The pairing of movies and sports has been one since the beginning of the art form. There is something magical about the stories that can be told within a sports setting– both real and fictional. Even as live sports on television has dominated viewership since its inception, audiences flock toward reenactments and original depictions of the drive to compete at a high athletic level. Baseball has always found a welcoming home on the big screen. The wide lenses and ample opportunities for slow motion, bring what seems impossible to the naked eye so much closer to fruition and understanding. The aesthetics of the sport were seemingly created to be shot on camera. The bright, green grass; cleats crunching their way through dirt; dugouts filled with bats and balls and bubblegum; stadium seats, filled or emptied; the broadcast booth; the bead of sweat sneaking out from underneath the brim of a hat. There is so much to see and feel on a baseball field, and in a baseball movie. Because it is America’s Pastime, some filmmakers not only showcase the beautiful game, but are able to comment on the country in ways other stories may not be able to. As we have moved into spring, the time is right to take a look back at how the sport has been filmed in recent history. Grab your peanuts and Cracker Jacks, these are the most notable baseball movies of the 21st century (in chronological order).

61* (2001)

Released by HBO, and directed by diehard Yankees fan, Billy Crystal, 61* chronicles the home run race of 1961 between teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. It’s as sturdy of a re-telling as you can get, with solid performances by both Thomas Jane and Barry Pepper.

hardball (2001)

Balancing the hardships of growing up in the Chicago projects with the joys of playing on a team, Hardball takes enough care to establish both poles of its story as key pieces. Featuring a memorable and lovable cast of young actors, the film has a lot of fun before letting brutal reality take its toll. Keanu is not his best here, but like his character he’s trying, and Brian Robbins swings the film between the growth on the baseball field and the romance between him and Diane Lane quite ungracefully. For each falter, though, there is a moment that is seared in baseball fans’ memories: The trip to the Cubs/White Sox game where the kids see Sammy Sosa; “We’re going to the ‘ship”; it’s use of Big Poppa; and of course, the incomparable G Baby.

Summer Catch (2001)

Set within the storied Cape Cod Baseball League– a real summer league where top college prospects go head to head to up their skills and impress pro scouts– Freddie Prinze, Jr. plays a hometown pitcher who gets a shot on the Chatham Athletics, as well as with the heart of “summer family” sweetheart, Jessica Biel. Michael Tollin’s film tries to combine frat boy bullshit, a decent amount of baseball, and a class-disrupting romance, and cannot find the balance between the three. Prinze worked with former MLB pitcher, Bill Landrum, to properly learn form and mechanics, but the film tends to edit around any instances of him actually throwing the ball. On the other side, Tollin seemed to have a blast shooting Prinze’s future Scooby Doo cast-mate, Matthew Lillard, swinging and missing over and over again. With a care on the field and for baseball history, it’s a decent watch if you’re able to get through some awkward performances, bad Massachusetts accents, and the sweaty male gaze pointed in Biel’s direction. Bonus points for featuring: Beverly D’Angelo doing an homage to Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham; Hank Aaron; Ken Griffey, Jr.; and Prinze in a g-string.

The Rookie (2002)

The true story of a high school baseball coach, turned MLB reliever, John Lee Hancock’s The Rookie followed in the footsteps of many sports stories that came before it, providing audiences the inspiration of a man achieving his dreams due to his good nature and work ethic. The Disney production features its share of sappy human drama, but the baseball is solid, mostly due to Dennis Quaid. He plays real life man Jim Morris with well-managed emotion and some extra grizzle (Age 47 at the time of filming, compared to Morris’ age of 35 when he stepped on a Big League mound). I did not revisit the film for this project, but our family watched it a handful of times back then, and I can vividly remember Quaid’s sweaty brow and effort-filled grunts each time he kicked off the rubber. It’s a by-the-numbers picture, with no surprises and a few strong scenes– particularly one where Quaid pulls his truck over at a roadside speedometer, walks 60 feet 6 inches away, and whizzes a ball passed it, putting all of his hope into the number that appears within the glowing bulbs of light.

