Movies About Women Playing Men's Sports

Ten films in which a woman shows up, is told no, and plays anyway.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A child's football jersey hanging on a chain-link fence in a small Louisiana town, a backwards red baseball cap on the post.

    10. The Longshots

    Fred Durst · 2008

    Keke Palmer plays Jasmine Plummer, who broke the gender barrier at quarterback in Pop Warner football, with Ice Cube as the reluctant coach. It was directed, yes, by Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit. Critics called it formulaic; audiences gave it an A. It is better than you assume.

  2. A football and a rhinestone tiara resting together on a wooden bleacher in small-town Oregon at dusk.

    09. Quarterback Princess

    Noel Black · 1983

    A CBS movie with Helen Hunt as Tami Maida, the real Oregon teenager who quarterbacked her high school team to a conference title and was named homecoming princess in the same season. Shot in McMinnville. Most people manage one of those in a lifetime.

  3. A single kicking tee holding a football on an empty college field, an armadillo-shaped shadow cast across the yard line.

    08. Necessary Roughness

    Stan Dragoti · 1991

    A Texas college team gutted by an SMU-style scandal rebuilds with a 34-year-old quarterback and Kathy Ireland, a women's soccer player, as kicker. Roger Ebert gave it three stars; Rotten Tomatoes gives it 35%. Ebert was watching it on the right Saturday afternoon.

  4. A small football helmet on a frosty Ohio field next to a play diagram scrawled on a napkin full of crisscrossing arrows.

    07. Little Giants

    Duwayne Dunham · 1994

    Becky O'Shea, nickname Icebox, is cut from her uncle's Pee-Wee team for being a girl, so her other uncle builds a rival team around her. John Madden makes his feature film debut, and the Annexation of Puerto Rico remains the most ambitious trick play in American cinema.

  5. A soccer ball on a boarding-school dorm bed next to a short brown wig, a fake sideburn kit and a paperback of a Shakespeare comedy.

    06. She's the Man

    Andy Fickman · 2006

    Twelfth Night, except the shipwreck is her school cutting girls' soccer. Amanda Bynes poses as her twin brother to play for a boys' boarding-school team, and Channing Tatum gets his breakout as the roommate. Critics shrugged. A generation has it memorized. Shakespeare holds up.

  6. A giant swirled lollipop and a small piglet in a ribbon on a tennis court baseline under dome lights.

    05. Battle of the Sexes

    Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton · 2017

    Emma Stone and Steve Carell restage the 1973 Astrodome match that about 90 million people watched. Riggs gave King a giant lollipop before the first serve; she gave him a live piglet. She won 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. He should have brought a better gift.

  7. A pair of worn red boxing gloves hanging from the ropes of an empty ring in a gritty gym, fluorescent light overhead.

    04. Girlfight

    Karyn Kusama · 2000

    Michelle Rodriguez, in her first role, trains at a Brooklyn gym and ends up fighting her boyfriend in an amateur final. She wins. John Sayles put up the $1 million budget after the original money walked two days before shooting. Sundance gave it the Grand Jury Prize. Fair.

  8. A small baseball glove on a Little League mound next to a crushed beer can, a dugout bench littered with sunflower seeds behind.

    03. The Bad News Bears

    Michael Ritchie · 1976

    Tatum O'Neal plays Amanda Whurlitzer, an 11-year-old ace Walter Matthau recruits because his Little League team cannot get anyone out. She is immediately the best player on the field. O'Neal was paid $350,000 plus points, and the score is mostly Bizet's Carmen.

  9. A jockey's silks and helmet hanging on a stable door, a pair of scissors and a cut braid on the straw below.

    02. National Velvet

    Clarence Brown · 1944

    Elizabeth Taylor disguises herself as a male jockey, rides a stallion called The Pie in the Grand National and crosses the line first. Then she is disqualified for being a girl, which the horse did not care about. Two Oscars, and Taylor was given the horse after filming.

  10. A 1940s wool baseball uniform skirt hanging in a dusty dugout beside a catcher's mitt and a cracked wooden bat.

    01. A League of Their Own

    Penny Marshall · 1992

    Based on the real All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which filled ballparks during the war. Geena Davis replaced Debra Winger four weeks before filming, Tom Hanks plays a drunk manager, and it made $132 million. The Library of Congress kept a copy.

Honorable mentions

  • A soccer ball curling past a row of wedding saris hanging on a suburban washing line.

    Bend It Like Beckham

    Gurinder Chadha · 2002

    Technically women's football, but Jess learns the game kicking around with the boys in a London park, and the movie made $92 million on a $5.6 million budget. David Beckham appears only in archive footage and bedroom posters. He was busy.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A small white vintage beetle-style car with racing stripes parked alone on a banked oval track, a racing helmet on its roof.

    Herbie: Fully Loaded

    Angela Robinson · 2005

    Lindsay Lohan races anonymously in a helmet, then takes a sentient Volkswagen to NASCAR against Matt Dillon. It made $144 million and scored 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. The dishonor belongs entirely to the car, which hogs every scene and takes all the credit.

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