'King Richard' and Top 5 Sports Movies With Bill Simmons

King Richard 2021

Will Smith as Richard Williams, raising Venus and Serena in 1990s Compton. The group reads it as a parent movie more than a sports movie: Bill's takeaway is how far it shifts his '90s memory of Richard as a lunatic tennis dad, and both he and Amanda flag the kitchen-argument scene (Aunjanue Ellis as Oracene going toe-to-toe) as the thing that lifts it past a generic sports film. Praise for Jon Bernthal and Tony Goldwyn as the coaches, the daughters played by Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton, and Robert Elswit's cinematography. Sean's one knock: the final-match sequence runs too long. Pegged as a Will Smith Oscar lock and best-picture contender.

The Longest Yard 1974

Bill's first era starts here in '74.

Rollerball 1975

Rocky 1976

With Bad News Bears, the two 1976 films that kick the genre into gear.

The Bad News Bears 1976

Major League 1989

Bill's second run, late '80s into the '90s kids-and-comedy wave.

Jerry Maguire 1996

The '90s move that takes the formula and twists it up a notch.

Tin Cup 1996

Hardball 2001

Third era: one star on a poster, a movie about whatever, and it makes money.

Remember the Titans 2000

Varsity Blues 1999

Summer Catch 2001

Love & Basketball 2000

One of the good ones from the third generation.

The Damned United 2009

Part of the current era Bill likes best: real movies that happen to be set in sports rather than the old template.

Warrior 2011

A family story that lives inside professional sports; the kind of invented-world film Bill argues you now have to build to get these made.

The Way Back 2020

Makes the playoffs and then keeps going off a cliff into rehab; twists the old formula against you, and Bill thinks it's great.

Bull Durham 1988

No. 1 - Ron Shelton's minor-league catcher movie; Sean rates Costner as the most credible actor-athlete in movie history and calls it the 'I didn't know you could do that' kind of film.

Slapshot 1977

No. 2 - George Roy Hill and Paul Newman; maybe Newman's best performance, no hockey movie has come near it in 45 years.

White Men Can't Jump 1992

No. 3 - the other Ron Shelton pick; Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes with all-time chemistry, first 45 minutes unassailable.

Downhill Racer 1969

No. 4 - Michael Ritchie's cerebral skiing movie with Robert Redford as a prima-donna Olympian; the one that never leaves Sean's list, and Gene Hackman's audition for Hoosiers.

Rounders 1998

No. 5 - a poker movie that has every sports-movie beat; Sean's love of it has famously been used against him on the podcast.

Caddyshack 1980

No. 1 - pure enjoyment; still one of the funniest movies ever, and Ted Knight steals every scene he's in.

Slapshot 1977

No. 2 - Bill had it at two as well; owns its sport, nothing has approached it.

Hoosiers 1986

No. 3 - used to be his No. 1; Spike Lee's writing on its racial politics complicated it for him, but Jimmy's performance is unbelievable. Doing it on The Rewatchables next week.

Rocky III 1982

No. 4 - the most satisfying Rocky start to finish, the best twist, the Mr. T statue scene, the beach jumping.

Blue Chips 1994

No. 5 - William Friedkin college-hoops drama with Nick Nolte and Shaq; a flawed movie Bill loves anyway, and revealing now given college-athlete pay debates.

Moneyball 2011

No. 1 - the heart pick; a new era of the genre, Brad Pitt's best performance for her, and a climactic home run she finds nearly as moving as the end of Rudy. She only forgot to mention Philip Seymour Hoffman.

A League of Their Own 1992

No. 2 - a sisters movie not unlike King Richard; Tom Hanks, Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell, and the did-she-drop-it-on-purpose question (Amanda says yes).

Rudy 1993

No. 3 - grew up in a college-football household; weeps throughout every time, made-up jersey scene and all.

Creed 2015

No. 4 - a reinvention that keeps the Rocky spirit; the Meek Mill training scene and the steps let her channel her husband's Philadelphia pride.

The Cutting Edge 1992

No. 5 - the idiosyncratic Amanda pick; a Tony Gilroy-scripted figure-skating rom-com with DB Sweeney and the training montages her Olympics-obsessed kid self loved.

King Richard 2021

How he landed the job (script slipped to him by four people, a pitch built on his own athlete father rather than a visual deck), why he wanted a family movie with tennis in it and not a tennis movie, and the liberties he took with the timeline and the smaller real-life final match to make it cinematic. Recruited cinematographer Robert Elswit after meeting him at a Sundance directors' lab, then moved down the street from him.

Monsters and Men 2018

His first feature, based on his life, and the film that took him to Sundance.

Joe Bell 2020

The sophomore film with Mark Wahlberg he was finishing when the King Richard call came.

Searching for Bobby Fischer 1993

One of the touchstones (with Moneyball) he cited to Will as the tone he was after - a sports movie about a family, not the sport.

Nomadland 2020

The last great film he'd seen: Chloe Zhao, an NYU friend, making a big-hearted movie with no lights.