Fever Pitch (2005)

A baseball-obsessed adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel of the same name, the Farrelly Brothers’ RomCom was originally engineered around how Jimmy Fallon’s character couldn’t shake his childhood love of the Boston Red Sox, despite their yearly routine of falling short– except in October 2004, the unthinkable happened. The Sox came back from the edge of defeat to break The Curse of the Bambino, winning their first World Series in 86 years. The filmmakers and their stars got back to work and filmed a new ending to capture the rollicking excitement upon Yawkey Way, now fitting an underdog sports story and a cute, goofy romance all under one roof. Fallon plays the excitable man-child with all the energy you’d expect, and Drew Barrymore is even better. One of the best baseball movies for date night, unless you’re a Yankees fan…

Game 6 (2005)

The other side of the coin from Fever Pitch is Game 6. Set on October 25, 1986, the film follows a suffering Red Sox fan and successful playwright (Michael Keaton) traversing his way through Manhattan on the night of one of baseball’s most historic events. Unfortunately, that’s not all the picture is about, as the debut of Keaton’s newest play, and the impending review by a lurking theater critic, blend with his baseball woes into a poorly made cocktail. Some nice floating shots of Shea Stadium create an all-knowing specter of pain that our lead doesn’t know is coming for him, until the Mets’ 9th inning comeback and the iconic Buckner Play flash across a tv screen.

bad News Bears (2005)

The first Richard Linklater film to appear on this list. His loving, loyal remake of the 1976 classic plops Billy Bob Thornton out of his Bad Santa costume and rolls him right onto the little league field.

The Benchwarmers (2006)

Rob Schneider leads this goofball comedy about a group of “nerd” adults who play a tournament against little league teams populated by the offspring of their childhood bullies. Truly a premise that could only be concocted in the mid-2000’s.

Beer League (2006)

A fitting companion to the man-child nonsense above, Artie Lange’s Beer League is the antithesis of bringing your family to the ball park for a nice time. It’s dirty, sweaty, smelly, and all sorts of incorrect. It’s also a more well-formed movie than you’d expect it to be, following Lange and his group of hard-drinking softball players as they try to clean up their livers and take down their local Staten Island nemeses. For every joke that’s aged horribly, there are a handful that still land, and there is a lot of time spent on the poorly-maintained field to validate the 86 minutes spent with these buffoons.

Sugar (2008)

Directing pair, Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, made their names off of strong independent dramas, and their skill is none more prevalent than in their second feature, Sugar. The studied film follows a young pitcher from the Dominican Republic and his journey to America after being signed into the Kansas City farm system. Shedding light on the host family process, language barriers, and the loneliness that comes with leaving your family behind, it is a rare baseball film that shows just how hard it is to make it even in the lowest levels of the sport. After a few well-shot scenes from the mound, Boden & Fleck settle the film into reality rather than movie magic, eventually moving the character drama away from the field. When they do, the story doesn’t suffer, portraying an example of The American Dream that isn’t a name up in lights, but a name no one knows, working hard to benefit a community of people like them even if they’re hundreds of miles away from home.

How Do You Know (2010)

One of the greatest pieces of proof for anyone who believes that Hollywood is run by aliens, the hilariously deranged How Do You Know is currently the last film directed by legend, James L. Brooks. The RomCom love triangle features Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd, and Jack Nicholson, and the cast listing is truthfully the most normal thing about it. The amazing Witherspoon plays an estimable, Gold Medal-winning third basewoman for the United States Softball Team, who learns she is being cut because she turned 30 and the team’s manager thinks her athletic ability has suddenly diminished (put him in jail). We don’t get a lot of softball action because of this, but we do get one scene at practice early on where Witherspoon takes a cross-diamond throw to the face like a champ. Brooks isn’t done there, though. As seen above, Wilson is introduced early on as All-Star pitcher for the Washington Nationals, Matty Reynolds, but we never get to see him play. The closest Brooks gets us is when the couple is watching Sportscenter on Wilson’s couch and he asks Witherspoon to watch his play show up in the Top 10 of the night. The film is, without a doubt, the only one on this list that actually has nothing to do or say about baseball.

