basketball program at a high school in a tiny Indiana town. After a teacher (Barbara ...more - 4James Van Der Beek, Jon Voight, Paul Walker
- Released: 1999
- Directed by: Brian Robbins
In West Canaan, Texas, high school football reigns supreme. When starting quarterback Lance Harbor (Paul Walker) turns up injured, the Coyotes' ruthless coach, Bud Kilmer (Jon Voight), must promote ...more - 5Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Ri'chard, Rob Brown
- Released: 2005
- Directed by: Thomas Carter
In 1999, Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) returns to his old high school in Richmond, California, to get the basketball team into shape. With tough rules and academic discipline, he succeeds in setting ...more - 6Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron
- Released: 2009
- Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), a homeless black teen, has drifted in and out of the school system for years. Then Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) and her husband, Sean (Tim McGraw), take him in. The ...more - 7Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Elisabeth Shue
- Released: 1984
- Directed by: John G. Avildsen
Daniel (Ralph Macchio) moves to Southern California with his mother, Lucille (Randee Heller), but quickly finds himself the target of a group of bullies who study karate at the Cobra Kai dojo. ...more - 8Tom Cruise, Craig T. Nelson, Lea Thompson
- Released: 1983
- Directed by: Michael Chapman
Stefan Djordjevic (Tom Cruise), the star player of his high school football team, is desperately hoping that his football talents will earn him a scholarship -- his only chance to get out of his ...more - 9Dwayne Johnson, Xzibit, Jade Yorker
- Released: 2006
- Directed by: Phil Joanou
A counselor (The Rock) at a juvenile detention facility decides to turn the young inmates in his charge into a football team to give them a sense of self-respect and social responsibility, but he ...more - 10Jim Caviezel, Michael Chiklis, Alexander Ludwig
- Released: 2014
- Directed by: Thomas Carter
In 2003, high-school football coach Bob Ladouceur (Jim Caviezel) and his De La Salle Spartans have just completed an incredible 151 consecutive victories and 12-straight state championships. While ...more - 11Cuba Gooding, Ed Harris, Alfre Woodard
- Released: 2003
- Directed by: Michael Tollin
In a racially divided town, coach Jones (Ed Harris) spots a mentally disabled African-American student named Radio (Cuba Gooding Jr.) near his practice field and is inspired to befriend him. Soon, ...more - 12Goldie Hawn, Nipsey Russell, Swoosie Kurtz
- Released: 1986
- Directed by: Michael Ritchie
Molly McGrath (Goldie Hawn) is following her dreams when she quits her cushy girls track coaching position at Prescott High to become the boys football coach at inner-city Central High. Even though ...more - 13Matthew Modine, Linda Fiorentino, Michael Schoeffling
- Released: 1985
- Directed by: Harold Becker
High school wrestler Louden Swain (Matthew Modine) feels he must do something significant in his life shortly after turning 18. Despite vehement advice against it from his father (Ronny Cox) and ...more - 14Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, Jesse Bradford
- Released: 2000
- Directed by: Peyton Reed
The Toro cheerleading squad from Rancho Carne High School in San Diego has got spirit, spunk, sass and a killer routine that's sure to land them the national championship trophy for the sixth year in ...more - 15Denzel Washington, Ray Allen, Milla Jovovich
- Released: 1998
- Directed by: Spike Lee
Jake Shuttleworth (Denzel Washington) has spent the last six years in prison after accidentally killing his wife during a violent domestic dispute, leaving his son, star basketball prospect Jesus ...more - 16Aaron Eckhart, Finn Wittrock, Robin Tunney
- Released: 2015
- Directed by: Angelo Pizzo
Awarded a scholarship to the University of Texas at Austin, small but scrappy Freddie Steinmark gets a chance to play football for coach Darrell Royal (Aaron Eckhart) and the Longhorns in the late ...more - 17Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, Morgan Saylor
- Released: 2015
- Directed by: Niki Caro
Track coach Jim White (Kevin Costner) is a newcomer to a predominantly Latino high-school in California's Central Valley. Coach White and his new students find that they have much to learn about one ...more - 18Alex Kendrick, Shannen Fields, Steve Williams
- Released: 2006
- Directed by: Alex Kendrick
Grant Taylor, a Christian high-school football coach (Alex Kendrick), gets some very bad news. Besides his and his wife's (Shannen Fields) infertility problems, he faces the attempt of local parents ...more - 19Michael J. Fox, James Hampton, Scott Paulin
- Released: 1985
- Directed by: Rod Daniel
When high school nerd Scott Howard (Michael J. Fox) learns from his father, Harold (James Hampton), that being a werewolf runs in the family, he decides to take advantage of his freakish trait. With ...more - 20Sean Astin, Nicholas Bishop, Caleb Castille
- Released: 2015
- Directed by: Andrew Erwin, Jon Erwin
Following government-mandated desegregation in 1973, Tony Nathan (Caleb Castille) joins fellow African-American students at Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, Ala. As violence and anger erupt in the ...more - 21Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps, Alfre Woodard
- Released: 2000
- Directed by: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps) are two childhood friends who both aspire to be professional basketball players. Quincy, whose father, Zeke (Dennis Haysbert), plays for the Los Angeles ...more - 22Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Chris O'Donnell
- Released: 1992
- Directed by: Robert Mandel
When David Greene (Brendan Fraser) receives a football scholarship to a prestigious prep school in the 1950s, he feels pressure to hide the fact that he is Jewish from his classmates and teachers, ...more - 23Amanda Bynes, James Kirk, Channing Tatum
- Released: 2006
- Directed by: Andy Fickman
Viola Johnson (Amanda Bynes) is in a real jam. Complications threaten her scheme to pose as her twin brother, Sebastian, and take his place at a new boarding school. She falls in love with her ...more - 24William Gates, Arthur Agee, Sheila Agee
- Released: 1994
- Directed by: Steve James
Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white ...more - 25Sean Connery, Rob Brown, F. Murray Abraham
- Released: 2000
- Directed by: Gus Van Sant
A unique relationship develops between an eccentric, reclusive novelist and a young, amazingly gifted scholar-athlete. After the novelist discovers that the young athlete is also an excellent writer ...more
