The World Cup only happens every four years, and each tournament brings with it its own ups, downs, trials, tribulations, surprise contenders, and thrilling finales. The 2019 Women's World Cup saw the USA win the trophy for a second consecutive tournament; Qatar 2022 gave Lionel Messi a fairy tale ending at last.
Almost sounds like something out of a movie, doesn't it?
Luckily, soccer has been the topic of many films through the years. In this article, we will detail 14 of the best-known, including comedies, biopics, romance, murder mysteries, and documents of real-life tragedies. Along the way, you'll find everyone from the legends of the sport, including the sadly departed Pelé and Diego Maradona, to Hollywood superstars such as Sylvester Stallone and Will Ferrell. Within the bounds of "The Beautiful Game," almost anything is possible.
Mike Bassett: England Manager (2001)
Our first movie, "Mike Bassett: England Manager," is a mockumentary that stars Ricky Tomlinson...
Almost sounds like something out of a movie, doesn't it?
Luckily, soccer has been the topic of many films through the years. In this article, we will detail 14 of the best-known, including comedies, biopics, romance, murder mysteries, and documents of real-life tragedies. Along the way, you'll find everyone from the legends of the sport, including the sadly departed Pelé and Diego Maradona, to Hollywood superstars such as Sylvester Stallone and Will Ferrell. Within the bounds of "The Beautiful Game," almost anything is possible.
Mike Bassett: England Manager (2001)
Our first movie, "Mike Bassett: England Manager," is a mockumentary that stars Ricky Tomlinson...
- 1/26/2023
- by Geoffrey Wessel
- Slash Film
Scottish actor Sean Connery has died at the age of 90. His son Jason Connery told the BBC his father had died peacefully in the Bahamas after a long illness.
Famous for his dashing good looks, strapping physique and abundance of charisma, Connery was the first actor to portray James Bond in film, starring in seven entries in the franchise from Dr No to Never Say Never Again. He was also an Oscar-winner for his supporting turn in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables, his sole nomination from the Academy, and he received two BAFTAs including an honorary Fellowship Award. He was awarded a knighthood in 2000.
Early years
Born in Edinburgh in 1930, Connery joined the Royal Navy at the age of 16 before being discharged three years later on medical grounds. He took numerous other jobs including being a lifeguard, lorry driver and an artist’s model before his bodybuilding led him...
Famous for his dashing good looks, strapping physique and abundance of charisma, Connery was the first actor to portray James Bond in film, starring in seven entries in the franchise from Dr No to Never Say Never Again. He was also an Oscar-winner for his supporting turn in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables, his sole nomination from the Academy, and he received two BAFTAs including an honorary Fellowship Award. He was awarded a knighthood in 2000.
Early years
Born in Edinburgh in 1930, Connery joined the Royal Navy at the age of 16 before being discharged three years later on medical grounds. He took numerous other jobs including being a lifeguard, lorry driver and an artist’s model before his bodybuilding led him...
- 10/31/2020
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Jock Stein, European champions from the same tiny region, are lovingly rendered in a smart doc
Though there’s quite a bit of familiar material on show here, this exercise in football nostalgia has an interesting, original focus: the three Scottish managers who dominated British football in the 1960s and who – amazingly – were born within a few dozen miles of each other on the outskirts of Glasgow. The achievements of Matt Busby and Bill Shankly have been fairly comprehensively anthologised, with both covered in recent feature-length documentaries – Busby and Shankly: Nature’s Fire – so it’s the third member of this troika, Jock Stein, who is perhaps the most revelatory figure, relatively speaking.
Related: Dramatic victory: are we entering a golden age for the sports documentary?...
Though there’s quite a bit of familiar material on show here, this exercise in football nostalgia has an interesting, original focus: the three Scottish managers who dominated British football in the 1960s and who – amazingly – were born within a few dozen miles of each other on the outskirts of Glasgow. The achievements of Matt Busby and Bill Shankly have been fairly comprehensively anthologised, with both covered in recent feature-length documentaries – Busby and Shankly: Nature’s Fire – so it’s the third member of this troika, Jock Stein, who is perhaps the most revelatory figure, relatively speaking.
Related: Dramatic victory: are we entering a golden age for the sports documentary?...
- 10/30/2020
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
"He made you believe you were something special." Lorton Entertainment has unveiled an official trailer for an indie sports documentary titled The Three Kings, directed by Jonny Owen, from the Oscar winning producer of Senna & Diego Maradona. Not to be confused with the David O. Russell film Three Kings set during the Gulf War, or the strange comedy film The Three Kings, this is a documentary about football – er, about soccer. The Three Kings is the definitive doc film portrait of three men who were born in the central lowlands of Scotland within 30 miles of each other – and went on to change the history of football: Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, and Jock Stein. Described as "a look back at the men who made football what it is today." The incredible story of how three men from Scotland grew up to become lifelong friends and three of the most influential men...
- 10/19/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Exclusive: Soccer ace Wayne Rooney, England’s all-time leading goal scorer, is to be the subject of an official documentary biopic from Maradona producer-financier Lorton Entertainment.
Production is underway on the film about the life and career of the former Manchester United, Everton and DC United star, who currently plays for Derby County.
Directed by BAFTA-winner Matt Smith (Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad), the access doc will feature personal archive footage and interviews with talking heads from across the world of football and beyond.
Rooney burst onto the scene after making his professional debut for Everton aged 16. In a glittering career, not without its bumps along the way, the forward went on to become Manchester United and England’s record goalscorer. The film will track Rooney’s path to the present day and ask what next for the Liverpudlian superstar.
