Ranking the 25 best baseball movies of all time

While most audiences remember the Disney remake, the original "Angels in the Outfield" is far and away the better of the two. The film, about a down-on-their-luck team who manages to find help from a heavenly source isn't heavy lifting by any stretch of the imagination, but as a one-off, it takes a beloved game and mixes it with just enough inspiration to get it by.

During its original run on Broadway, "Damn Yankees!" ran for a record 1,019 performances in 1955. The film adaptation was similarly successful, as it earned Oscar nominations for Best Music and Best Score. The story follows a player (Tab Hunter) who makes a deal with the devil to help the Washington Senators with the American League pennant over the "damn" New York Yankees. In between, there are songs, dances and a knockout performance from Gwen Verdon, who admittedly, today's audiences probably doesn't even remember, even though they should.

The first of Kevin Costner's baseball 'trilogy' to make our list happens to be his last. In "For Love of the Game," Costner plays Billy Chapel, a future Hall of Fame pitcher saddling up for his final game on the mound. What follows is a journey through past and present as Chapel reflects on his life and career, and how one always seemed to mess with the other. Many critics found this to be more sap than sauce, but baseball always has a way with getting away with just a little more sentimentality than the rest.

Based on the true story of Jim Morris, a high school chemistry teacher and baseball who uses an open tryout with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to motivate his team, "The Rookie" is a heartwarming (as all good baseball stories should be) tale of an ordinary guy who gets a second chance to live his dream. Dennis Quaid plays Morris with all the necessary earnestness to make this Disney production welcome on our list.

Yes, "Rookie of the Year" is one of the sappier, kid-friendly films on our list, but who can't resist anything that shows the Chicago Cubs as the lovable losers they once were before finally winning a World Series, making them just a team? In this fantasy take on the Cubbies, a young fan breaks his arm, finding that once he healed, the tendons in his arm have become so tight that he's now capable of throwing over 100 mph. Of course nothing lasts forever, and in a critical moment, it takes wits and hijinks to get the team over the finish line, but hey... that's baseball!

Welcome to the myth and legend that is Dock Ellis, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates who may, or may not – depending on the story you believe – pitched a no-hitter while tripping on LSD. While truth may be less strange than fiction in this case, "No No: A Dockumentary"  gives an honest look at an honest weirdo who parlayed his talent into a Major League career, but whose vices would ultimately be his downfall, something that the acid trip perfect game sadly highlights.

In contrast to the all-American depictions of baseball throughout the years, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's "Sugar" takes a look at how the foreign players who now seem to dominate Major League Baseball today embrace the baseball version of the American Dream even more so than their native counterparts. The film mixes aspects of culture shock and loneliness to dig into what it means for these players who are willing to risk it all for a dream that they may not truly understand.

A criminally overlooked film about a barnstorming group of former Negro League players who take their show on the road, playing teams in order to make enough money to make it to the next town, "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings" is a hilarious and often poignant look at a side of baseball that always seems to be left off from the history books. Featuring a cast including Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones and Richard Pryor, the film is mostly played for laughs, but there is an underlying pain that makes for compelling viewing and a desire to know more about a forgotten group of players who loved baseball maybe a bit more than baseball loved them back.

Not many these days remember major leaguer Jimmy Piersall (Anthony Perkins) who struggled not only with bipolar disorder but also constant pressure from a father who pushed him endlessly to make the big leagues. That said, his story, as told in "Fear Strikes Out" remains a relevant one, not just because of baseball, but the way in which athletes are still to this day barely allowed to be human beings, with all the failings that accompany it. In the film, as in real life, Piersall had a much happier ending, with a sort of comeback made for the movies.

A somber tale of friendship and baseball "Bang the Drum Slowly" is not just notable for its tragic tone, but also as the coming out party for future legend Robert DeNiro, who plays terminally ill Bruce Pearson, whose friendship with star pitcher Henry Wiggen (Michael Moriarty) serves as the glue that holds him (and the team) together during his final days. While DeNiro would make a career out of being a tough guy, this first film shows him at his most vulnerable and heroic.

Ken Burns' sprawling 22-hour epic manages to sum up the whole of the game from its its early beginnings through the '90s divided neatly into 'nine innings'. But as much as the documentary aptly covers the titans and legends of the game, the underlying story is about how our nation and the game changed side-by-side. The result is a product every bit as nuanced and compelling as the majority of Burns' oeuvre. 

"Moneyball" is a far better movie than it has any right to be. The science behind Sabermetrics is still evolving, and the film, whether it wants to or not, lays it out pretty clearly. But that said, the film version of the best-selling account of how Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) took a chance on statistics over gut feelings to turn around a hopelessly mediocre franchise is one that can't be missed, even as the end result is wonderfully dripped in irony.

