The Ultimate Basketball Movie List

This list is always growing and is intended to include every movie or video that has basketball in it in any way. The movies are not listed in any order.

Teen Wolf

Michael J Fox
Micheal J. Fox plays as both himself and the Wolf. He’s the shortest player on the floor by about 5 inches, but it doesn’t stop him from driving the lane and throwing around the back passes like crazy. He unstoppable when he’s the Wolf, but he longs to play as himself. He decides to risk his teammates wrath by playing the finals as his Alex P. Keaton-like self. The most tense moment in the film occurs when Mike is nailed at the buzzer and goes nose to nose with the bully before sinking both free throws.

He Got Game

He Got Game
Spike Lee’s take on the high stakes world of college recruiting contains some of the best basketball seen in any recent movie. The deal is this: Denzel’s locked up in the joint, and can earn his freedom if he gets his phenom son, Jesus Shuttlesworth (nice name Spike), to go to the prison warden’s Alma Mater. I know, the plot is a bit of a stretch. The movie then shows all the moves people try to make on Jesus trying to make his talent pay off for themselves.

Various highlights: Ray Allen does a decent acting job. Rick Fox continues to try and establish himself as basketball’s master thespian. Denzel rocks a fro and displays a pretty decent game himself. However, having Ray Allen as the star presents one problem. When he played Denzel in one on one, I found it hard to buy into the hard-fought competitive game. I mean Denzel’s got some game, but I think we all realize Ray could beat him even if he was tied up like Garnett is in those Nike commercials. If Denzel really could give Ray a run for his money, chances are he’d be winding up his career in the NBA right now.

This movie features some good cameos (Walter McCarty puts in a briliant, quitely determined performance as one of Jesus’s teammates) and is overall a very good show. However, it has a universally disliked ending that kind of puts a damper on things. In spite of that, I recommend this movie to all ballers.

Blue Chips

blue-chips
As you might be able to tell by the title, Blue Chips deals with the many ups and downs of college basketball. Nick Nolte plays a formerly successful coach whose program has fallen on hard times. It chronicles his attempt to resurrect his team through some old-fashioned recruiting, and some new school shady business.

Blue Chips contains lots of basketball players playing major roles and some coaches in cameos. This movie was the first time Penny and Shaq played as teammates and the chemistry they displayed was rumored to be one of the reasons the Magic traded for Penny. I bet the Magic wish they could have kept their two former stars reading from a script, so they could have kept them together by writing best buddy roles for them. They might well have become the dynasty people thought they’d be, instead of the NCAA all-star team they were back then.

The basketball in Blue Chips is pretty good quality and has a great scene with Shaq playing in some basement court and blocking the bejesus out of everyone. It also contains one of Hero Hill executive Bryan’s favorite moments on film – Bobby Hurley playing for Indiana. Nick Nolte does a great impression of a coach blowing a gasket on more than one occasion. One interesting note, Shaq speaks better and with more feeling in this movie than he does in most interviews. Perhaps the interviews are just bad acting.

Celtic Pride

Celtic Pride
Note to all Celtic fans…this movie attacks us when we are down. Filling the stereotypical role of the early Celtic teams, everyone is white, no one can dunk, and I think they even use the picket fence once! However aside from that, the movie has merit. There are lots of cameos, and the scenes in the bar are hilarious. Watch for a huge cameo by the great one…Mr. Larry Bird.

Negatively, the actual basketball is weak, and Damon Wayans looks like he couldn’t be a star in the WNBA, but on the whole, a funny rental. As for those who crush the movie strictly because it is about the Celtics…Pitino is starting to hook things up in Beantown, so get on your knees now, because when the Green machine runs rampant, we Celtic fans will have taken names, and will be looking for some asses to kick. (more…)