Movies About Men Playing Women's Sports

Ten films about grown men discovering that the nose clip is harder than it looks.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A red and white girls' soccer jersey hanging on a goalpost next to a businessman's necktie, on an empty Denver field.

    10. Ladybugs

    Sidney J. Furie · 1992

    Rodney Dangerfield invents soccer credentials to impress his boss, gets stuck coaching a girls' team, and sneaks his fiancée's son onto it. The producers reportedly passed on Leonardo DiCaprio for the part. Critics gave it 14%, kids gave it an A-minus. Kids were right.

  2. A pair of pom-poms resting inside an upturned football helmet on a camp cabin porch.

    09. Fired Up!

    Will Gluck · 2009

    Two high school football players skip football camp for cheerleading camp to meet girls and then, inevitably, fall for cheerleading itself. The leads were 30 and 27. It was Will Gluck's debut, and Easy A came next, so the camp clearly taught him something.

  3. An inflatable pool ring floating alone in a Swedish lake at midsummer, a stopwatch resting on the wooden dock.

    08. The Swimsuit Issue

    Måns Herngren · 2008

    Sweden's entry in the men's synchronized swimming boom: a man named Fredrik discovers the sport and recruits his friends for an international men's competition. The original title, Allt flyter, means Everything Floats, which is both the plot and the coaching philosophy.

  4. A row of mismatched swim caps hanging on hooks in a municipal leisure center changing room, a calculator on the bench.

    07. Swimming with Men

    Oliver Parker · 2018

    Rob Brydon is a midlife accountant who joins a men's synchronized swimming team and ends up at the world championships in Milan. Adapted from a Swedish documentary. Empire compared it to The Full Monty, unfavorably, but this team kept their trunks on the whole time.

  5. A hockey skate and a white figure skate side by side on the ice, the toe pick of the figure skate catching the light.

    06. The Cutting Edge

    Paul Michael Glaser · 1992

    An injured Olympic hockey player takes up pairs skating with a figure skater who has run off every partner she has ever had. They chase a move called the Pamchenko toward the 1992 Games. It got three sequels. Hockey players remain suspicious of toe picks.

  6. Two long jump ropes mid-swing over a Brooklyn sidewalk, a pair of boxing gloves hanging from a nearby fire escape.

    05. Jump In!

    Paul Hoen · 2007

    Corbin Bleu plays a Brooklyn boxer who fills a spot on Keke Palmer's double Dutch team and turns out to be very good at it. The premiere drew 8.2 million viewers, a Disney Channel record at the time. His footwork improved in both sports, which his father did not see coming.

  7. A school swimming pool with a few floating fish, five pairs of sandals lined up neatly on the deck, cherry blossoms drifting on the water.

    04. Waterboys

    Shinobu Yaguchi · 2001

    Five Japanese high school boys keep a synchronized swimming team going after everyone else quits on learning it is mostly a women's sport. Based on actual events, it drew eight Japan Academy Prize nominations and three TV series. The dead fish in the pool is not a metaphor.

  8. Two sequined figure skating costumes, one flame-covered and one ice-blue, laid side by side on a frozen rink under a spotlight.

    03. Blades of Glory

    Will Speck and Josh Gordon · 2007

    Banned for life from men's singles, Will Ferrell and Jon Heder find a loophole and become the first male pairs team in figure skating. Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill judge, the Iron Lotus is attempted, and it made $145 million. The loophole was very good value.

  9. A pair of boxing gloves and a pair of ballet slippers hanging from the same hook in a drafty community hall, coal heaps visible through the window.

    02. Billy Elliot

    Stephen Daldry · 2000

    During the 1984 miners' strike in County Durham, an 11-year-old walks out of boxing class and into ballet. Jamie Bell became the youngest Best Actor winner in BAFTA history and the stage version won ten Tonys. Not strictly a sport. Try telling that to a dancer.

  10. A row of seven nose clips laid out on the tiled edge of an old municipal swimming pool, chlorine-blue water glowing below.

    01. Sink or Swim

    Gilles Lellouche · 2018

    Seven depressed Frenchmen form a synchronized swimming team at the municipal pool, coached by two former champions, and aim for the world championships in Norway. Over four million admissions in France and a César for Philippe Katerine. The nose clips are worn with total dignity.

Honorable mentions

  • A spirit stick and a megaphone on a gym floor, a folded routine sheet beside them with arrows drawn on it.

    Bring It On

    Peyton Reed · 2000

    Jan and Les are the Toros' male cheerleaders, and they hold up their end of every stunt while the movie handles stolen routines and the East Compton Clovers. Roger Ebert started out cold on it, then came around to calling it the Citizen Kane of cheerleader movies.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A basketball resting on the free-throw line of an empty arena beside a forgotten curly wig.

    Juwanna Mann

    Jesse Vaughan · 2002

    A suspended pro star sneaks into the women's league and is promptly outclassed, as a player and a person, by the women around him. It scored 9% on Rotten Tomatoes. The person who came out ahead was future NBA guard Seth Curry, who appears in it as a child.

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