Need a sports fix? Here are the best basketball movies of all time

Thanks to the pandemic we’ve been a little short on sports lately. Seasons have been delayed and others have been flat out cancelled. It’s a tough time for lovers of athletics right now. However, movies still exist and are here to help fill the basketball-sized hole in your heart.

Sure, watching a movie might not be quite the same as watching an unscripted clash between people at the top of their game, but movies provide the promise of a happy ending and extra drama. Here is a quick list of some of the most famous basketball movies around.

Teen Wolf

You can’t say “no” to a movie starring Michael J. Fox. This 1985 movie is about a high school student who discovers he’s a werewolf. It’s a bit silly, but honestly this should be a mark against it since that’s really the entire point of the movie.

Coach Carter

This 2005 movie also has a high school setting. It’s about the controversy around basketball coach Ken Carter after he benches his entire team for breaking their academic contract with him. It’s a biopic and it stars Samuel L. Jackson. As a bonus it also includes a very young Channing Tatum.

17 Again

This comedy movie from 2009 uses the classic trope of being de-aged to learn a lesson. Mike is ungrateful for his life and gets a chance to rewrite it after he falls into a time vortex.

The movie may only have a 6.3 rating, but Zac Efron, Matthew Perry, and Leslie Mann do a great job of embracing this wacky story.

The Way Back

If you’re a connoisseur of basketball movies then you’ve likely seen everything on this list, except maybe this one. It was released in March of 2020 and stars Ben Affleck. The story is about Jack Cunningham, a basketball phenomenon in high school who chose to walk away from the sport and his future career. He later, reluctantly, accepts a coaching job and has a chance to redeem himself.

Space Jam

Of course, no basketball movie list could ever be complete without acknowledging the iconic movie Space Jam. This 1996 movie which is both live-action and animated features the Looney Tunes and Michael Jordan. This one is definitely worth a rewatch since the sequel is currently in the works.

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If you still need more basketball movies in your life, then you need to check out this list which has 150 basketball movies in one place. Surely, you can find something to pique your interest there.