The underdog is a character we love to root for. Either in real life or on the big screen, and with football season now a few weeks deep, it’s fun to watch who’s going to take on that mantle of this season’s underdog story. Films and television shows that take place in the world of professional football are loaded with characters who have everything stacked against them, yet they still overcome all odds. Here’s a look at the best underdog movies and television shows that have those themes in them.
11Texas 6 (2020-Present)
Football and the state of Texas go hand in hand. Some of the top recruiters in the country go see kids play there and offer scholarships left and right for Division 1 college programs.Texas 6is about a different kind of football team. Taking place in Strawn, Texas, and following the team known as the Greyhounds, they are attempting to win their third 6-Man Football State Championship. The film’s underdog themes are right there for us all to see with the Greyhounds squad of guys. As well as a beautiful tale of the community rallying behind them. Both seasons are available to stream on Paramount+.
10Friday Night Lights (2006-2011)
Expanding on the 2004 feature film (more on that in a second), which is also based on the book by Buzz Bissinger,Friday Night Lights,the television show, has drama that unfolds in it that makes you want to root for at least most of the characters to overcome adversities. The show focuses on the goal of being a high school football team that wins a state championship every year, but it also creates compelling character arcs within the show that center around the players off the field.
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9Little Giants (1994)
Something for the kids.Little Giantswas released in 1994. A tale of two brothers at odds with one another, with football at the center of it all. Ed O’Neil plays Kevin O’Shea, a hotshot car salesman in the town he grew up in; he was also a massive college football star. His younger brother, Danny(Rick Moranis), has always felt inferior to his older brother.
As Kevin coaches a youth football team full of young athletic kids, Danny takes the gang of rejects from the team tryouts and forms his own team, the Little Giants. The two teams have a matchup against one another. Danny’sLittle Giantsare at a huge disadvantage in terms of strength and athletic ability, which gives you all the more reason to want to root for them.
8Invincible (2006)
Mark Wahlberg stars in thetrue story of Vince PapaleinInvincible, a player for the Philadelphia Eagles in the late 1970s who joined the team when the Eagles held open tryouts for the public. Vince was down on his luck at the time. His wife just left him, and there were no real career opportunities at his feet, so he took this opportunity to try out for the NFL and succeeded at it. Disney produced and released the movie, so there are some highly dramatized moments in the movie to add that special Disney touch to it, but all in all, it’s a motivating story to never give up on your dreams and always go for them when an opportunity is right in front of you.
7We Are Marshall (2006)
We Are Marshallis an overlooked true story of the resilience of a college football team in their attempt to heal a community after tragedy. In 1970, the Marshall College football team lost 75 of its members, including players, coaches, and other staff members, in a plane crash. In the off-season that followed that tragedy, new coach Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey) arrives on the scene with one goal in mind: to rebuild Marshall and utilize football to heal the community. It’s a beautiful film about how sports can help heal wounds and give you a reason to cheer for something again.
6Friday Night Lights (2004)
Peter Berg directed the film adaptation of the novel of the same name about the West Texas high school football team, the Permian Panthers.Friday Night Lightstakes place in 1988 in the depressing-looking town of Odessa, Texas, and focuses on head coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton). Once the star running back has a season-ending injury, all hope is lost for a chance at winning. Which then puts coach Gaines in a situation where he must do the right thing, drown out the noise of the social issues of the town, and motivate the team he coaches to continue to progress forward.
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5Ballers (2015-2019)
Underdogs even thrive off the field in the sports world.Ballerswas a slightly autobiographical show about Dwayne The Rock Johnson and how he once had aspirations to be a professional football player, but that never happened for him. Obviously, he became a wrestler-turned-movie star and not a sports agent like his character Spencer on the show, but the similarities are there.
The show’s main characters are all guys who are trying to get a big piece of the pie in the NFL, not just in sports but in the business of sports. The show is a journey that takes you from the sands of South Beach to Los Angeles as Spencer rises through the ranks of the world of sports management.
4Coach Prime (2021)
Coach Primeis a docuseries streaming on Amazon that followsa season in the life of Deion Sanders, coaching the young men at Jackson State University. Sanders has made headlines this season as he is in his first year coaching the Colorado Buffaloes and has already got them looking better than they have in the past few years. Whether you agree with his attitude or not, it sure has been interesting watching his evolution from being one of the most charismatic NFL players to an analyst to a coach who cares about his players. And all of that is on full display atCoach Prime.
3Last Chance U (2016-2020)
Last Chance Uis a beautiful documentary of small-time colleges throughout the country that don’t get the kind of national coverage that Division I schools get. In the show’s five seasons, it covers multiple schools that have one major championship on their level, but we will probably never hear about it. The titleLast Chance Uis bittersweet because, for maybe just about all these players, this is their last shot at playing football in an organized fashion.
They have no real professional recruits coming to see them. However, some of the players that the show follows do give us a bit of hope for them in the future, as there is still plenty of talent even at the community college level.
2The Replacements (2000)
Keanu Reeves had a weird career path after the success ofThe Matrix. He could’ve followed it up with anything to keep that image of him as a kung fu fighting action hero who would say “woah”. But in the summer of 2000, he played a college football star who never got his shot in the pros named Shane Falco in the movieThe Replacements.The movie is about pro-football players on strike and the scabs that come in to help finish off the season.
Reeves, as Shane Falco, is at the center of it all as the quarterback who gets his shot at redemption after years of feeling banished from the sport.The Replacementsis an incredible cast of outcasts who just want to play ball, as it includesGene Hackman, Jon Favreau, Orlando Jones, and John Madden.
