Many have commented on how ‘Ted Lasso’ and the Ted Lasso effect has brought an air of optimism and kindness to TV, when for the last decade many of the hit shows have been about anything but (looking at you anti-heroes!) While this is certainly true especially for TV, and its impact should not be understated, Ted Lasso is by no means the first use of sports to interrogate friendships, leadership, and community, and to do so in a way that’s both inspirational and feel-good. Here we breakdown a number of sports films that can give you those same feel-good vibes.
Complete List of Titles:
Bend It Like Beckham
Bend It Like Beckham 20+ years on is as prescient today as it was when it was released, and there’s a lot to be said for the film’s ability to be so impactful even still. Not only does the film excellently showcase both Knightley’s Jules Paxton, a white, British young girl, and Jesminder “Jess” Bhamra, who is the daughter of British Indian Punjabi Sikhs, with such heart, but the their friendship represents such an incredible, and all too rare on screen, example of women as friends. (That’s why we love Keely and Rebecca’s friendship so much in Ted Lasso!)
Bend It Like Beckham also was a hit directed and written by British director Gurinder Chadha, who herself was raised by a Punjabi Sikh family, and thus was able to provide a truly authentic portrayal of Jess’s character.
Chak De! India
Sports films love the down and out player who in working through their own issues finds that by returning to coach the sport they loved, that perhaps spurned them, they find a new purpose in life. Mighty Ducks is one such film that plays on this idea with Emilio Estevez’s Gordon Bombay. Another film that does this incredibly well is Chak De! India.
In Chak De! India, we are introduced to disgraced Kabir Khan, played by Shah Rukh Khan, who missed a penalty point in a match against rival team Pakistan that could have won them the game. A photo of Khan with the Pakistani team leader, and Kabir Khan’s religious affiliation, leads the media and many in his community to suspect he threw the match, thus forcing Khan out of the game for many years.
Khan’s given a lifeline though when he is offered the chance to coach the Indian women’s hockey team. Once in he’s joined by players who represent the diversity of the Indian diaspora, and together they demonstrate how through sport they can be united not just as a team but also as a nation.
Even for Western audiences who would not perhaps understand the class, caste, and geographical differences, that are a part of life in India, the film does an incredible job portraying this in such a way this becomes a film that can be loved and appreciated universally.
(In ‘The Romantics’ on Netflix, ‘Chak De! India’ screenwriter Jaideep Sahni discusses the inspiration for this film was to help shine a light on the neglected state of Women’s hockey in India, and this film’s success had a positive effect which on its own is also incredible feel-good!)
Haikyuu!!
Anime has long been a wonderful medium for presenting emotional conflicts and their resolutions in over dramatic fashion. Fights are a bit extra, but so is the sweetness of togetherness and camaraderie. Great sports films do much of the same. So it’s no surprise when the latest wave of sports series took off that there’d be some real heart-felt gems that would make you just feel so hard it hurts!
One of the premiere sports anime to come out in the last 10 years is Haikyuu!!. Haikyuu!! is centered on Shoyo Hinata, whose cheerfulness is absolutely infections, and the Karasuno high school volleyball team he joins, made up of many incredible characters as well who you just cannot help but fall in love with. Of course if you are in it for the volleyball then yes you indeed get to see them play, but what’s most important is seeing how the characters grow as individuals and as a team.
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball begins as the story of Cleveland Indian’s new owner Rachel Phelps, who in many ways is the antithesis of Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham’s character Rebecca Welton who owns AFC Richmond – no doubt Lasso’s writers wrote Welton knowingly as Phelps opposite. After Phelps inherits the Cleveland Indians, she tries to have a team so full of misfits, rookies, and rejects, that they would lose and allow her to use an escape clause in her contract to move the team to Miami. (Interestingly enough the alternate ending softened Phelps character substantially, but late 80’s audiences rejected this – it was a different time perhaps.)
Phelps strange hiring allowed for a variety of out there baseball players to join the roster, including 80’s mega-star Charlie Sheen, as Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn, Tom Berenger’s Jake Taylor, a player with poor knees who is called up from the Mexican League, Corbin Bernsen’s Roger Dorn, nearing retirement himself, young Wesley Snipes’ Willie May Hays, an unvited rookie with little experience, and whole host of other misfits to join the roster.
Thus begins a story of underdogs and comebacks, which is as beloved in sports films as it is with real sports players and teams.
Major League Baseball II
Normally we wouldn’t include a sequel on this list; however, this one’s worth mentioning because of its increasing focus on the cadre of characters in the franchise, and how that allows this film to veer into an even more heartfelt film filled with even more absurd characters.
Your mileage may vary on this sequel, especially if you somehow took the first film more seriously than it perhaps itself did, but it’s still well worth a watch to see old characters continue to grow and new ones join this increasingly odd found family.
Tumbling
Before sports anime had their boom in the 2010s, Japanese TV dramas were already planting the seeds with some pretty incredible series. One that stood above the rest was Tumbling. Tumbling is not only a unique perspective at an under covered sport, Men’s Gymnastics, but its the perfect example of how a sport can foster team work despite adversity and pressure in the teammates daily lives.
Tumbling starts with the odd pairing of a hot-tempered student Azuma Wataru devoted (Yamamoto Yusuke) whose forced to join a team sport, and Takenaka Yuta (Seto Kuji), captain of the gymnastics team and a fan whose devoted to the sport. Together they have to overcome their differences, and of course there is no better place to do that than on the mat.
