Nina Metz, Shakeia Taylor: With sports movies an endangered species, a movie critic and sports writer look back at memorable offerings of decades past

Sports movies can serve as a backdrop for all kinds of storytelling about what it means to navigate through life. But mid-budget movies have all but disappeared from theaters, taking sports movies with them. When was the last time you saw a great sports comedy or drama that was new? Once a hardy genre, sports movies are something of an endangered species at the moment.

With that in mind, Tribune film critic Nina Metz and sports writer Shakeia Taylor look back at four titles from decades past: “Slap Shot,” “A League of Their Own,” “White Men Can’t Jump” and “Bend it Like Beckham.” All are rentable or available on a streaming platform.

Note: Next month Taylor will take part in the panel discussion “Leveling the Playing Field: Women in Baseball,” hosted by the Jackie Robinson Museum in New York, to talk about how women of color are stepping up to the plate across baseball.

‘Slap Shot’ (1977)

Paul Newman plays an aging player-coach of a struggling minor league hockey team

Nina Metz:Set in a small Pennsylvania steel town, the movie is as grimy as they come, both in look (perpetually overcast skies) and sensibility (plenty of the dialogue will make you wince). Things are not going well for Newman’s disillusioned, over-the-hill Reggie Dunlop, which is evident when he takes the ice and a heckler