Follow the tale of a rag tag independent baseball team that actually managed to thrive before Major League Baseball sucked the life out of the purest level of professional baseball in "The Battered Bastards of Baseball." Bing Russell, a former actor (and father of Kurt Russell) owned a small team called the Portland Mavericks, a team far better than it ever should've been, and maybe that was the problem, as the quality of this independent league team attracted the eyes of MLB scouts, and from there, it was only a matter of time before commerce would get in the way of a genuine love of the game.

Until the record was shattered during baseball's so-called "steroid era," the distinction of home run king belonged to only one man: Roger Maris. The sad thing is that beyond the record, not much was known about the quiet outfielder who stood in the shadow of the legendary Mickey Mantle. Billy Crystal changed all that with "61*," a film that takes a deep, yet respectful look at the life of Maris and Mantle, and all the pressures that came with breaking Babe Ruth's record. Somber in some parts and joyous in others, it is one of the few films that shows the pressure cooker Maris lived in just for playing a game he loved so well for one magical season.

Unlike most of the films on our list, John Sayles' gripping portrayal of the 1919 Black Sox scandal is not baseball's brightest moment, but rather its darkest. Long before the multi-million dollar contracts floating around Major League Baseball, pro players barely had enough to pay the rent in some cases, and that made them easy targets for gamblers. What the members of the Chicago White Sox did by throwing the World Series haunted them to their graves, but this portrait of desperate men trying to live up to the myth of legends is one that can't be missed.

There's a couple of ways to look at "42" the second major attempt to tell the life and times of Brooklyn Dodgers' barrier-breaking baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman): a tale about racial strife in a post-war America, or a baseball movie about an America still trying to heal post WWII. When looked at that way, it's easy to see that both ways are really one and the same. As divided as baseball was before Jackie Robinson, the ultimate lesson was that the game itself is the common denominator by which everyone could grow.

It's hard not to wonder if people even knew Minor League Baseball even existed before getting it's moment in the sun in Ron Shelton's "Bull Durham." Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins are perfect foils for one another as a seasoned catcher breaking in a hotshot rookie pitcher whose fastball might be higher than his IQ. Throw in Susan Sarandon as one of the hottest baseball groupies around, and you have a film that's not just a classic, but required viewing for any baseball fan.

Tommy Lee Jones' spot-on performance as the loathsome, yet legendary slugger is an examination into the decline of greatness, but even during Ty Cobb's worst moments, Jones manages to drag out sympathy for a broken, wretched old man who only has his time as a god of baseball to hold on to in his final days. 

Gary Cooper stars as the legendary Lou Gehrig, a tragic hero who won at a number of things, but never thought he'd win the distinction of a disease that would later bear his name. Even now, decades after Gehrig's death, it's chilling to watch Cooper recreate Gehrig's farewell speech, where he utters the immortal lines, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth," it's hard not to feel it like it was the first time, all over again.

Crude, crass and absolutely irresistible, "The Bad News Bears" is a slice of our childhood, delivered raw and rude, but with a ton of heart. Walter Matthau is at his best as a blowhard beer-guzzling ne'er-do-well tasked with taking a busted bunch of juvenile delinquents who manage to find some common ground and win everyone, including the audience, over. 

If "The Bad News Bears" grew up and somehow schlepped their way into the big leagues, the result would be "Major League." While only a spiritual cousin to "Bears," there's just something about seeing the same antics in a professional setting that delivers big laughs while also a certain amount of sentimentality about cheering for highly-paid underdogs. At the time of its release, the real Cleveland Indians were every bit as awful as their film counterparts, but not for much longer, so maybe a little bit of movie magic rubbed off in the right way... almost.

"The Sandlot" is a special film about a special time that conveys with just about anyone who grew up playing baseball in backyards and vacant lots. As much about childhood as it is about the game, the film hits all the right nostalgic notes, from first kisses to neighborhood dogs who seemed big as giants thanks to friendly legends told twice and thrice over, "The Sandlot" covers all the bases and reminds viewers the importance of just being a kid who loves a game.

Penny Marshall's film about women's baseball during WWII feels, in many ways, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. While the men were at war, women were expected to shore up the duties at home, and when that spilled over into sports, it was a tough pill to swallow, but the results were golden. As such, seeing a stellar cast including Geena Davis, Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna get upstaged by Tom Hanks doesn't hurt as much when the result is a classic film that shares a story will live on as it deserves to.

The best of Kevin Costner's trifecta of baseball films, "Field of Dreams" gets right to the heart of what makes baseball films so special in a way that few genres can ever be: it's about fathers and sons and their need to connect, long after it seems like they can't. Yes, much of the film is sentimental, but in a cynical world, the idea that a man can build a baseball diamond in a cornfield and ghosts of the past come out to play is so much more than schmaltz, it's necessary.

By far, THE baseball movie for its time, and really, any other time. Robert Redford shines as Roy Hobbs, a man whose natural talent for the game could've made him a superstar until life got in the way. The final scene of the film is indelibly etched in the hearts of baseball lovers everywhere, because it represents the magic that baseball really is.