The Top 10 Sports Movie Posters from Beauty Of A Game

Good morning, Uni Watchers. It’s Friday — we made it!

Long time readers will be familiar with today’s guest author, Jimmy Parker, who is the proprietor of the most excellent Beauty Of A Game website, and he also goes by that handle on Twitter-X. Jimmy has contributed several articles in the past, and they have all been outstanding. He returns today with another gem — and I’m also pleased to announce he will become a semi-regular contributor to Uni Watch as we move forward. So please re-welcome Jimmy, and please sit back and enjoy his take on the …

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Top 10 Sports Movie Posters of All Time
by Jimmy Parker

Almost as long as there have been movies there have been movie posters. And almost as long as there have been movies there have been movies about sports. Thus, for almost as long as there have been movies about sports there have been sports movie posters. Throughout the years, as printing technologies and design styles have changed, movie posters have changed as well. More recently changes in distribution and the rise of streaming platforms, along with the increase of online and social media used to promote movies, has prompted more changes to styles of movie posters and how they are used. But through it all, the purpose of a movie poster has remained the same – to promote and advertise a motion picture to the public in hopes of convincing them to see the film.

What follows is my list of the best sports movie posters of all time. But before I get to the listing, a few caveats. First, this list is entirely subjective. You will most likely disagree with my rankings and you may even disagree whether some of these are sports movies. Second, there is no methodology used to determine their ranking, there was no spreadsheet or hard data entered into any computing system. I simply gathered a bunch of sports movie posters and reviewed them to determine which 10 I thought worked best. Third, by “worked best” I mean which ones, through their design, made me want to see the movie. Lastly, in this listing I have used both teaser posters (typically used prior to a film’s release to hype an upcoming film and build anticipation) and release posters (typically used once a film enters widespread distribution in theaters or online).

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#10 — The Endless Summer (1966)

This documentary follows two surfers as they travel the world to various destinations, each in its summer season, in hopes of catching waves in a never ending summer. This classic poster design features the image of silhouettes of surfers walking toward the beach. Using a limited palette of neon colors and an uncluttered design, the poster mimics the surfers’ quest in its simplicity and style.

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#9 — Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

Will Ferrell’s smirk. The flag waving behind him. The race suit full of sponsors. The name. If you could distill the movie into a single image, this would probably be it. It could easily rank higher because of this. But in the immortal words of the movie’s protagonist, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”

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#8 — Caddyshack (1980)

ESPN has said Caddyshack is perhaps the funniest sports movie of all time. Whether or not you agree, there’s little denying that the movie is packed with jokes, quotes and gags. Sort of like the movie poster itself. It’s easy to focus on the heads of the movie’s four stars coming out of the 19th hole but don’t overlook the giant gopher attacking the clubhouse. So, I got that going for me, which is nice.

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#7 — Hoosiers (1986)

Before Michael had Air Jordans, even before Clyde made Puma oh-so smooth on the court, there was the Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. Released over 100 years ago, by the 1960s the shoe had captured north of 75% of the basketball shoe market. For the majority of the 20th Century, Chucks WERE basketball. So to promote a movie about a small town where little exists outside of basketball, the movie’s poster depicts nothing more than a worn pair of the legendary shoes sitting in a barn window overlooking a stretch of farm land. It’s interesting to note that the shoes are placed at angles where we do not see the shoe’s distinctive logo patch. While it’s probably safe to assume this was done to avoid legal action from Converse, the patch is not needed due to the iconic nature of the shoe.

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#6 — Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)

Practically everyone who has survived elementary school physical education class knows exactly what those big red rubber balls are. Your experience in those classes will determine whether or not that’s a fond memory for you. But there’s no denying that this poster’s in-your-face image of several of those balls surrounding someone laid out on the floor gives you a clue as to how the movie is going to depict the sport. If the visual doesn’t clue you in, there are the stars’ names as well as the tagline “Grab Life By The Ball” to really hit you upside the head. Just like a big red rubber ball.

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#5 — No No: A Dockumentary (2014)

It can be argued that baseball had no more colorful character in the 1970s than noted Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis. Whether it was curlers in his hair during batting practice, his meticulously groomed facial hair or his flair for the dramatic both on and off the field, Ellis was no stranger to the spotlight and seemed to personify the decade’s style. So it seems fitting that the movie poster is a nod to the classic design of Topps’ 1972 baseball card set.

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#4 — Rocky (1976)

Despite premiering in the year of the colorful, exuberant American bicentennial celebration, the poster for the first movie in the Rocky franchise is a subtle black and white masterpiece. Beneath the movie’s title and the tagline “His whole life was a million-to-one shot.”, we see Rocky and Adrian holding hands walking away from the viewer. This depiction of their relationship is given added weight by the large amount of white space surrounding the couple. The understated design stands in stark contrast to the mood of the country at the time, making it stand out all the more.

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#3 — Ali (2001)

Portraying one of the most recognizable figures of the 20th Century could give any actor pause. But when it was announced that Will “The Fresh Prince” Smith would be playing Muhammad Ali in a biopic, most people were left wondering if Smith could pull it off. The resulting poster, featuring a closeup picture of Smith in the ring with the film’s title set in red against the shadows of the actor’s newly increased physique, would quickly dispel concerns. Given that Ali was such a well documented personality, including being the subject of some of the most famous sports photos of all time, it’s an interesting choice for the poster to use such a grainy image, cropped so tightly and at a skewed angle. But the poster, much like Smith’s performance, pulls it off. The film earned the actor his first Oscar nomination and even impressed its subject, with Ali stating “I even thought he was me.”

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#2 — The Bad News Bears (1976)

By the mid 1970s illustrator Jack Davis had become something akin to a counterculture version of Norman Rockwell. Both artists’ work was ubiquitous, but where Rockwell painted idyllic versions of Americana, Davis presented an America that was looser and somehow more realistic, at least in its subject matter if not its anatomy. Perhaps best known as one of the original artists on MAD Magazine, Davis’s style perfectly captured Walter Matthau’s down and out pool cleaner turned youth baseball coach Morris Buttermaker and Tatum O’Neal’s tomboy star pitcher, as well as the rest of the team of misfits and outsiders.

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#1 — 42 (2013)

That number. That shade of blue. That uniform. That baseball cap (complete with white squatchee). That photo. Honestly – what’s not to love here? The decision to rotate the photo of Jackie Robinson, played by Chadwick Boseman, sliding into base 90º counterclockwise adds tension and visual impact to this beautiful poster. The photo portrays Boseman’s fist in a more defiantly raised position than most photos of Robinson I’ve seen — but this decision by the poster’s art director only serves to add to the tension and heighten the visual impact.

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Thanks, Jimmy! Another really fun and interesting post. I’d argue that not only is Caddyshack the funniest sports movie of all time, it is a Top 10 movie of all time. Great stuff today, and welcome back!

Readers: Do you have a favorite sports movie poster? What do you think of Jimmy’s picks? Anything you’d add or change?