Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

The affection displayed for Tom Cruise brought to mind a football film he made.
The name was lost but instantly remembered by the most likely member here.
It was "All the Right Moves" which also starred Craig T Nelson, a State of Washington football player
who later starred in the television series "Coach."
(Hats off to Reaser.)

But another film sits in the foggy bottom of the mind and this title is also blurred.
Like "All the Right Moves," it began in western Pennsylvania and the star was a QB hoping for admission to a swanky yankee school.
Problem was: the school was extremely WASP and the athlete was Jewish. He kept his religion hidden but was eventually found out.

Can anyone recall the name of that film?

Thanks in advance...

That is "School Ties" starring Brendan Fraser and Matt Damon.

Thank you.

No problem.

Both of those movies were pretty good, I thought, and I tend to not like football movies.

"All the Right Moves" is my favorite movie about football. Very well done and good acting by Cruise and Nelson.

Saban wrote:"All the Right Moves" is my favorite movie about football. Very well done and good acting by Cruise and Nelson.

Not my favorite but ranks highly, for me. Very good movie.

While I am all for naked scenes with Lea Thompson, my 'favorite' football movie was "The Program", because it was so stupid and bad (yet still relevant!). "Any Given Sunday" was also stupid and bad, but in a manner that made me angry. I think most football movies are terrible, because the real thing is far superior to any Hollywood concoction.

"Everybody's All-American" with Dennis Quaid was pretty good. Thought it showed a realistic portrayal of the difficulties transitioning from the college game to the pro game.

Among the more enjoyable football portrayals over the years were the scenes in "The Long Gray Line"
showing Army battling that little school of Our Lady.
Great cast too with Maureen O'Hara, Tyrone Power, Ward Bond, Donald Crisp, just to recall a few,
and a young Peter Graves demonstrating his skill on the pommel horse.

Mentioning Army, "The Spirit of West Point" had the best college football scenes of an actual team
and "Trouble Along the Way" had good scenes depicting a fictional school.

"Wildcats" was fun to watch and, of course, there's the Michael Curtiz classic "Jim Thorpe -- All-American"
which has better Olympic Games track scenes than football.

'Course all of these were pre-'90s and a tad too old for the ESPNers...

Bryan wrote:While I am all for naked scenes with Lea Thompson, my 'favorite' football movie was "The Program", because it was so stupid and bad (yet still relevant!). "Any Given Sunday" was also stupid and bad, but in a manner that made me angry. I think most football movies are terrible, because the real thing is far superior to any Hollywood concoction.

The Program had the dubious distinction of having a scene removed from it because of the stupidity of people trying to imitate it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiPCmKvgDQo