Bend It Like Beckham
The football World Cup is widely regarded as the greatest sporting event on the planet and the 2010 competition gets underway this week in South Africa.
So to celebrate the start of the tournament we take a look at some of the best football movies to grace the big screen over the years.
Escape To Victory
Directed by John Huston and Robert Riger Escape To Victory, or just Victory if you saw it in America, was released back in 1981 and starred Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and Max Vin Sydow.
A group of P.O.W.s at a German prison camp agree to compete against Nazi soccer players in this World War II drama set in 1943 Occupied Europe.
German Major Karl von Steiner, who played soccer professionally before the war, comes up with the idea. When his superior officers find out about the competition, they pit the Allies against Germany's best team, but they don't realize that the P.O.W.s plan to use the upcoming big game as a means of escaping.
The Allied team includes John Colby, a British officer who also played soccer before the war, and Robert Hatch, an American soldier who cares far more about gaining his freedom than the game itself.
When the P.O.W.s realize they have a good shot at beating the Nazi team in front of a huge crowd, they must decide what's more important: finishing the match or getting out alive.
The movie was based on the 1961 Hungarian film drama Két félido a pokolban ("Two half-times in Hell"), and was met well on it's release.
Gracie
Release in 2007 Gracie is an inspirational story set in the seventies that's based on the true events of the Shue family, a family director Davis Guggenheim was a part of.
Living in South Orange New Jersey, 15 year old Gracie Bowen (Carly Schroeder) is the only girl in a family of three brothers. Their family life revolves almost entirely around soccer: her father (Dermot Mulroney) and brothers are obsessed with the sport, practicing in the backyard's makeshift field every day from morning ‘til night.
Tragedy unexpectedly strikes when Gracie's older brother Johnny (Jesse Lee Soffer), star of the high school varsity soccer team and Gracie's only protector, is killed in a car accident.
Struggling with grief over her family's loss, Gracie decides to fill the void left on her brother's team by petitioning the school board to allow her to play on the boy's high school varsity soccer team in his place.
Her father, a former soccer star himself, tries to prove to Gracie that she is not tough enough or talented enough to play with boys. Her mother, Lindsey Bowen (Elisabeth Shue) already an outsider in the sports-obsessed family, is no help either.
Undeterred, Gracie finds reserves of strength she never knew existed, and persists in changing everyone's beliefs in what she is capable of, including her own.
Gracie not only forces her father to wake up from his grief and see her as the beautiful and strong person that she has always been but she also brings her family together in the face of their tragedy.
The character of Gracie was loosely based on the childhood experiences of Elizabeth Shue, who stars in the movie as Gracie's mother.
Bend It Like Beckham
But one of the most successful football movies in recent years came back in 2002 when a small British movie Bend It like Beckham kicked off the careers of several of it's stars.
Directed by Gurinder Chadha the movie starred Keira Knightley, Parminder Nagra and Jonathan Rhys Meyers and was a huge critical and commercial hit.
An Indian family in London tries to raise their soccer-playing daughter in a traditional way. Unlike her traditional older sister, Pinky, who is preparing for a lavish Indian wedding and a lifetime of cooking the perfect chapati, Jess dreams of playing soccer professionally, like her hero David Beckham.
Wholeheartedly against Jess' unorthodox ambition, her parents eventually reveal that their reservations have more to do with protecting her, than with holding her back.
When Jess is forced to make a choice between tradition and her beloved sport, her family must decide whether to let her chase her dream--and a soccer ball--or follow a more orthodox path.
Made on a modest budget of just $6 million the movie was a hit on release, as well as finding an audience in America, and went on to take $50 million at the box office.
Goal: The Dream Begins
Goal: The Dream Begins is another movie that has been released in recent years which was directed by Danny Cannon and followed the story of Santiago Muñez, who was searching for success in the beautiful game.
When Santiago Munez is given the chance of a lifetime, he must leave his family, his life in Los Angeles and everything that he knows to travel halfway around the globe to England and into a completely foreign world, the exciting, fast-paced and glamorous world of international soccer.
As an underprivileged Mexican-American immigrant growing up in the poor section of Los Angeles, Santiago seemed destined to follow his father's path in life: labouring at menial jobs to earn just enough money to support his family.
Naturally gifted, his amazing talent on the soccer field was wasted in recreation league games while he could only dream of playing on the world stage of professional soccer.