Rooney said: “I’m excited to be the subject of this documentary.
Production is underway on the film about the life and career of the former Manchester United, Everton and DC United star, who currently plays for Derby County.
Directed by BAFTA-winner Matt Smith (Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad), the access doc will feature personal archive footage and interviews with talking heads from across the world of football and beyond.
Rooney burst onto the scene after making his professional debut for Everton aged 16. In a glittering career, not without its bumps along the way, the forward went on to become Manchester United and England’s record goalscorer. The film will track Rooney’s path to the present day and ask what next for the Liverpudlian superstar.
Rooney said: “I’m excited to be the subject of this documentary.
- 6/26/2020
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
This profile of Matt Busby deals well with the horror of the Munich air disaster – but fails to reveal much about its subject
After cinema releases for documentaries about Bill Shankly and Bobby Robson, it was only matter of time before attention turned to Matt Busby, who produced Manchester United’s glamour sides of the late 1950s and 60s and forged the club’s identity.
There’s an understandably elegaic tone to this profile. Busby’s career as a manager was dominated – and interrupted – by the horrors of the Munich air crash, which claimed the lives of eight of his players. The best, and most interesting, material here is that which covers the aftermath of the disaster: the eerie atmosphere of the subsequent games, the absence of any counselling or indeed much sympathy for the survivors, Busby’s recovery period, and resolute team-building to plug the gaps in the devastated side.
After cinema releases for documentaries about Bill Shankly and Bobby Robson, it was only matter of time before attention turned to Matt Busby, who produced Manchester United’s glamour sides of the late 1950s and 60s and forged the club’s identity.
There’s an understandably elegaic tone to this profile. Busby’s career as a manager was dominated – and interrupted – by the horrors of the Munich air crash, which claimed the lives of eight of his players. The best, and most interesting, material here is that which covers the aftermath of the disaster: the eerie atmosphere of the subsequent games, the absence of any counselling or indeed much sympathy for the survivors, Busby’s recovery period, and resolute team-building to plug the gaps in the devastated side.
- 11/8/2019
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Exclusive: The Late Late Show producer Fulwell 73 is kicking off its latest soccer doc about Manchester United legend Sir Matt Busby.
The company, which has made soccer docs including The Class of ’92 and Netflix’s Sunderland ‘Til I Die, is making Busby, exploring the life of Busby, who is widely considered one of the greatest managers of all time. He managed Manchester United between 1945 and 1969 as well as the second half of the 1970/71 season and was the first manager of an English soccer club to win the European Cup.
Joe Pearlman, director of BAFTA-nominated Bros doc After The Screaming Stops, is directing the feature doc, and Altitude Films has come on board to distribute in the UK and will launch in November.
He was responsible for managing the ‘Busby Babes’, a team of talented young players, eight of which died in the Munich Air disaster in 1958 on the way...
The company, which has made soccer docs including The Class of ’92 and Netflix’s Sunderland ‘Til I Die, is making Busby, exploring the life of Busby, who is widely considered one of the greatest managers of all time. He managed Manchester United between 1945 and 1969 as well as the second half of the 1970/71 season and was the first manager of an English soccer club to win the European Cup.
Joe Pearlman, director of BAFTA-nominated Bros doc After The Screaming Stops, is directing the feature doc, and Altitude Films has come on board to distribute in the UK and will launch in November.
He was responsible for managing the ‘Busby Babes’, a team of talented young players, eight of which died in the Munich Air disaster in 1958 on the way...
- 8/7/2019
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
American Gods is finally here — with British actor Ian McShane as the enigmatically charming Mr. Wednesday. McShane is instantly recognisable to many, with a body of work that dates back to the 1960s. But what have you seen him in? McShane is the son of Manchester United soccer player Harry McShane, who was a winger for the iconic club under legendary soccer manager Sir Matt Busby. However, Ian McShane took a different route to his father and became an actor. He studied at the Royal Academy of dramatic art and graduated in the mid 60s. McShane first gained notice in the UK when he...read more...
- 4/30/2017
- by Ian Cullen
- Monsters and Critics
This sentimental survey of the life of the fallen football legend retreads familiar turf, adding nothing new
Is there anything new to be said on the subject of Manchester United’s fallen legend George Best? Certainly not in this sentimental hagio-documentary, which trundles out the same old ideas, without anything fresh in the way of context or perspective.
There are one or two nice contributions from the interviewees, but Bobby Charlton or Denis Law are not in the film. Anything about Best has to answer the hotel bellboy’s apocryphal question: “Where did it all go wrong?” – although it is a measure of this film’s piety that this anecdote is primly unmentioned. Probably rightly, the documentary puts it down partly to Matt Busby’s retiring as Manchester United’s manager in 1969; without his wise and fatherly guidance, Best succumbed to a tendency to indiscipline that was the flipside to his intuitive brilliance,...
Is there anything new to be said on the subject of Manchester United’s fallen legend George Best? Certainly not in this sentimental hagio-documentary, which trundles out the same old ideas, without anything fresh in the way of context or perspective.
There are one or two nice contributions from the interviewees, but Bobby Charlton or Denis Law are not in the film. Anything about Best has to answer the hotel bellboy’s apocryphal question: “Where did it all go wrong?” – although it is a measure of this film’s piety that this anecdote is primly unmentioned. Probably rightly, the documentary puts it down partly to Matt Busby’s retiring as Manchester United’s manager in 1969; without his wise and fatherly guidance, Best succumbed to a tendency to indiscipline that was the flipside to his intuitive brilliance,...
- 2/23/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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