The Beautiful Game: 15 Great Films About Football

Football. The “beautiful game”. A sport that is watched and loved across the globe. Celebrated for its simplicity, drama and unpredictability, football remains the world’s most popular sport, creating superstars of its players and making dreams come true for its fans.

Football, or soccer as it is better known in the USA, has become one of the world’s greatest spectator sports for good reason. For while winning, whether it be a domestic championship, a cup or a continental trophy, is the ultimate “goal”, the journey getting there is an adventure worth living over and over again. It’s the very reason why being a football fan is so exhilarating.

The best football films

Kes (Ken Loach, 1969)

In the Top 10 Films about Football I take a look at how cinema has celebrated the various aspects of the game – from the highs to the lows and everything in between.

Unsurprisingly, given its popularity in the UK, British film, which has often found drama, comedy and character study in football with the game either taking centre stage or being a backdrop to the story, features heavily here.

In this selection of films we see how movies have celebrated the players themselves, the fans, the managers and coaches; how careers have been made and ended, how a love of the game has brought people together and forced them apart, how hearts have been broken and put back together, how dreams have been made and lost.

15. There’s Only One Jimmy Grimble

Dir. Hay (2000)

There’s Only One Jimmy Grimble concentrates on social outcast Jimmy (Lewis McKenzie), a fifteen-year-old who dreams about playing for Manchester City.

It mixes notions of the breakdown of the conventional family unit and social exclusion with coming-of-age, teenage romance and finding an identity. All the while, Jimmy tries to break into his school’s football team and possibly help it win the Manchester Schools Cup final. Ray Winstone and Robert Carlyle also star.

14. When Saturday Comes

Dir. Maria Giese (1996)

When Saturday Comes, Maria Giese’s from nobody-to-somebody football film may be littered with sports movie clichés but features a strong performance from Sean Bean. He carries us on a journey that touches the heart with an authenticity that elevates Giese’s effort.

13. Gregory’s Girl

Dir. Bill Forsyth (1981)

Bill Forsyth’s most endearing film, this Scottish coming-of-age comedy-drama oozes a sweet-natured charm as gangly high school teen Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair) falls for a girl who’s out of his league.

Observant about teenage life, love and football, it’s also a very funny story as Gregory learns about the pain of infatuation with the pretty girl who takes his place on the football team.

Forsyth’s breakthrough film features a wonderful sense of teenage awkwardness, capturing the foibles of growing up with a touching sense of innocence amidst the risqué realities of school-age sex talk.

12. Mike Bassett: Football Manager

Dir. Steve Barron (2001)

A fish-out-of-water satire shot in documentary style, Mike Bassett: Football Manager follows Ricky Tomlinson’s eponymous “old school” head coach who unexpectedly gets the England national team job having enjoyed only minimal success in the lower leagues.

Inspired by the reign of real-life England manager Graham Taylor and the documentary An Impossible Job following their unsuccessful route to World Cup qualification in 1994, this mockumentary has moments of comic lunacy amidst its often amusing off-field histrionics.

Director Barron’s energetic anarchy finds an agreeable truth as the circus that always surrounds the England football team is given a stage that mixes fiction with reality.

11. Bend It Like Beckham

Dir. Gurinder Chadha (2002)

“Golden Balls”, otherwise known as David Beckham (probably the 21st century’s most internationally recognised football star), had to get a place on this list somewhere and spot number 10 it is.

Bend It Like Beckham , from director Gurinder Chadha, sees contemporary football’s most famous face get his name in silver screen lights as football-mad Jess joins a girls team despite her parents forbidding her.

This sweet-natured comedy-drama mixes a number of themes – cultural identity, sexual and gender liberation, friendship and growing up – into a pleasing and entertaining end product.

10. Goal!

Dir. Danny Cannon (2005)

Featuring a host of cameos from real footballers thanks to the film having the full cooperation of FIFA (football’s world governing body), Goal is director Danny Cannon’s rags to riches feelgood tale that follows an idealistic footballer’s dream of becoming a professional.

There’s some great football action as the fleet-of-foot fish-out-of-water Santiago Muñez (played by Kuno Becker) sees his stylish game come face-to-face with the tough-talking, tough-tackling English Premier League.

9. Fever Pitch

Dir. David Evans (1997)

Colin Firth is a devoted Arsenal football fan in Fever Pitch, a comedy-drama about the challenges separating love for your team with love for your partner. Based on Nick Hornby’s novel, the story follows Firth’s Paul Ashworth, a teacher from North London, who is desperate for Arsenal to win the league during the 1988-89 season.

Less about playing the sport, more about those that watch and love it, Fever Pitch (which was later remade for a baseball-loving audience in America with Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon) is the sort of film that holds up a mirror to sports fans who can see a little – or a lot – of themselves in.

8. Cass

Dir. Jon S. Baird (2008)

In a list of the best football films that features fans, managers and players, the circle would not be complete, especially given the shadowy past of English football supporters, if it did not contain a nod to the football hooligan.

Hooliganism across the world has plagued football for many years. While British supporters have a much better reputation nowadays, football hooliganism in the UK grew in prominence during the late 1970s and 1980s.