But when a British scout discovers his talent and gets him a tryout with one of England's premier soccer clubs, Newcastle United, Santiago must choose between his father's fate and his own destiny.
A whole host of soccer stars graced the big screen for cameos in the movie including Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, William Gallas and Alan Shearer.
The movie has gone on to spawn two sequels.
Ladybugs
Sidney J. Furie brought us football comedy back in 1992 with his movie Ladybugs, which starred Rodney Dangerfield.
Chester Lee, a salesman gunning for a promotion, tries to butter up his boss by agreeing to coach his daughter's soccer team.
One problem: the team is terrible, and it doesn't look as if they're going to have a winning season, until Chester comes up with the novel idea of dressing up his fiancee's very athletic son in drag and having him join the team.
The movie has gone on to gain cult status, despite the harsh treatment it received at the hands of the critics when it was released.
Other football movies include What Saturday Comes, Kicking And Screaming, The Cup, Fever Pitch and Shaolin Soccer.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
The football World Cup is widely regarded as the greatest sporting event on the planet and the 2010 competition gets underway this week in South Africa.
So to celebrate the start of the tournament we take a look at some of the best football movies to grace the big screen over the years.
Escape To Victory
Directed by John Huston and Robert Riger Escape To Victory, or just Victory if you saw it in America, was released back in 1981 and starred Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and Max Vin Sydow.
A group of P.O.W.s at a German prison camp agree to compete against Nazi soccer players in this World War II drama set in 1943 Occupied Europe.
German Major Karl von Steiner, who played soccer professionally before the war, comes up with the idea. When his superior officers find out about the competition, they pit the Allies against Germany's best team, but they don't realize that the P.O.W.s plan to use the upcoming big game as a means of escaping.
The Allied team includes John Colby, a British officer who also played soccer before the war, and Robert Hatch, an American soldier who cares far more about gaining his freedom than the game itself.
When the P.O.W.s realize they have a good shot at beating the Nazi team in front of a huge crowd, they must decide what's more important: finishing the match or getting out alive.
The movie was based on the 1961 Hungarian film drama Két félido a pokolban ("Two half-times in Hell"), and was met well on it's release.
Gracie
Release in 2007 Gracie is an inspirational story set in the seventies that's based on the true events of the Shue family, a family director Davis Guggenheim was a part of.
Living in South Orange New Jersey, 15 year old Gracie Bowen (Carly Schroeder) is the only girl in a family of three brothers. Their family life revolves almost entirely around soccer: her father (Dermot Mulroney) and brothers are obsessed with the sport, practicing in the backyard's makeshift field every day from morning ‘til night.
Tragedy unexpectedly strikes when Gracie's older brother Johnny (Jesse Lee Soffer), star of the high school varsity soccer team and Gracie's only protector, is killed in a car accident.
Struggling with grief over her family's loss, Gracie decides to fill the void left on her brother's team by petitioning the school board to allow her to play on the boy's high school varsity soccer team in his place.
Her father, a former soccer star himself, tries to prove to Gracie that she is not tough enough or talented enough to play with boys. Her mother, Lindsey Bowen (Elisabeth Shue) already an outsider in the sports-obsessed family, is no help either.
Undeterred, Gracie finds reserves of strength she never knew existed, and persists in changing everyone's beliefs in what she is capable of, including her own.
Gracie not only forces her father to wake up from his grief and see her as the beautiful and strong person that she has always been but she also brings her family together in the face of their tragedy.
The character of Gracie was loosely based on the childhood experiences of Elizabeth Shue, who stars in the movie as Gracie's mother.
Bend It Like Beckham
But one of the most successful football movies in recent years came back in 2002 when a small British movie Bend It like Beckham kicked off the careers of several of it's stars.
Directed by Gurinder Chadha the movie starred Keira Knightley, Parminder Nagra and Jonathan Rhys Meyers and was a huge critical and commercial hit.
An Indian family in London tries to raise their soccer-playing daughter in a traditional way. Unlike her traditional older sister, Pinky, who is preparing for a lavish Indian wedding and a lifetime of cooking the perfect chapati, Jess dreams of playing soccer professionally, like her hero David Beckham.
Wholeheartedly against Jess' unorthodox ambition, her parents eventually reveal that their reservations have more to do with protecting her, than with holding her back.
When Jess is forced to make a choice between tradition and her beloved sport, her family must decide whether to let her chase her dream--and a soccer ball--or follow a more orthodox path.