The Best High School Football Movies
Here are my top 10 best high school football movies to watch
By: Ross Blilie
05-19-23
Lately, I've been on a kick of finding and watching high school football movies on Disney +, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Last night I found Woodlawn on Amazon Prime. If you get a chance to watch it, I would highly recommend it!
There are tons of football movies on a plethora of streaming channels. For me, sometimes it gets difficult to find a movie that I haven't seen. That's why I chose Woodlawn last night.
Without giving away the entire plot, I can tell you it's based on a true story set in Birmingham, Alabama in the mid 1970's. It also has a religious theme to it, but it does not push the idea of making god a priority in a viewer's life. It simply tells the story of how one black player rose to stardom through perseverance.
Here are my top ten favorite high school football movies.
10. Gridiron Gang
I really like The Rock in this movie playing the head coach of a new football program for juvenile detainees. Moreover, it's similar to The Longest Yard; it just features high school aged kids instead of adults. Everytime I watch this movie, I tear up just a little bit because of how the relationships between players and coach evolve into something special.
9. Varsity Blues
Ahh, a classic Texas football movie. I like James Van Der Beek's character, Jonny Moxon. Plus, it's set in West Texas. If you've never seen it, it's a gritty story about how the players choose to solve a big problem with their head coach. Jon Voight plays the head coach who is obsessed with winning state and district championships. His character devalues the relationships he builds with his players, but in the end, the players figure it out. They go on to win state, but without their coach.
8. The Blindside
The Blindside is all about how a nice suburban family takes in an African American youth. Through perseverance, he went to college and the NFL. The facts of the story make it a feel good story and that is why I chose to put it number eight.
7. 23 Blast
A feel good story about a young athlete who, again, perseveres from hardship to become a leader on his local high school football team after he becomes blind.
6. Greater
This is a story based on true facts about a youth who ended up walking on to the University of Alabama after enduring a hardship where he wasn't the most athletically gifted, but he had a lot of determination. Through his hard work, perseverance, and putting in the time to become successful, he earned a football scholarship to one of the top NCAA universities in the south. In addition, he was drafted to the Indianapolis Colts. Now, there's a special award named in his honor.
5. Wildcats
Goldie Hawn plays a determined football coach for a low income, poverty stricken, inner city high school. She is able to turn a losing team around by holding the athletes responsible for their actions and demanding they play with the will and want to win.
4. When the Game Stands Tall
When the only thing that matters to a community and a local high school team in California is winning, nothing comes close than to have a brotherhood. When the game stands tall is all about establishing trust in the system, the coaches and your teammates. When adversity comes, it's time to trust the process and do all the little things.
3. Facing the Giants
This is a religious football themed story about a coach that is about to lose his job when he decides to try something different to get his athletes more motivated to play football.
There is a scene in the movie called "Death Crawl", where the team's captain puts a teammate on his back and crawls the entire length of the football field to make a point. The point is that he gives up too easily. When the captain completes the challenge, he turns around his bad attitude and therefore it turns the whole team's attitude around from losing all the time to winning all the time.
2. Remember the Titans
I gotta put this movie in my top five because not only is it based on a true story, but it also has Denzel Washington in it. When high schools in the south began to desegregate, many people had a hard time adjusting. Sports played a significant role in the integration of blacks and whites. But the only thing that really matters is winning.
1.Friday Night Lights
In my opinion, there is no high school football movie that is better than Friday Night Lights. It's gritty, intense, a true story, thrilling, and heartbreaking. I have watched this movie more times than I can count. Everything about it is very real to me. The camaraderie between players, the speeches given by the head coach, the heartbreak at the end of the movie. I tear up pretty much everytime I watch it, even though I know what happens in the end. If you haven't seen it, definitely go find it.
This list was really hard to compile. There are so many movies out there that have a good story, that it's hard to rank them all because I am such a big fan of football in general. I had to think of what the story was about and how it affected me. American football is very emotional for me because of the camaraderie between players. The memories I created when I played have lasted a long time. I would love to go back in time and change one aspect of my high school career though. That would be actually putting in the time to be successful.
Ross Blilie is an avid NFL fan of the Minnesota Vikings since the 1990’s. He loves to talk about the NFL. He also enjoys attending the University Of North Dakota Men’s Hockey games in Grand Forks, ND. His hobbies also include bowling with his wife and friends, narrating audiobooks, fishing, and even sitting by a campfire with family at Lake Blackduck in Minnesota. You can find Ross on twitter & Instagram @Rossthenarrator.
