Some sports movies win Oscars, some become cultural classics and some become comfort movies thrown on at a moment’s notice.
According to a Seton Hall sports poll, one title emerged as the defining sports film of this century.
Over the past 25 years, “The Blind Side” was Americans’ most-watched sports film, surpassing another football staple, “Remember the Titans,” at the top of the list.
“We always talk about how sports drive culture,” said Daniel Ladik, a marketing professor at Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business and the poll’s methodologist. “Here we look at two films from America’s most popular sport that show the challenges players and coaches faced due to the racial conflicts of their places and times. And who can forget that these films also feature compassionate performances, including Oscar-winning ones.”
The survey, conducted October 3-6, surveyed 1,519 American adults and asked them to choose their favorite sports film released in nearly the past quarter century. The columns show the percentage of respondents choosing each film. Since respondents were allowed to select more than one, the percentage will exceed 100%.
“The Blind Side” led the general population with 30%, followed by “Remember the Titans” with 26%. “Talladega Nights” (22%), “Happy Gilmore 2” (21%) and “Dodgeball” (21%) rounded out the top tier, along with “Million Dollar Baby,” “Creed” and “Friday Night Lights.”
Here are the biggest takeaways from the poll.
runs the football show
“The Blind Side” and “Remember the Titans” were No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, and combined for more than half of all responses (30% and 26%). “Friday Night Lights” (18%) also made the top 10, and football-related stories occupied the bottom half of the list.
This pattern is even stronger among those who identify as sports fans. Within that group, “The Blind Side” reached 36% and “Remember the Titans” reached 34%. and “Friday Night Lights” (26%) got extra love from particularly avid fans. The emotional tents at the top represent how the NFL and college football dominate the sports calendar in real life.
For many Americans, “sports movie” immediately brings to mind helmets, pads and big speeches on the gridiron.
Fans and nonfans aren’t as far apart as you think
One of the most surprising divisions in the survey was how Small The difference was between sports fans and non-fans.
Among non-fans, “The Blind Side” still leads at 20%, followed by “Dodgeball” (16%), “Happy Gilmore 2” (15%), “Remember the Titans” (14%) and “Talladega Nights” (14%). Those numbers were lower than the total number of fans, but the titles are nearly identical. Even those who don’t follow the game closely tend to gravitate toward the same mix of feel-good football and light-hearted comedy.
Among sports fans overall, those same movies sit comfortably at the top tier, with bigger pieces of the pie. Avid fans bumped up “Creed” (33%), “Friday Night Lights” (30%) and “F1: The Movie” (24%), while “The Fighter” (14%), “The Iron Claw” (14%) and “42” (13%) also gained popularity.
The takeaway: You don’t need to know how to read a defense to cry at an underdog story or laugh at a ball thrown in someone’s face.
Casual watches beat iconic photos
If the Academy Awards awarded statuettes based on this survey, Oscar night would look very different.
There were Oscar-winning and iconic dramas scattered among the pack. “Million Dollar Baby” (20%) and “I, Tonya” (10%) performed well, as did “The Fighter” (8%), “King Richard” (7%) and “Invictus” (6%). But they fell far short of the movies people said they turned to for leisurely entertainment.
The movies that people say they watch over and over again are the ones that are easy to quote and follow and are emotionally straightforward. When looking at streaming options on any given day, if the Michael Oher story comes up, there’s a locker room dance at TC Williams High School or Will Ferrell is doing anything remotely athletic, viewers will stay tuned.
The survey shows that, for most viewers, the “best” sports movie isn’t the one that impressed the critics, it’s the one that sounds familiar enough to be left in the background while checking the score.
generational divide
The age ranges weren’t completely different, but there were subtle differences in what resonated.
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18-34: Young adults paid particular attention to humor and new titles. The “Happy Gilmore 2,” “Dodgeball” and “F1: The Movie” projects performed well, and “Challengers” had its best performance of the group. “Creed” also performed strongly.
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35-54: This group is a favorite location for many of these films. “Remember the Titans” gained 31% here, and “Love & Basketball” rose 21%. Most members of this category are old enough to remember these films as theatrical experiences and young enough to rewatch them on streaming or cable.
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55+: Older respondents tended toward classic-feeling plays. “Remember the Titans” and “Million Dollar Baby” were strong, while comedies and new movies were not as popular.
The generations didn’t completely disagree – “The Blind Side” and “Remember the Titans” were pretty much the same across the board. But the second level changed depending on when respondents watched these films for the first time.
Twenty-one percent say: ‘None of the above’
The loudest voice may be the one that sounds useless: 21% of respondents in the general population chose “N/A.” Among non-fans, that number increased to 41% and for sports fans it increased to 36%.
In other words, nearly one in five people didn’t have a favorite sports movie from the past 25 years — or at least didn’t feel strong enough to pick one from the list. This does not mean that they do not watch sports or movies. This may mean that their sports stories come from series or documentaries that were not part of this survey.
This is both a challenge and an opportunity for creators of sports films, with data indicating a largely undecided and untapped audience. For those in that “N/A” crowd who are looking for a way, the survey can double as a programming guide.
Reading between the lines: Movie rankings look a lot like real life
The data shows a hierarchy that mirrors the game scenario. Football titles are over the top, reinforced by a mix of emotion and spectacle. Right behind them are the comedies that have become background noise for late-night streaming and group rewatches. Prestige entries fill gaps – respected but not always revisited.
Sports fans and non-fans are closer than expected, being attracted to many of the same movies, while the sharpest break is in the percentage of those who skip the question altogether. That “none of the above” block is indicative of changing habits and different ways of consuming sports stories.
The list doesn’t just rank films: It maps the overlap of emotions, routines and sports culture, and highlights which stories are still important or have slipped into the background and how much room is left for the next breakout sports film.
But don’t let the election results sway you. Rank the top 25 movies yourself by dragging the titles down into your preferred order and see how your list compares to all the others.
editor’s Note, The film list used in this survey was created through a multi-step selection process. Seton Hall’s sports poll began with The Athletic’s 2020 ranking of the top 100 sports films, then narrowed the pool to films released since 2000 and narrowed the list to 30 titles. Additional nominees were selected from seven “best sports movies” lists by The Hollywood Reporter, Rotten Tomatoes, IndieWire, Vulture, Forbes, Time Out, and Time magazine, with input from ESPN. To be included, a film had to appear on at least three of the eight lists reviewed, with the last few titles removed based on internal editorial review.
The Seton Hall Sports Poll was conducted October 3–6 among 1,519 adults. The poll, which was sponsored by The Sharkey Institute within Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business, included YouGov Plc. A nationally representative sample of 100,000 people was sampled, and it was weighted according to US Census Bureau data for age, gender, ethnicity, education, income, and geography and had a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points.
