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Films for Fans

Sports fans love movies that describe (or dramatize) their favorite moments in game history. But for soccer fans, there just aren’t that many — at least, not until you dig. We dug. Here are the all-time greatest hits in soccer cinema that every fan will want to watch.

BY Will Schube

Soccer is arguably the most popular sport on Earth, yet it’s a game with a surprisingly small representation in modern cinema. There’s no Oscar-sweeping opus dedicated to the beautiful game, no epic portrayal of historic moments in World Cup history. While plenty of documentaries have helped illuminate some of the sport’s most exciting eras, fictional films centering soccer-related plots and dramas are less prevalent, despite sustained and global interest. 
 
Although less common, they certainly do exist. And a handful of them are overlooked gems that encapsulate a robust canon of soccer films.
 
From obvious modern staples like Bend It Like Beckham to arthouse standouts like Wim Wenders’ adaptation of the Peter Handke novel The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, there’s a surprisingly rich and diverse collection of soccer-related movies that amplify many different perspectives related to the game. Below are the 10 films every soccer fan needs to check out.

 

 

 

 
The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972)
 
While The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick is a soccer film in name only, it’s hard to ignore this stellar Wim Wenders adaptation of the classic slim novel by Austrian Nobel Prize–winning writer Peter Handke. Basically, Josef Bloch, a goalie for his local club, commits a fall during an away game that leads him to a spiritual crisis of sorts. He wanders, eventually encountering a movie theater attendant named Gloria and a relationship that shapes the film’s narrative arc. The film is an arthouse classic –– an all-time collaboration between Wenders and legendary cinematographer Robby Müller. 

 

 
Gregory’s Girl (1980)
 
There’s not a film on this list more charming than Gregory’s Girl, a Scottish rom-com that existed before the genre had the hold on popular culture it does now. Gregory is a player on his high school soccer team, one doing so poorly that the coach holds open tryouts. The star of the recruitment process, Dorothy, is so talented, she convinces the coach to allow a woman on the team. She plays center forward, previously Gregory’s position, while Gregory is rerouted to goalie. The charming coming-of-age story is less celebrated for its soccer scenes than its astute observations on adolescence. As Roger Ebert noted in his review, “The movie contains so much wisdom about being alive and teenage and vulnerable that maybe it would even be painful for a teenager to see it.”
Fever Pitch (1997)
 
Long before Nick Hornby’s book was co-opted by Jimmy Fallon and baseball-obsessed Boston sickos, Fever Pitch was made into a film that honored the subject Hornby so passionately wrote about: soccer. The movie, which stars Colin Firth and Ruth Gemmell, tells the story of a man trying to balance a burgeoning relationship with his maniacal devotion to Arsenal, specifically their pursuit of the First Division championship in the 1988 – ’89 season. While it’s perhaps not as dramatic as the Americanized version of Fever Pitch, the original film scores bonus points for its adherence to the source material. 


Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
 
If there’s one film soccer and non-soccer filmgoers alike will have seen, it’s Bend It Like Beckham, a flick that has truly transcended its subject matter to become a global smash. The movie features a classic narrative in which a child wants to chase passions her parents don’t approve of; in this case, Jess Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) wants to devote her life to soccer while her British Punjabi Sikh family pushes her to focus on a sustainable career. The film’s crux comes in the form of a soccer scholarship to Santa Clara University, and Jess, alongside her best friend Jules (Keira Knightley), faces a difficult decision. Come for the stellar plot, stay for the David (and Victoria!) Beckham cameo.


Offside (2006) 
 
Jafar Panahi’s ode to the beautiful game takes direct aim at Iranian laws and the way they affect female soccer devotees. The film tells the story of women collected in a holding pen above a Tehran stadium as the Iranian national team plays in a World Cup qualifying match. The women are held because they tried to attend the game, but they were forbidden due to Iranian policy. The film is a rather playful critique of the outrageous law, but one that nevertheless angered Iranian censorship authorities enough to ban the film in the country it takes place. When news emerged that Offside wouldn’t receive a showing in Iran, Panahi told Al Jazeera: “Most of my films talk about restrictions imposed on human beings, and here women are more restricted than men. So I used soccer as a means to show the restrictions.”


She’s the Man (2006)
 
It’s easy to be skeptical about an Amanda Bynes vehicle co-starring Channing Tatum from 2006, but this loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has remarkable staying power and remains a delightful bright spot within Bynes’ rather heartbreaking career. This film is less about tactical x’s and o’s than a commentary on female athletes, a topic which has only come under more intense scrutiny as athletics from grade school to the professional level attempt to reckon with the nuance of transgender athletes. The film has been applauded for its flippant approach to traditional masculinity, a POV that has only sharpened as advocates for trans rights get shut out of the sports conversation in the US.


The Damned United (2009)
 
One of the most charming portraits of British football culture ever filmed, The Damned United, loosely based on actual events, is a flick for real heads only. An “unstoppable force versus immovable object” situation, the film stars Michael Sheen as new Leeds United manager Brian Clough, who butts heads with the team and their reputation as rather dirty players. Clough is a demanding, exacting tactician and a leading critic of the team’s style in the lead up to his hire. The club’s former boss, Don Revie, left the team to become the manager of the England national team. The film doesn’t necessarily feature a happy ending for Leeds’ 1974 – ’75 season, though Clough does eventually find greener pastures with Nottingham Forest.


Looking for Eric (2009)
 
While Looking for Eric is certainly not iconic filmmaker Ken Loach’s strongest film, it’s a highly entertaining tribute to the favorite sport of his home country of England. Looking for Eric, which arrived a few years before Loach’s late-career masterpiece I, Daniel Blake, tells the story of one Eric Bishop, a football diehard whose life is falling apart until weed-induced hallucinations produce advice from his soccer idol, Eric Cantona (nicknamed “King Eric” by Manchester United fans). The movie remains one of the most perplexing within Loach’s filmography, a hodgepodge of a number of different styles, tied together by his one-of-a-kind humanism. And in that regard, it’s certainly worthwhile; it’s always a delight to see a filmmaker like Loach experimenting with new concepts.


Diamantino (2018) 
 
Diamantino is another film in the soccer canon that has aged remarkably well. A startlingly prescient meditation on modern celebrity, the film illuminates its storyline with a Gulliver’s Travels–like odyssey, answering the question of what that tale might look like if its protagonist was extremely unintelligent. It’s like an entire film about Rowan Atkinson’s character from Rat Race, except the lead bears a more-than-passing resemblance to one Cristiano Ronaldo and it unfolds, according to Glenn Kenny in a New York Times review, as “an early Adam Sandler comedy remixed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.”
 
 
The Hand of God (2021)
 
In the years after Paolo Sorrentino’s global breakthroughs, 2011’s This Must Be the Place and 2013’s The Great Beauty, the filmmaker examined old age with Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel in Youth and Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy with Loro, before focusing on the pitch with The Hand of God. The film, which is inspired by the auteur’s own childhood, features a young man, Fabietto, who clings to Napoli’s acquisition of the great Diego Maradona as his personal life crumbles. It’s an examination of the way sports can save us, while simultaneously distracting us from the underlying tensions that threaten to rock and disrupt. Soccer diehards everywhere know the feeling.
Photo by: Sundance/WireImage
Words by: Will Schube 
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