These football movies based on true stories are great to watch during the Summer, pre-season, football season, or any time of year. These Netflix titles feature both dramas and biographical dramas.
It’s great to interview athletes, former athletes, and those who were closest to them, review old footage, and see old news coverage during events that made the person famous.
These football movies based on true stories will take you behind the scenes of some of black history’s greatest names characters and figures.
There’s a wide variety from politicians to athletes to entrepreneurs to activists. Pick one of these to watch today and I’ll bet you learn something about them that you didn’t know before! All of the research has been done for you.
Football movies based on true stories
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Sean Astin, Jon Favreau, Ned Beatty (Actors)
Rudy
Rudy Ruettige wants to play football at the University of Notre Dame but has neither the money for tuition nor the grades to qualify for a scholarship.
Rudy redoubles his efforts to get out of the steel mill where his father works when his best friend dies in an accident there.
Overcoming his dyslexia thanks to his friend and tutor, D-Bob, Rudy gains admission to Notre Dame and begins to fight his way onto the school's fabled football team.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- James Caan, Billy Dee Williams, Jack Warden (Actors)
Brians Songs
Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers are teammates on the mid-1960s Chicago Bears. At a time when professional football still bears a certain amount of race-based segregation, the growing friendship between the white Piccolo and the black Sayers, as well as their wives, Joy, and Linda, becomes a symbol of harmony during the civil rights era.
That bond grows stronger still when Piccolo receives some shattering and unexpected news.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding, Renee Zellweger (Actors)
Jerry Maguire
When slick sports agent Jerry Maguire has a crisis of conscience, he pens a heartfelt company-wide memo that promptly gets him fired.
Desperate to hang on to the athletes that he represents, Jerry starts his own management firm, with only single mother Dorothy Boyd joining him in his new venture.
Banking on their sole client, football player Rod Tidwell, Jerry, and Dorothy begin to fall in love as they struggle to make their business work.
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Undefeated
Since its founding in 1899, Manassas High School in North Memphis has never had a football team win a playoff game. In 2004, former high-school coach Bill Courtney offers to help turn the Manassas Tigers around.
Nurturing his players' physical and emotional strengths, Courtney's efforts pay off in 2009, when the Tigers, led by their star player O.C., seem to have a chance to break their school's 110-year losing streak and finally win a playoff game.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Pat O'Brien, Gale Page, Ronald Reagan (Actors)
Knute Rockne: All American
Young Norwegian immigrant Knute Rockne enrolls at Notre Dame University and becomes the first star of its hitherto undistinguished football team, inventing the forward pass among other innovations.
Coaching the team after his playing days are through, Rockne turns the school into a football powerhouse thanks in part to freshman halfback George Gipp, whose sudden illness provides the team with its motivation to fight against a bigger, stronger opponent.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Will Patton, Nicole Ari Parker, Denzel Washington (Actors)
Remember The Titans
In Virginia, high school football is a way of life, an institution revered, each game celebrated more lavishly than Christmas, each playoff distinguished more grandly than any national holiday.
And with such recognition, comes powerful emotions. In 1971 high school football was everything to the people of Alexandria. But when the local school board was forced to integrate an all-black school with an all-white school, the very foundation of football's great tradition was put to the test.
To continue learning, check out the Remember the Titans Movie Study.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, James Cromwell (Actors)
The Longest Yard
Disgraced pro football quarterback Paul Crewe lands in jail, where manipulative Warden Hazen recruits him to advise the institution's team. This turns into a lead role quarterbacking a crew of inmates in a game against a team of prison guards.
Aided by incarcerated ex-NFL coach Nate Scarborough, Crewe and his team must overcome not only the bloodthirstiness of the opposition but also the corrupt officials trying to fix the game against them.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Billy Bob Thornton, Jay Hernandez, Derek Luke (Actors)
Friday Night Lights
After being ousted as Dillon High's football coach, Coach Eric Taylor must build a team from the ground up at East Dillon. Eric's wife, Tami, also is challenged in her role as principal at West Dillon, as the parents of students who were zoned out of the district blame her for their kids being thrust into a less-than-desirable situation at East Dillon.
While dealing with issues at their respective jobs, Eric and Tami also face challenges in their family life with teenage daughter Julie.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Dennis Quaid, Rob Brown, Charles S. Dutton (Actors)
The Express
Born into poverty, Ernie Davis (Rob Brown) overcomes many obstacles to get into Syracuse University's football program. Under the guidance of Coach Ben Schwartzwalder, Davis becomes one of the school's best players, even surpassing Jim Brown's achievements.
In 1961 Davis becomes the first black player to win the Heisman Trophy, but there is one more obstacle in his life that he must overcome.
- Amazon Prime Video (Video on Demand)
- Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron (Actors)
The Blind Side
Michael Oher, a homeless black teen, has drifted in and out of the school system for years. Then Leigh Anne Tuohy and her husband, Sean, take him in. The Tuohys eventually become Michael's legal guardians, transforming both his life and theirs.
Michael's tremendous size and protective instincts make him a formidable force on the gridiron, and with help from his new family and devoted tutor, he realizes his potential as a student and football player.
Have you seen any of these football movies based on true stories?
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