25 Football Films to Love (Even if You Don't Love Football)11 of 25
Friday Night Lights (2004)
Before the TV series debuted to widespread acclaim, this 2004 film was the first to adapt Buzz Bissinger's popular nonfiction book that chronicled the high-school football obsessions of a small town in Texas. Like the book, Peter Berg's movie offers an unsentimental look at the pressures and aspirations that a community can impose upon the fortunes of a sports team, not to mention on the adolescents put in the position of having to shoulder that burden. Billy Bob Thornton headlines as Gary Gaines, the coach who struggles with success on and off the field, while Connie Britton plays his wife Sharon in a role that foreshadows her work as Tami Taylor in the TV series.
Before the TV series debuted to widespread acclaim, this 2004 film was the first to adapt Buzz Bissinger's popular nonfiction book that chronicled the high-school football obsessions of a small town in Texas. Like the book, Peter Berg's movie offers an unsentimental look at the pressures and aspirations that a community can impose upon the fortunes of a sports team, not to mention on the adolescents put in the position of having to shoulder that burden. Billy Bob Thornton headlines as Gary Gaines, the coach who struggles with success on and off the field, while Connie Britton plays his wife Sharon in a role that foreshadows her work as Tami Taylor in the TV series.