Take 10: Best high school sports movies

High School Sports

Take 10: Best high school sports movies

Take 10: Best high school sports movies of all-time.

1. Hoosiers (1986) -- Even on a list of non-high school sports movies, this one might end up No. 1. Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper, small-town Indiana basketball, a great underdog story. It should be illegal for a high school sports fan not to enjoy this movie.

2. Hoop Dreams (1994) -- The best of three documentaries on this list, Hoop Dreams follows Arthur Agee (shown above) and William Gates, talented high school basketball players living in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago. You watch them through all four years of school, trying to earn a college scholarship. Great stuff.

3. The Basketball Diaries (1995) -- It's dark, disturbing and mildly depressing, three qualities we love in a movie. Before "Titanic" became the biggest scourge ever on teenage boys trying to go on dates, an unknown Leonardo DiCaprio played a high school basketball player addicted to drugs and spiraling out of control.

4. Go Tigers! (2001) -- This documentary is like the real-life "Friday Night Lights," examining a football season at a Massillon, Ohio, high school. It looks deeply at the players, coaches and community on and off the field; seeing it all up close is pretty fascinating.

6. Finding Forrester (2000) -- It's hard to believe Rob Brown was just 16 when he played Jamal Wallace, a high school kid who could play basketball but was an even better writer who finally got some direction from the reclusive William Forrester (Sean Connery).

5. Remember the Titans (2000) -- Denzel Washington plays the coach of a new D.C.-area football team formed when a white and black school were integrated into one in 1971. It avoids being preachy but still gets across its message.

7. He Got Game (1998) -- You watch this movie and wonder why it's the only time NBA star Ray Allen has starred in a film. He plays the nation's top-ranked high school basketball player with an imprisoned father (Denzel Washington) trying to reduce his own sentence by directing his son toward playing for Big State.

8. Hellfighters (2007) -- When he sees there isn't a high school football team for kids in Manhattan, former NFL player Duke Fergerson tries to assemble a team from different high schools on the island. This documentary looks at their struggles to piece together a team, become eligible to compete and what happens when the different kids join together.

9. Friday Night Lights (2004) -- It's not as good as the TV show it spawned, but it isn't bad. Billy Bob Thornton does well as the small-town Texas high school team's gruff coach, and even country music star Tim McGraw shows he can act in this one, playing an abusive father who wants his son to be a star player.

10. America Brown (2004) -- This is an independent film about a West Texas high school football star who doesn't know where to go with his life after his older brother dies, so he takes a bus to Brooklyn to talk to his school's last great player, who is now a Catholic priest.

1/10

1. Hoosiers (1986) -- Even on a list of non-high school sports movies, this one might end up No. 1. Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper, small-town Indiana basketball, a great underdog story. It should be illegal for a high school sports fan not to enjoy this movie.

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