It’s a scene that has played out thousands of times before, and it will happen thousands of times again: somebody is very confused when they walk in on someone else watching a sporting event that took place two decades earlier. “How can you be watching a game that happened twenty years ago?” they ask. It’s a question no diehard sports fan will ever be able to explain without sounding like a crazy person. But while neither side of this scenario will ever be able to fully understand the other, this communication breakdown never happens if someone re-watches a 20-year-old sports movie. Everybody understands the value of doing that. So to help you enjoy a nostalgic evening of athletic prowess nostalgia without getting weird looks, here are eight sports movies from the ’90s you can stream right now.
The Sandlot (1993)
Few sports films have ever captured the utter joy of being a kid better than the memorable tale of a group of young friends spending their summer together on the field who must recover a prized “Baby Ruth” baseball. The movie’s full of memorable characters, like Smalls, Benny the Jet, Squints, Ham, Wendy Peppercorn, and the Beast, and iconic scenes, including a queasy amusement park ride, Squints “drowning,” and “You play ball like a girl!” The Sandlot, a movie about nostalgia, was definitely made with a young audience in mind, but after 25 years it’s fun to re-watch it and remember what it was like when we saw it as kids.
Streaming on HBO Go
Diggstown – 1992
Part Roadhouse, part Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, part Rocky, and 100% silly, Diggstown stars James Woods as a con man trying to outsmart the most powerful, corrupt figure in a small town named after a famous boxer. Woods makes a bet he can find a boxer who can beat ten men in a single day. Academy Award winner Louis Gossett Jr. accepts the challenge, though the 24-hour spectacle is as much about which con artist can pull the greater scam on the other, which at one point involves actual murder. To say the concept is overwrought is an understatement. It really has to be seen to be believed.
Streaming on Amazon Prime
Cool Runnings (1993)
Anyone who has ever seen this classic sports movie about the unlikeliest Winter Olympic athletes to ever compete on the world’s biggest stage has always had the following little ditty stuck in their head: “Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up, it’s bobsled time! Cool Runnings!” Usually that would be a nightmare, but the based-on-a-true story movie about the first ever Jamaican four-man bobsled team qualifying for the 1988 Olympic games in Calgary is one feel-good film that can always play on repeat for us. It’s also features one of the most memorable performances by the late, great John Candy.
Streaming on HBO Go
Necessary Roughness (1991)
Necessary Roughness might not be the best sports movie of the decade, but it might be the most ’90s sports movie of the decade. Scott Bakula stars as a 34-year-old former high school quarterback who is convinced to play for a Texas college team whose entire staff and players were removed after a number of scandals. That’s the most believable part of the film, which follows a skeleton team of castoffs and old people competing in division one college football. It also involves an evil dean trying to destroy the football program for good, Sinbad as a defensive lineman, and Kathy Ireland as a soccer player-turned-kicker. An do they end up playing the team they got into a big fight with earlier in the year in the final game of the season? Like we said, this might be the most “’90s” sports movie ever.
Streaming on Amazon Prime
Mystery, Alaska (1999)
Whether Mystery, Alaska–Russell Crowe’s last movie before he became one of the biggest actors in the world–is a drama or a comedy is up for debate. A local hockey team from a small Alaskan town gets to play the New York Rangers on national television, but not before the town’s team and its citizens go through a whole lot of personal issues. Those problems include adultery, alcoholism, corruption, modern day capitalism, and death. That all sounds very serious, and yet the entire premise is still so over-the-top it’s always funny.
Streaming on HBO Go
Blue Chips (1994)
The first intercollegiate basketball game is believed to have been played on February 9, 1895, and the first college basketball scandal happened on February 10th. We’re just kidding, but like any enterprise–as soon as big dollars come corruption follows. That’s the story of Blue Chips. It follows Nick Nolte as a famous, Bobby Knight-like coach whose program is revitalized after he turns a blind eye to illegal recruiting that brings him a national championship-level freshmen class. The movie was good in 1994, and it still holds up today. The story is still timely, the basketball scenes remain some of the best ever filmed, and Nolte’s complicated coach feels akin to many big names coaches now. Not to mention it features a slew of future NBA stars, including Shaquille O’Neal in his best big screen performance ever.
Streaming on Amazon Prime
Jerry Maguire (1996)
It might not feel like this heartfelt and funny Tom Cruise rom-com/sports movie came out this long ago, but that’s because it’s so memorable it’s easy to feel like you just saw it yesterday. In addition to a killer lineup of amazing characters played by Renée Zellweger, Regina King, young Jonathan Lipnicki, and Cuba Gooding Jr. in an Oscar-winning role as Rod Tidwell, the movie also features all-time classic lines.
“Show me the money!”
“Help me help you.”
“You complete me.”
“You had me at hello.”
You don’t need to be a sports fan to enjoy this one, you just need a pair of eyeballs.
Streaming on Hulu
Featured Image: Paramount, Disney