Moneyball (2011)

Scene to scene, shot to shot, moment to moment, and glaring omissions of history aside, Moneyball is the best baseball movie of the 21st century. Directed by Bennett Miller and written by Aaron Sorkin, the story of the underdog 2002 Oakland Athletics, led by the outside-the-batters-box thinking of General Manager, Billy Beane, was the perfect blend of sports, family, and economics for 2011 audiences. Garnering a box office over $100 million, and earning six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, it is a prime example of how to bring an esoteric story to a wide audience. Just like the actual team, Miller didn’t do this on his own, aided by a wonderful Brad Pitt, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and surrounding cast. Sadly, the tune for the A’s since Beane’s departure in 2015 has only gone south. Led by an ownership group that puts their own pockets ahead of the product on the field, fans have essentially turned on them, changing the tenor of Pitt’s beautiful line, though the meaning stays the same: “How can you not be romantic about baseball?”

Trouble with The Curve (2012)

An interesting companion to Moneyball, Trouble With the Curve follows a different member of a Major League office: the scout. Clint Eastwood stars as the eldest member of the Atlanta Braves’ staff, bucking against baseball’s new era of computers and advanced statistics, as well as a recent diagnosis of glaucoma. Sent on what seems to be one last job to check out the sure-fire top prospect, he’s forced to enlist the help of his adult daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams, yes named after Mantle). There is no doubt that the movie loves the game of baseball. When it’s focus is on the field, it’s a pleasant and appreciative experience for fans of the game. There is even a scene centered on a no-hitter thrown by former Braves pitcher Jair Jurrjens… who never threw one in real life. Adams overhears the feat while in a restaurant and proceeds to breakdown Jurrjens’ pitching style to an unprepared waiter, making it easily the most fun moment in the film. Unfortunately, the film’s ideas are not just on baseball, and when it drifts into familial melodrama, Adams’ romance with a poorly miscast Justin Timberlake, and a crazy flashback, things really lose the thread. File this one away for the baseball diehards or Eastwood completists only.

42 (2013)

The indelible Chadwick Boseman shines as the barrier-breaking icon that was Jackie Robinson. It’s a well-told biopic, smartly focusing on just his first year in the Majors. The baseball is nicely shot and director Brian Helgeland understands the inherent drama that existed each time Robinson stepped on or off the field. A strong cast, particularly Nicole Beharie, Harrison Ford, and Andre Holland, round out the story with faces and emotions that are hard to ignore, making the film one that is worthy viewing for anyone with a heart and a conscience.

The Phenom (2015)

This one’s for the sad baseball boys out there. An on-the-rise Braves pitcher (Johnny Simmons) suddenly gets the yips, pushing him back to the Minor Leagues and into therapy to try to break through what’s going on in his head. After about 10 minutes, we meet his released-from-jail, alcoholic father (Ethan Hawke), and we get all the answers needed. It’s a worthy idea for exploration, as the mental side of sports is something that has only become of more and more interest in the last decade. The film struggles to get anywhere though with such an answer as “Daddy Issues”, and Simmons can’t pull off the emotion necessary compared to his acting partners. Spending the majority of the film being either verbally battered by Hawke or philosophically outmatched by Paul Giamatti is just unfair for most performers.

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Richard Linklater returns to the list with his phenomenal ensemble comedy about a college baseball team in 1980. Billed as a spiritual sequel to his classic Dazed and Confused, Everybody Wants Some!! delivers the goods on all fronts. A cast of young, up-and-coming stars, fraternal antics, a killer soundtrack, and just a little bit of ball-playing, bring this nostalgia piece to bright, breathing life. Semi-based on Linklater’s own freshman year on the Sam Houston State ball club, he covers the film with the most minute details that speak so much truth to the experience being had on screen. It is, without a doubt, the most fun being had in almost any movie from this century.

Night Swim (2024)

You wouldn’t know it from first glance, but this year’s movie about a haunted swimming pool is also a baseball movie. Wyatt Russell (also in Everybody Wants Some!!) plays a former All-Star third baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers, who is forced to retire due to a diagnosis of MS. He and his family move to Minnesota to be closer to a hospital, only to buy the property with the magic pool. After a few dips, Russell starts to feel better, and before we know it he’s pumping out chest presses in the garage before smashing the cover off of a ball in a local park. As most of the baseball scenes are only in service of the scarier story at hand, I wouldn’t say this is the most logical depiction of the sport and its vocabulary, but it is a cool engine to build around. Russell’s desire to get back beneath the bright lights, surrounded by a roaring crowd, set him on his path into the water and against his family, making this the first baseball horror movie since The Fan.