Screen play: our writers pick their favourite sports movies

Bull Durham

The greatness of any Ron Shelton sports movie has as much to do with that isn’t in them as what is. Shelton’s Bull Durham, as with follow-ups like White Men Can’t Jump and Tin Cup, has no Big Game ending or inspirational schmaltz, and features a flawed, never-was athlete whose triumphs are known to few outside his inner circle. In a breezily assured performance, Kevin Costner plays a journeyman catcher who’s spent almost no time outside the minor leagues, where his job is teach the finer points of the game to cocky young flamethrowers like “Nuke” Laloosh (Tim Robbins) before they graduate to “The Big Show”. Coaching arrogant dopes to live out your dream is humbling work, but Shelton savors the smaller, unseen victories for his hero, like his relationship with a minor-league “groupie” (Susan Sarandon) who represents a tantalizing off-season promotion. As a former minor-leaguer himself, Shelton parlays his understanding of baseball rituals, superstitions and gimmicks into a hilarious, impeccably detailed romantic comedy. Scott Tobias

Miracle

Growing up in a hockey family in the US, the 1980 Olympic game between the USA and USSR was canon. And Miracle, the 2004 film directed by Gavin O’Connor