5 High School Football Movies You Probably Dont Know

 School's back in session and fall is approaching. Which means its time for some football. While the NFL rules Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays for that matter. College Football owns Saturdays, and Friday nights belongs to high school football.

I started thinking about high school football movies. We all know Friday Night Lights, Varsity Blues, and Remember The Titans. What about those movies no one remembers? 

I'm here to share 5 high school football movies you may not know or remember.

5 Reggies Prayer

Let's start off the bat, this is not a good film but it meant well. Starring the late NFL great Reggie White, the very 90's B-movie film follows Reggie playing an version of himself. Never winning a pro championship and sensing there's a higher calling for him, he retires from pro football and coaches a high school team in Oregon. There he helps steer members of the team on the right path, and works to steer one in particular from a life of crime.

Mr. Miyagi himself Pat Morita is also in the film. Brett Favre makes a cameo, and wrestling legend the Big Show makes his film debut as the villain of the film.

Reggie's Prayer is available on Tubi.

4 Carter High

If you've seen Friday Night Lights, you know their championship opponents Carter High were the big bad thugs of the Texas high school football scene. At least that was the narrative that was portrayed during the film and in subsequent stories. This 2015 film starring Charles Dutton, Vivica A. Fox, and Pooch Hall. Show's the other side of the coin for Carter High School's football team that season. They were not all bad kids, but some got into some serious trouble and a grading scandal rocked the school and almost disrupted the entire season.

Carter High is available on tubi. 

3 Woodlawn

This 2015 film based on real events, follows former NFL player Tony Nathan's life story one season. When his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama integrated he and his teammates at Woodlawn had to lean on one another and faith. To overcome the hate and odds for a successful season. It's an inspirational film and displays a turbulent time in history through football.

Woodlawn is available on Tubi.

2 Johnny B Good

Johnny Be Good stars Anthony Michael Hall, Uma Thurman, and Robert Downey Jr. Although its considered a comedy and is very goofy in nature. It tells a cautionary tale about the college recruitment process of high school athletes. The lengths some schools will go to get a commitment from a player, and how many are always looking to get something out of the recruitment process.

Johnny Be Good is available on Tubi and Pluto.

1 All The Right Moves

This 1983 film was released as Tom Cruise's star was shining from Risky Business. In this movie he stars as a high school standout dreaming of a scholarship offer. So he can escape his small economically depressed town, and achieve career goals he's set out for himself. That all is at risk when he clashes with his coach played by Craig T. Nelson and realizes not everyone in town has the same ambition he does.

Sadly All The Right Moves is currently only available on streaming platforms to rent.

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5 Underrated Football Movies

 College football is back dominating Saturdays, and the NFL kicks off their season later this week. I started thinking about football movies, more importantly one's nobody remember or just wasn't popular for whatever reason when it debuted. For that here are 5 underrated football movies.

5. Rise and Walk: The Dennis Byrd Story

When it comes to TV movies based on a NFL player's story everyone adores Brian's Song, the 1971 film starring James Caan as Brian Piccolo and Billy Dee Williams as his friend and teammate Gale Sayer's. In 1994 Fox TV produced a film that is just as good in Rise & Walk: The Dennis Byrd Story starring Peter Berg. Dennis Byrd was a New York Jet's defensive end who was left paralyzed after colliding with teammate Scott Mersereau. Through therapy and determination he was eventually able to walk again and this is his story.

4. Invincible

Football films based on real scenarios the golden films  which are quite inspiring are Rudy, Remember The Titans, and We Are Marshall. 2006's Invincible starring Mark Wahlberg is just as inspiring as those films. Based on the true story of Philadelphia substitute teacher Vince Papale who attends a open tryout the Philadelphia Eagles are conducting and actually makes the team. Being as though Vince was truly down on his luck before making the team, the film has a good message about pushing through the storms of adversity. 

3. The Longshots

Another film based on a true story, The Longshots is a 2008 film starring KeKe Palmer and Ice Cube. KeKe play's Jasmine Plummer a pre-teen who join's a pop warner team encouraged by her Uncle Curtis played by Ice Cube. She must work through the typical sexism even from adults against a girl playing a male dominated game even as she clearly has the skill. 

2. Wildcats

1986's WildCats stars Goldie Hawn who yearning to be a football head coach and live up to her fathers legacy, takes a job at a tough inner-city school. She deal's with racism being a white woman coaching a predominately Black team in a male dominated sport, and sexism as everyone think's she doesn't have a clue. When she however refuses to be intimidated, the team soon follows her lead and starts winning. Besides Goldie Hawn, the film features young cast members such as Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, Robyn Lively, and Mykelti Williamson. Even Aunt Helen from The Jamie Foxx Show is in the movie, in her debut film. A young LL Cool J even makes a brief appearance in the film.  

1. Draft Day

2014's Draft Day stars Kevin Costner as the general manager of the Cleveland Browns analyzing his options for who to add to the team on draft day. Besides antagonizing over who to pick, he must also contend with relationship/family scenarios, threats from management, agents and other folks who feel they have a voice. And his fathers legacy, a lot to take in over the course of a day. The film covers the business side of the NFL and the craziness of everything that goes into making a draft decision. For people who enjoy learning how the front office makes decisions even if it's dramatized, as much as they like the on the field product. This film is for them.

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