Entertainment
The Best Sports Movies for Kids
There's nothing more exciting than an underdog team fighting to win the big game, especially when kids are involved. The top kids sports movies are typically about overcoming differences and working together to reach the same goal. This is a list of sports movies for children featuring everything from The Karate Kid to Cool Runnings to Ladybugs.
What family-favorite movies will you find on this list of the best children's sports films? Baseball fanatics might vote The Sandlot to the top of the collection. This movie has all of the elements of a classic kids' sports film, including teamwork, friendship, and one big, terrifying, slobbering dog. The Bad News Bears is another classic kids sports movie for the whole family. Although Rudy is about a college football team, the title character's relentless spirit is inspiring for sports fans of all ages. Other good films featured on this roundup of top sports movies for kids include The Mighty Ducks, Cars, and Kicking and Screaming.
Do you have a favorite kids' sports movie? Give the best films a thumbs up and please add any good movies that are missing.
Looking for more family friends sports movies? Check out this list of the best Disney sports movies.
list ordered by
- When Scottie Smalls (Thomas Guiry) moves to a new neighborhood, he manages to make friends with a group of kids who play baseball at the sandlot. Together they go on a series of funny and touching ...more
- 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
- 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
- The Mighty Ducks is a series of three live-action films released in the 1990s by Walt Disney Pictures. The movies revolve around a Twin Cities ice hockey team, composed of young players that stick ...more
- A freak accident causes 12-year-old Little League player Henry (Thomas Ian Nicholas) to become such a powerful and accurate pitcher that the Chicago Cubs sign the junior high student to a contract. ...more
- Ever since childhood, nerdy Danny O'Shea (Rick Moranis) has felt inferior to his brother, Kevin (Ed O'Neill), a former college football star. Danny runs a gas station, while Kevin coaches the local ...more
- Four Jamaican bobsledders dream of competing in the Winter Olympics, despite never having seen snow. With the help of a disgraced former champion desperate to redeem himself, the Jamaicans set out to ...more
- Swackhammer (Danny DeVito), an evil alien theme park owner, needs a new attraction at Moron Mountain. When his gang, the Nerdlucks, heads to Earth to kidnap Bugs Bunny (Billy West) and the Looney ...more
- Foster kid Roger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) loves the Anaheim Angels, even though they're the worst team in the major leagues. His estranged dad promises to reunite the family if the Angels make it to ...more
- 10Rudy Ruettiger (Sean Astin) wants to play football at the University of Notre Dame, but has neither the money for tuition nor the grades to qualify for a scholarship. Rudy redoubles his efforts to ...more
- 11While traveling to California to race against The King (Richard Petty) and Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton) for the Piston Cup Championship, Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) becomes lost after falling out ...more
- In the class-obsessed and religiously divided United Kingdom of the early 1920s, two determined young runners train for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), a devout Christian born ...more
- Angels in the Endzone is a 1997 American film directed by Gary Nadeau and starring Christopher Lloyd. The film is about a high school football team that lacks skill.
- On the way to a tryout with the Chicago Cubs, young baseball phenom Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) is shot by the unstable Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey). After 16 years, Hobbs returns to pro baseball as ...more
- 15Failed 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
- When his grandfather (Jason Robards) dies, 12-year-old Billy (Luke Edwards) suddenly becomes the heir to the Minnesota Twins baseball team. It's a dream come true for the baseball fan, who believes ...more
- 17When college coach Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell) is hired to helm the 1980 U.S. men's Olympic hockey team, he brings a unique and brash style to the ice. After assembling a team of hot-headed college ...more
- Angels in the Infield is a 2000 Disney television film, Directed by Robert King. A follow on to the 1994 film Angels in the Outfield, and the 1997 film Angels in the Endzone, this motion picture is ...more
- The Air Bud film series is an American film franchise based on a sports-playing golden retriever named Buddy, portrayed by Air Buddy. The franchise began in 1997 with the theatrical release of Air ...more
- Hard-drinking, ex-minor-league hopeful Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau) grumpily agrees to coach a Little League team at the behest of lawyer-councilman Bob Whitewood (Ben Piazza), who has a ...more
- As America's stock of athletic young men is depleted during World War II, a professional all-female baseball league springs up in the Midwest, funded by publicity-hungry candy maker Walter Harvey ...more
- Bachelor football star Joe Kingman (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) seems to have it all. He is wealthy and carefree, and his team is on the way to capturing a championship. Suddenly, he is tackled by ...more
- When his mother's career results in a move to China, 12-year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) finds that he is a stranger in a strange land. Though he knows a little karate, his fighting skills are no ...more
- When Iowa farmer Ray (Kevin Costner) hears a mysterious voice one night in his cornfield saying "If you build it, he will come," he feels the need to act. Despite taunts of lunacy, Ray builds a ...more
- In this fact-based film, twins Heidi (Annie McElwain) and Heather Burge (Poppi Monroe) take an unusual route to becoming WNBA stars. As teens, the girls enroll in a large high school in hopes of ...more