Known as the “English Disease”, hooliganism in the country became an institution as large gangs, known as “firms”, were set up to run and take part in organised and unorganised fights with opposing team’s firms. Hooligans also committed violent crime inside and outside football grounds.

The UK’s reputation for this football affliction grew in the 1980s when the government decided it had to take a heavy-handed approach to stamping it out leading to some ugly clashes between football hooligans and police. Tragedy would occur when, during the European Cup final between Italy’s Juventus and England’s Liverpool, 39 people were killed and 600 injured after violent clashes broke out. This saw English football clubs banned from European competition for five years. Since then, hooliganism in the UK, and by English fans abroad, has thankfully been on the decrease.

Cass, based on the true life story of Cass Pennant, is Jon. S. Baird’s terrific crime-drama which takes place during the height of football hooliganism in the UK. But what makes the story far more interesting than a lot of hooliganism films, is Cass’ backstory.

Cass (Jon S. Baird, 2008)

After his mother emigrated from Jamaica to the UK she abandoned Cass as a six-week-old baby and he was taken in by an orphanage. Adopted by an elderly white family in Kent, Cass was racially bullied by his peers and the local community. Having to stick up for himself in the face of regular violence, he developed a steely attitude and tough physical presence. Eventually finding a sense of friendship and camaraderie with the local West Ham football hooligan firm, he ascends the ranks to lead the gang through the 1980s.

The film boasts a terrific performance by Nonso Anozie as the adult Cass, with director Baird taking us through his early childhood, his young adult life during the height of football hooliganism, and his later years when he tries to distance himself from his past misdemeanours.

It’s a powerful character study that works terrifically well lifting the lid on the allure of football hooliganism, and its shocking and, at times, tragic consequences. Indeed, Cass was one of the first high profile hooligans to be imprisoned for his violent activities. Yet, in addition, the struggle Cass has to face growing up in a society unable, and often unwilling, to accept him makes his admiration for football hooliganism, where he finds acceptance and worth, all the more resonant and sympathetic.

7. The Firm

 Dir. Alan Clarke (1989)

Preceding Cass is Alan Clarke’s 1989 film, The Firm starring Gary Oldman. A violent, uncompromising and characteristically bleak piece of social realism, the director is keen to redirect attention away from football and onto the perpetrators of hooliganism.

Gary Oldman in Alan Clare’s The Firm (1989)

The film suggests that football is the victim. These angry young men “hitting each other” for entertainment is indicative of their pursuit of happiness – a “buzz” says Oldman’s master hooligan Bexy – outside of their domestic normality and largely affluent suburban existence. It’s actually quite fascinating to see another side of the 1980s “yuppie”, one getting his kicks out of bloodying the nose of his fellow man.

Cleverly Clarke shows us very little actual football aside from Bexy playing for his amateur team when a rival gang leader (the excellent Phil Davis) drives across the field after covering a fellow hooligan’s car with graffiti. Violence is not a symptom of football but tribalism and a sense of identity certainly is. What’s striking is that football hooligans of the late 1980s are depicted here as suit and tie-wearing family men who organise their fights at lavish hotels not skinheads with a racist agenda.

Rightly not offering an underlying cause, The Firm does however provide some interesting ideas. Perhaps, unlike those poor, penniless folk on their council estates, who turn their anger to authority and the government thanks to being kicked by recession, privatisation and a lack of opportunity, affluent family men who have found financial and personal success as well as – broadly speaking – happiness, must manifest a villain to target their aggression?

6. Shaolin Soccer

Dir. Stephen Chow (2001)

Stephen Chow introduces us not just to football, but “Shaolin football” in Honk Kong action film Shaolin Soccer. This is a brand of the game that comes to life when a former Shaolin monk enlists the help of his five brothers to apply their superhuman martial arts skills to football and in doing so bring the art of Shaolin kung fu, with its spiritual and practical benefits, to a wider audience.

There’s a kinetic energy to the football sequences in this comedic fantasy, aided of course by the film’s exciting mixture of martial arts agility and football skill. And Chow’s camera rarely stops moving as he captures the frenetic pace of the game and Team Shaolin’s battle for glory with tongue staying firmly in cheek.

5. Escape To Victory

Dir. John Huston (1981)

Escape to Victory is notorious for a number of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with its qualities as a piece of entertainment. For starters, it’s an odd addition to director John Huston’s catalogue of work. It’s also perhaps better known as the film in which its real-life football stars can’t act and its professional actors can’t play football.

This wartime story follows a group of allied prisoners of war who plot to flee their captors during an exhibition football match between themselves and a German side. The silly set-up, characterised by how out of place Sylvester Stallone looks as the POW team’s goalkeeper, is made all the more exciting by the all-star ensemble.

This includes Michael Caine and Max Von Sydow who lend weight to the drama, while professional footballers such as Brazilian legend Pele (who helped coin the phrase “the beautiful game”) and English hero Bobby Moore (who captained England to World Cup glory in 1966) provide authenticity to the match play.

Helped by the energy of a partisan crowd, the film turns the excitement level up as the allied team have to contend with a biased referee and some meaty tackles while they nervously prepare for their daring escape. It’s sort of The Great Escape with football boots.

