From court to cinema: Top 10 basketball-based blockbusters

Over the years, a number of legendary people have appeared in Hollywood courts. The main ball handlers have been Michael Jordan, Air Bud, Teen Wolf, and even Foghorn Leghorn. Heck, Bugs Bunny even had a romantic relationship while playing hoops. More Hollywood than that, perhaps?

We’re honouring all the Hollywood hoopers who embody the game of basketball on the big screen as the NBA Playoffs get underway. We’re discussing hits starring Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems and Hustle), classics (Space Jam and White Man Can’t Jump), and must-see documentaries (Hoop Dreams and Kobe Doin’ Work). How do we put it? We adore ourselves with a few hoops. Everything is here: the looks, the recognition, the feelings when life is a ball. It’s time to rediscover your love for basketball, even if your March Madness bracket fell short this year. The top ten basketball films are listed below:

• White Men Can’t Jump

Both Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes are significantly shorter than six feet tall, but their bravado and confidence more than makeup for it. After starting off as rivals, the two hustlers from Venice Beach realize that there is a financial advantage to be had from making fun of people who stereotype others based on their skin color, a practice known as ‘chumps’. The basketball sequences on the playground and the beach are elevated by director Ron Shelton’s humorous brilliance, and Rosie Perez, who plays Harrelson’s fiancée, is the ideal third player in this clever and enjoyable plot. Bicycle hats and loose T-shirts are so passé.

• Love and Basketball

Perhaps the only corny line in Gina Prince-Blythewood’s directorial debut is “Everything is fair in love and basketball.” Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps) have a conventional courtship that starts and finishes on the sidewalk as their one-on-one encounters convey their flirtations and affections. Throughout its four-and-a-half-year run, the film handles the task of the couple navigating their relationship while pursuing individual achievement in college and the workplace with the attention and realism that it deserves. The final shot or the big game is not highlighted in Love and Basketball. Lessons learned after the buzzer goes off are more important.

• He Got Game

This Spike Lee Joint takes a No. 1 high school basketball talent through every hardship and temptation up until the last week of his college commitment. At the end of the movie, during a one-on-one meeting with Jesus Shuttlesworth’s controlling father Jake (Denzel Washington), Ray Allen’s brilliant casting decision as the Coney Island star comes together at its best. In an effort to drive out the ghosts of their family past and convince Jesus to play for Big State University, the governor has granted him parole for his murderous conviction. With its views of LaVar Ball, tainted recruiting, and the NCAA’s crooked economic culture, it is still a disappointingly relevant film.

• Hoop Dreams

In the documentary Hoop Dreams, two high school basketball prospects are followed as they strive to get into the NBA. One of the few contemporary films that keeps your attention throughout its three hours is this devastating masterpiece, which turns out to be about much more than just basketball skill.

• Hoosiers

It will always be remembered as the classic Indiana basketball film. As Hickory’s new basketball coach, Gene Hackman’s Norman Dale stirs some controversy by teaching the foundations of the sport. Jimmy Chitwood, the best player from the little farming community, initially refuses to participate but later agrees to join the team as long as Dale does, and the seven-man squad quickly advances to its championship aspirations. The Hoosiers established the template for the iconic locker room power clap that can be seen on video boards in every professional sports arena, as well as the motivating speech that says, “If you play hard, you’re winners, regardless of the scoreboard.” One of the film’s numerous contributions was carrying a measuring tape inside of enormous venues a new significance.

• Coach Carter

Thought about Coach Carter loves every bit of Samuel L. Jackson as the tyrannical head coach who takes over an uninspired squad and transforms its entire culture with some severe, well-intentioned regulations and a caustic temperament. Recall the Titans on a basketball court. Inspired by the actual Ken Carter, who notably forbade his 1999 Richmond High School team from practicing until their grades improved, the film explores the conflict between the demands of academic integrity and winning expectations. Arrive for Jackson’s burns, and stay for Rick Gonzalez’s heart-softening quote from Marianne Williamson.

• Glory Road

Old footage of the days is shown at the opening of Glory Road. When Don Haskins (Josh Lucas) arrives to take over the basketball program at Texas Western University in the middle of the 1960s, things are definitely changing there. Without assistance with recruitment, he fills his team with seven Black guys who have no chance of going to college. Resistance to integration mounts throughout the Miners’ virtually perfect season, and it erupts when Haskins makes history by starting five African-American players in the National Championship game. This expertly crafted retrospective doesn’t actually disappoint or surprise us in any way.

• Uncut Gems

To be clear, the film Uncut Gems is about basketball. Take it from the Safdie Brothers, the film’s directors and ardent Knicks supporters: the already-legendary Sandler comedy is unquestionably a sports movie. Still, Uncut Gems is an adventure. Sandler portrays a jeweller who is determined to wager an absurd sum of money on a Celtics game. Guns, drugs, sex, and chaos follow. In addition, Kevin Garnett’s performance as Kevin Garnett would have been truly Oscar-worthy had he received more screen time. Uncut Gems will not, of course, give you the sensation of being in a basketball game. However, you’ll perspire as much as if you had just placed a wager on one.

• Finding Forrester

How could the finest writer at a prestigious private school in Manhattan be a gifted Black basketball player from the Bronx? This film challenges prejudices and serves as a reminder that we should never judge a book by its cover. You may think of it as Gus Van Sant’s spiritual New York follow-up to Good Will Hunting. The phenomenon in question, Rob Brown, makes an odd acquaintance in Sean Connery, a former recluse and well-known Scottish novelist, who ends up becoming a prickly mentor to the sixteen-year-old. In the end, the court is replaced with a classroom, where it is evident that Jamal will receive a Pulitzer Prize, despite the fact that the young man is a natural at basketball and carries a ball in almost every scene.

• Space Jam

In addition to producing a catchy hit song, Space Jam gave Michael Jordan the perfect platform to further his fame, adding to his legend. The movie pairs Michael Jordan with the Looney Tunes to play basketball against supercharged aliens who have kidnapped his NBA colleagues’ skills. It blends animation with some of the biggest names in the game. The “MonStars” quickly discover that they should never take on the all-time great, especially when he has Bill Murray on his side to assist him in continuing his demon-defeating ways on the court.