Play ball! Ranking the 21 best baseball movies ever

Baseball documentaries often tend to be either nostalgic sepia toned affairs or two-hour dramatizations of Wiki articles. But not , which subverts expectations with its humorous and reflective chronicle of Hank Greenberg, an exceptionally talented first baseman for the Detroit Tigers who faced religious prejudice on his way to becoming an American icon. His considerable gifts, and what he accomplished with them, comprise the bulk of this insightful and necessary look back at a Golden Age of baseball compromised by anti-semitism.

is to baseball movies what is to football. Robert De Niro and Michael Moriarty star as teammates whose friendship is sorely tested when De Niro’s character becomes afflicted with Hodgkin’s disease. When his condition turns fatal, that’s when the movie turns on the waterworks on its way to becoming a classic in the genre.

Director Michael Ritchie, whose cheerful cynicism about American institutions informed 1972’s , delivers arguably his most commercial film with , a comedy about a cynical, beer-swilling Little League coach (Walter Matthau) and his team of foul-mouthed misfits led by a precocious Tatum O’Neal. Richard Linklater’s 2005 remake isn’t terrible, but it’s nowhere near as good (or quotable) as the original.

is to ’90s kids what is to Boomers. Thanks to its endless airings on cable, fans fell for The Sandlot’s nostalgic, heartstring-tugging look at an unlikely team of suburban teens whose bonds extended well beyond the games they played. It’s a -esque take on the formative experiences of adolescence, starring one of the most likable kid ensembles since —and a giant, slobbering dog.

is one of the funniest and most quotable baseball comedies ever. Written and directed by David S. Ward (), Major League tells the underdog story of the Cleveland Indians, whose owner wants them to lose as many games as possible so she can exercise an out clause in the team’s contract and move the squad to Miami. Standing in her way is a cast of likable oddballs including pitcher Charlie “Wild Thing” Sheen (who, in reality, was a pitching phenom in high school before becoming an actor), the hilarious Wesley Snipes, the crusty James Gammon, and the wonderful scene-stealer Bob Uecker. Ward’s script and direction invest Major League with the exact amount of silliness and cleverness it needs to succeed as a great comedy and an even better baseball movie.

Bolstered by strong chemistry from leads Geena Davis and Tom Hanks, is one of the ’90s best and most quoted movies. Director Penny Marshall turns the inspiring story of the women ballplayers who kept baseball alive during World War II into a clever and poignant comedy. As Hanks’ character famously says, “There’s no crying in baseball,” but audiences cried and laughed at League’s charming and heartfelt approach to some of baseball’s most unsung and pioneering athletes.

Jackie Robinson’s life story is expansive enough to justify a trilogy of films. But writer-director Brian Helgeland does Robinson’s story justice with only one, , an incredibly well acted and smartly shot drama starring Chadwick Boseman as the iconic infielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers. This modest box office hit focuses on Robinson’s difficult rookie year as the first Black player ever in Major League Baseball. It’s a powerful story surpassed only by Boseman’s equally powerful commitment to telling it. His chemistry with Harrison Ford, as the baseball executive who signed Robinson to his first major league contract, elevates 42 above standard biopic fare. Too bad Hollywood doesn’t make many movies as rich and worthy of the big screen as this anymore.

If you are an avid fan of Field Of Dreams, then you should watch , the bluntly honest, and way less fantastical, story of how Shoeless Joe Jackson and his White Sox teammates were banished from baseball for throwing the 1919 World Series—while the money men who exploited them went unpunished. The strong young cast includes John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, and D.B. Sweeney, actors with real diamond skills. Bonus points to Sweeney for teaching himself to bat lefty in order to play Shoeless Joe, the White Sox outfielder who was illiterate and easily taken advantage of by the gamblers orchestrating the throwing of the Series.

Somewhere in Barry Levinson’s ambitious crowdpleaser about an aging slugger (Robert Redford) with a magical bat there’s a darker, more sinister tale of sin, redemption, and the toll both take on the noblest of souls. That’s because Bernard Malamud’s source novel reads that way even if this movie adaptation didn’t quite embrace these thornier themes. Still, ’s memorable score and climactic scene, where Redford’s seemingly dying ballplayer hits a home run for the ages, have become iconic. They hold up better than the plot, which can’t tell if it wants to service a fantasy-adjacent baseball drama or something more grounded. But The Natural works beautifully despite its flaws and because of Redford’s earnest commitment to the material.

mixes two seemingly very different concepts—math and baseball—to create an entertaining confection. It’s a sports movie that finds heart in the cold, dry analytics used to determine the fates of players on the field while the executives off the field struggle to build the best team. Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian’s breezy, intelligent script does an exceptional job of explaining sabermetrics and the other complexities of baseball performance evaluation. But it wouldn’t have worked as well without star Brad Pitt. His lived-in, vulnerable performance as Billy Beane, the real-life Oakland general manager seeking redemption for the choices he made during his brief career as a player, makes this Oscar-nominated film highly rewatchable.

When you’re younger, James Earl Jones’ speech—about how baseball can be America’s great unifier—may come off as overwrought and dripping with sentimentality. But the older one gets, the harder it is to not shed a tear for the intentions behind that speech. Framed around the notion of building a ballpark in the middle of a corn field so Ray Liotta’s Shoeless Joe Jackson can be redeemed and a father can play catch with his son, makes you believe that not only could this story happen, but that it’s worth investing in for the long, tear-shedding haul. Kevin Costner plays the struggling farmer given one last chance to make peace with his deceased dad while Golden Age of Hollywood icon Burt Lancaster make his final big screen appearance as real-life ballplayer and doctor Moonlight Graham. Writer-director Phil Alden Robinson has the difficult task of making the story’s more fantastical elements blend with that of a heartland drama yet he makes it look effortless.

A rom-com with a poetic heart, is one of the best acted and best written movies that just happens to concern baseball. Former minor leaguer-turned-filmmaker Ron Shelton crammed a lifetime of hard-earned wisdom into this shaggy-dog story about baseball, fandom, and sex. Kevin Costner plays Crash Davis, a former major league catcher languishing in the minors who finds himself in one hell of a love triangle with Nuke, a gifted, hot-headed minor leaguer (Tim Robbins), and Annie (Susan Sarandon), a poetry-spouting groupie. Costner is the movie’s charming star, struggling to help Nuke harness his athletic gifts and earn a shot at “The Show,” but Sarandon’s Annie is the movie’s beating heart and soul. Her witty and complicated superfan can appreciate the divine moment when a swing meets a fastball. That’s the type of blue-collar poetry the world of Bull Durham traffics in, and it explains why the movie is such a warm and funny confection 35 years after its release.