Image via Complex Original
Being a great athlete requires talent, drive, and focus. That last piece may not always be so obvious. Many of the most naturally gifted athletes fail to channel their talents in a singular direction, and because they lack focus, they fall short. Many ambitious sports stars never manage to marshal their energy towards a singular goal. Focus is one of the most important ingredients in achieving big goals.
Sports movies show a side of athletes you never see on the field. You see Peyton Manning on game day, but you never see him pouring over hours and hours of film. You see Stephen Curry drain that clutch three, but there are thousands of shots you don’t see him take in practice. Sports films take us behind the curtain, into the locker room, and onto the practice field to show us just how focused an athlete needs to be to attain the unattainable. Here are the 10 Movies About the Most Focused Athletes.
Miracle (2004)
In 1980, the Cold War spilled onto the ice when the U.S. met the Soviets in the gold medal round of the Winter Olympics. The real life victory of the United States men’s hockey team against the Soviets in 1980 remains one of the greatest upsets in sports history. The film Miracle reminds us that it was the united focus of the American team that allowed them to triumph.
Nowhere is this better exemplified than when coach Herb Brooks forces his young team to run drills deep into the night. As he pushes them to the brink of exhaustion, he continues to ask them whom they play for. At first they mention their colleges and their hometowns. Eventually one of the players gets it. He says, “I play for the United States of America.”
Undefeated (2011)
Manassas, Va.’s, football team had never won a playoff game since their inception in 1899. Once a prosperous working-class community, Manassas was devastated by the closing of the town’s Firestone plant. Most of the boys on the team didn’t have a father present in their lives. Every player on the team had a parent who had been to prison. Coach Bill Courtney is a man with as much drive, empathy, and dedication as any coach in the most saccharine sports movies, except, unlike them, he actually exists. This is a documentary, and that means, unlike in most sports movies, the focus of the coach and his players doesn’t necessarily result in enduring glory. They need razor sharp focus and unrelenting dedication just to have any hope of survival. And, sadly, in real life, even if you do your very best, you still might fail.
Friday Night Lights (2004)
It’s amazing how much pressure can be put on athletes at a young age. In Texas, towns live and die with their high school football teams, and the players are either gods or monsters in the eyes of their peers depending how the chips fell last Friday night. The film follows a fictionalized version of the real-life team Buzz Bissinger chronicled in his hit book of the same name. Just as in Bissinger’s book, the economic, social, and racial issues that strain Odessa, Texas, bleed onto the football field. The team carries the hopes, dreams, and struggles of the town on its shoulders. Throughout Friday Night Lights, the Permian Panthers attempt to maintain their singular focus on the playoffs as so much drama unfolds around them.
When We Were Kings (1996)
This documentary stands as one of the greatest non-fiction looks at sports in the history of cinema. When We Were Kings chronicles the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” bout between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali held in Zaire in 1974. Though both Foreman and Ali prepared meticulously for the fight, the film is a testament to Ali’s superior focus both inside and outside of the ring. He managed to win over the people of Zaire with his words before winning the eight-round knock down drag-out contest with Foreman.
The focus required to finish the film was as impressive as the focus of the boxers. It took director Leon Gast 22 years to finish the documentary. He was rewarded for his decades of hard work with the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Hoosiers (1986)
Sometimes it simply takes the right coach to get a team focused enough to achieve their goals. In Hoosiers, Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) is exactly that kind of leader. By drilling fundamentals and shying away from flashy scoring plays and showboating antics, Dale shows the boys of Hickory High School a blueprint for victory. While many coaches evaluate and weed out for talent, Dale prizes character over ability. Selfish play or a refusal to buy in will earn you a spot on the bench or get you kicked off the team. Achieving victory requires a team united and dedicated to the game plan. Every player has to share the same desire and tenacity, or every individual effort will have been for naught.
Murderball (2005)
Rarely does it take immense focus and relentless effort just to compete in the first place, but this is exactly the case with the athletes in Murderball. The documentary follows the Canadian and American wheelchair rugby teams as they prepare for the 2004 Paralympic Games. Though you might expect a defeatist attitude from athletic men who had their mobility taken from them. Murderball is actually a tough, raucous, hopeful look at men determined to life full, adventurous lives despite their handicap. One athlete remarked, “My injury has led me to opportunities and experiences and friendships I would never have had before. And it has taught me about myself. In some ways, it's the best thing that ever happened to me."
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Rarely does a sports film have two protagonists that we see competing against each other, but that’s exactly what we see in Chariots of Fire. In the film, two British Olympic runners are driven by very different motives to outrun the rest of the world. Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) is a British Jew who hopes that competitive running will give him a platform to stand against anti-Semitism. Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) is a Scotsman and devout Christian who hopes that running will help him spread the word to the world. Both men overcome immense challenges on the way to Olympic glory. The film explores how the powerful forces that drive them afford them unparalleled focus and determination.
Hoop Dreams (1994)
If you don’t have first-hand experience with the world of elite amateur athletics, you don’t understand the sacrifices that athletes make to chase their dreams. Hoop Dreams chronicles the lives of two Chicago-area high school basketball players who uproot their entire lives in hopes of finding fame and fortune on the basketball court. The film has an expansive scope for a documentary, following the main characters for over half a decade. Hoop Dreams doesn’t just explore the lives of these two players, but also examines larger issues at work in poor, urban black communities around the country. Roger Ebert said of the film, “Hoop Dreams contains more actual information about life as it is lived in poor, black city neighborhoods than any other film I have ever seen.”
Rudy (1993)
If it weren’t for our number one film (with a title that also starts with an “R”), Rudy would probably take tops honors when it comes to films about athletic focus. Daniel “Rudy” Ruettinger (Sean Astin) had one dream: to take the field for the Notre Dame football team. Rudy doesn’t just lack the grades to get into Notre Dame, he is extremely undersized for any college football team, let alone the Fighting Irish. Rudy fights his way through work at a steel mill, classes at junior college, work as a stadium groundskeeper, a diagnosis of dyslexia, the loss of his fiancée to his brother, and a number of other setbacks. After all of his hardships, everything comes down to the final play of his senior year when, at long last, he is allowed to suit up. Despite his repeated setbacks, he never loses hope, and is finally entered into Notre Dame’s official roster of football players.
Rocky (1976)
The ultimate story of focus trumping everything else is, of course, Rocky. Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is American cinema’s greatest underdog. He is truly an amateur, lacking the size, experience, and equipment of his opponent, world champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). Rocky’s only advantage is focus. His tenacity is unparalleled because for him the match isn’t about winning, but instead about proving himself to the world. Even though he is destined to lose the fight, he realizes that he is after a different type of victory. Though he ultimately loses in a narrow decision, his intense focus allows him to stand toe-to-toe with the champ far longer than anyone thought possible.