Updated: May 5

It’s because of chance.

Because of chance, we watch sports and our hearts race since we don’t know what’s going to happen. Sports are about immediacy and the discovery of the unexpected. Sports movies about true stories are not exciting because they are about something that already happened; sports movies that are fictional are not exciting because they are not real. Every sports movie has the actors faking as athletes, the fake fans, the fake owner, the fake refs, the fake hard hits.

Look at the American Film Institute’s 100 best movies. https://www.afi.com/afis-100-years-100-movies/ Raging Bull is the only sports movie in there. It was a shocking movie at the time because of its rawness but it has not held up over the years. Would you watch it again and again like The Godfather. Is there a scene you remember from Raging Bull or any sports movie that rivals anything like the opening of The Godfather?