Jay Bilas posted this to twitter... have a look.
His list goes like this:
10. Love and Basketball
9. Coach Carter
8. Cornbread Earl and Me
7. The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh
6. Semi-Pro
5. Glory Road
4. One on One
3. White Men Can't Jump
2. He Got Game
1. Hoosiers
It is a fine list, but he left out some great ones. Mine would be:
10. The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh
9. Semi-Pro
8. Amazing Grace & Chuck
7. Glory Road
6. He Got Game
5. Uncut Gems
4. One on One
3. White Men Can't Jump
2. Hoop Dreams
1. Hoosiers
-Jason "if The Last Dance qualifies as a movie, then it slots in there right around #5" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Are we counting documentaries? Because there are a number of fantastic 30 for 30s, like Once Brothers, I Hate Christian Laettner, and Survive & Advance.
Teen Wolf?
Fast Break?
There are so many more good baseball movies there are than basketball movies.
The Harlem Globetrotters (1951).
Darn! There have been a lot of basketball films. The only thing I’ll say for certain is that Hoosiers is definitely #1.
Another entry for everyone’s consideration:
The Pistol: Birth of a Legend
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pi...th_of_a_Legend
Clearly the best baller in any of the movies. The Wolf would destroy Jimmy Chitwood, Jesus Shuttlesworth, Wesley Snipes, any of the Monstars, or even Jordan. (What still kills me about that movie is when the bad guy fouls out but still stands under the basket glaring at Michael J Fox shooting free throws. I know we just had an actual werewolf doing 360s in a game an everyone being totally fine with a werewolf playing high school basketball and being like “well of course he’s good, he’s a wolf”, but I draw the line on believability with that fifth foul situation).
Yeah, I vacillated a lot on whether to include Uncut Gems, but arguably one of the top 3 or 4 characters in the movie is a NBA star who is playing himself and the whole film revolves around the NBA gambling habits of the main character.
If we remove it, Space Jam probably creeps into my top ten... it was between that and Teen Wolf.
I'm so sad more of you have not seen Amazing Grace and Chuck, which is another film where they talk a lot about basketball but very little basketball is actually played in the film.
-Jason "I do not think made for TV documentaries should count... we are talking about films with a theatrical release" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
I immediately thought of The Basketball Diaries but I’m a little dark.
I think docs need their own category, as there are so many great ones.
I am surprised there is so much love for "One on One". I get the nostalgic kitsch appeal, but that movie is pretty bad. I guess it depends on how old you are, I have the same love for "Teen Wolf", especially the greatest coach since K, Bobby Finstock, whose life advice has steered me through some ambiguous times (his "3 rules" are right up there with "Coughlin's Laws" from 'Cocktail")
"Above the Rim" is a very popular one I haven't seen mentioned, I think it's pretty good. "High Flying Bird" is a newer entrant that I liked last year.
We should have a list for movies with prominent basketball scenes where the movie wasn't really about basketball:
-One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
-The Great Santini
-Meatballs
-Along Came Polly