4. Marvellous

Dir. Peter Bowker (2014)

Julian Farino’s sparkling comedy-drama stars the incomparable Toby Jones as real-life Stoke City kit-man Neil Baldwin. Growing up with learning difficulties, he remains reluctant to accept the boundaries other people perceive he has, thus betraying the odds and living a full and, at times, very exciting life.

A breezy, feelgood biopic boasting the subtle charm of Jones who confidently steers clear of caricature, providing a convincing performance brimming with humanity, honesty and heart.

Baldwin’s love of football becomes a focal point of the story; the man has honorary life membership of Keele University Students’ Union in part because he set up the Neil Baldwin Football Club there in 1967. And as Stoke City’s kit-man he was once jokingly described by its manager-at-the-time Lou Macari as “the best signing I ever made”.

3. The Damned United

Dir. Tom Hooper (2009)

Michael Sheen, an actor adept at capturing the nuances of real life figures this time brings former Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough to life for his ill-fated 44 days in charge of Leeds United.

Clough had long since held a bitter rivalry with Leeds’ former manager Don Revie and therefore quickly found discontentment amongst the players at his appointment. The result isn’t pretty as Leeds end up bottom of the league after only a few matches.

The Damned United, by focusing on failure, stands out from other sports movies that build predictably towards success. Sheen’s strong performance as the larger-than-life Brian Clough is great to see but the film’s stand out feature is its celebration of football rivalry, one of the big reasons why the game is so adored.

2. Looking For Eric

Dir. Ken Loach (2009)

If The Damned United was about football managers, Looking For Eric is about football fans. A down-on-his-luck diehard Manchester United supporter starts seeing visions of his hero Eric Cantona who begins to give him advice about his life. This helps him reconnect with his ex-wife while strengthening his relationship with his unruly stepson.

But when gangsters begin threatening his family he calls on the help of his fellow football fans to fight back. The film is a bittersweet celebration of our football heroes and why they come to play such a central role in our lives. Eric Cantona, playing himself, is great as the philosophical mentor and the film, written by long-time Loach collaborator Paul Laverty, has a delightful balance of drama and humour.

1. Kes

Dir. Ken Loach (1969)

Kes sees timid, football-shy 15-year-old Billy Casper, unable to play the “I’ve forgotten my kit, Sir” excuse, forced to go in goal during a P.E. lesson with his perennially angry teacher Mr Sugden, played with caustic brilliance by Brian Glover. The teacher is captain, referee, and, unfortunately for the kids, judge and jury as the game in Ken Loach’s film becomes more about his terror tactics and love of football legend Bobby Charlton than teaching the pupils anything about sport, teamwork or fitness.

Amid the strong South Yorkshire accents, this working class struggle focuses upon Billy’s battle with bullies at home and at school as he tries to find his way in life, often amusing himself with petty crime. He does however find friendship from an unlikely source when he begins training a kestrel, showing a keen interest in the art of falconry. Yet, while his outlook at school does improve, his ability on the football pitch remains rather, shall we say, limited. In the film’s standout scene, Mr Sugden orchestrates a match between his pupils in which he captains one of the sides.

Football plays a small but significant role in Kes, a film which remains a compelling addition to British realism cinema. Memorably it finds its raw sense of alienation, growing up and companionship, bottled up inside its football scene which makes the beautiful game appear that little bit more potent. There’s an obvious sense of nostalgia about the match, not only in its depiction of a northern English school in the late 1960s but the role football plays in our leisure activity, the way we interact with others, and how it informs our lives as we grow up.

For Mr Sugden, it’s maturity versus immaturity, the ruler versus the ruled, the teacher against the pupil. For him, the game is a brief chance to live out the footballing dreams of his own youth. His presence as teacher allows him to make his own rules (as seen when he gives himself a penalty only to miss it and claim the goalkeeper was making unfair movements prior to the kick) ensuring he takes full advantage of his powerful position as teacher.

He also utilises his significant bulk to overpower his pre-teen pupils, furthering his advantage. Loach interestingly takes the disconnect between teacher and pupil from the corporal punishment room that is the classroom and onto the playing field as Mr Sugden bullies and belittles the children into playing out his own football fantasy. Yet, there’s an undeniable love of the game that shines through Glover’s otherwise acerbic character. It makes his heavy-handed approach and casual, dismissive putdowns infinitely re-watchable and perversely funny.

But there’s some great asides, especially Billy Casper who is completely disinterested in the game and spends much of it talking to his friend about how cold they are (“my feet are like blocks of ice”) or climbing on the frame of the goal like a circus performer. Most people will be able to relate to the forgotten kit excuse as well as the result as the teacher trawls through dirty lost property to find some oversized replacements.

Perhaps most pleasingly, Loach ensures the “little guys” have the last laugh. With Billy Casper in goal there really isn’t much to stop an attack from the opposing side. So when one of the better players on team “Spurs” runs through Mr Sugden’s team “Manchester United” and scores the winning goal, the teacher finds himself on the losing side as the children (from both teams) run back to the changing rooms cheering a moral victory as well as a sporting one.

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