Most Rewatchable Scene
Ollie's free throws in the Linton game; Coach Dale asking Shooter to join the staff
In the discussion (18)
Approx. transcript time · 00:25:42Read transcript
- Candidate: Norman Dale kicking George out of practice, with the 'two kinds of dumb' threat played as a clip and the 'what kind of team do I have here' reaction.
- Candidate: the coach visiting Jimmy with 'I don't care if you play or not'; Jimmy makes his first 12, misses one and finishes 13 for 14, and whether the miss counts is debated.
- Candidate: the town meeting on firing Coach Dale leading into Jimmy joining and the winning montage; Myra's line about not wanting Jimmy to coach at 50 is called one of the meanest in a sports movie.
- Three of Jimmy's four lines come at the meeting ('I play, coach stays; he goes, I go'); only Ivan Drago did more with less; the sequence is called one of the best nine-minute sequences in any sports movie.
- Candidate: the picket fence game, Hopper's greatest scene: Hackman is ejected, Hopper freezes, his son pulls him in, and the delivery of the instructions shows the fog parting.
- The defensive instruction does not seem to match what happens, but the play works and ends with 'You did good, pop'.
- Teams run versions of the picket fence today, compared to Warriors sets for Steph Curry and a 'hammer'; a fifth-grade team ran a double-screen play because of the movie, called 'Ted' after Ted Williams.
- Candidate: the Turhoun game fight, with Hackman's 'that's a gutless way to win' line praised as perfectly delivered.
- Candidate: the Linton game; Strap should have played more, and Ollie's dribble off the foot seemed staged and his air ball was implausibly short.
- Having the worst player hit two free throws to reach the state finals is called one of the most brilliant moves in any sports movie, and the second shot is praised for how it was filmed.
- Ollie probably goes one for two at best in real life, and an opposing player with adult chest hair bumping him evokes Teen Wolf.
- Candidate: the 'way past big speech time' pregame speech with Merle, Flatch, Buddy and the Reverend's David and Goliath, which had a second life with the Jumbotron slow clap.
- Hopper arguing a call off a bender and Coach Dale's 'you stay in the game' to Flatch is called an underrated chill moment.
- Candidates: the basket-measuring scene and the last few minutes of the title game, including Jimmy being carried off and the South Bend players' reactions.
- One pick is the Ollie scene in the Linton game, for how it is shot.
- Hackman going to Hopper's shack is liked, with a question of when a man on that kind of bender had time to scout teams.
- The other pick is when the coach seriously tells Hopper to be on the staff, praised for its writing and for having someone's back.
- Hopper's 'wing dinger' line about the suit and his awkward walk in a suit at the first game are praised.