It doesn’t seem like they make movies these days like they used to, but when they did, it seemed like at least half of my favorites involved Gene Hackman, who passed away yesterday at the age of 95.
His acting was not only superb, but many of his lines became memorable, such as exploding “Otisburg?” while playing Lex Luthor in Superman, to telling his quarterback as Coach Jimmy McGinty in The Replacements “Winners always want the ball when the game is on the line,” to sounding like a coach in the current NIL era as Coach Normal Bates, saying “I would hope you would support who we are. Not who we are not.”He was ruthless (and a terrible carpenter) as Sheriff Bill “Little Bill” Daggett in Unforgiven, a rough police detective who was both honest and a rule-breaker in The French Connection, and a charming maverick FBI agent who was tougher than he looked in Mississippi Burning. He made a ton of movies, yet made each role his own.
Naturally, there is talk about which were his best movies, and I’ve compiled my own favorites:
- Hoosiers (Coach Norman Dale)
- The Replacements (Coach Jimmy McGinty)
- The French Connection (Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle)
- Unforgiven (Sheriff Bill “Little Bill” Daggett)
- Get Shorty (Harry Zimm)
- Crimson Tide (Captain Frank Ramsey)
- Mississippi Burning (FBI Special Agent Rupert Anderson)
- Superman (Lex Luthor)
All great, all memorable, and the number rankings are purely subjective. Move any of them around and I’d have little problem with it. Hoosiers, however, is one of those movies we all have that I could watch over and over again and never get tired of it (Shawshank Redemption is like that for me as well).
But speaking of Hoosiers, there have been a few comments on X this morning asking if Hoosiers is the best sports movie of all time. I’d say yes, ranking it with Rocky as the two best ever made. But just to annoy those who don’t agree with me, here’s my top five rankings of the best sports movies ever made:
- Hoosiers
- Rocky
- Major League
- Field Of Dreams
- The Natural
These are all films, I should note, that also fall into that “I could watch over and over again” category. I am also of the opinion that Hollywood doesn’t really understand sports, so while they’ve made probably a hundred movies, the emphasis is more on entertainment than sports, and thus become lousy movies.
These 5 rise to the top in terms of sports and entertainment, which is why I picked them.
Disagree? Leave a reply with your top Gene Hackman movies, or your top 5 sports movies. Or both…