Screenshot: A League of Their Own/Sony Pictures Entertainment
“Everybody loves baseball,” an aunt once told me. I don’t know about that. Lots of people really like baseball, but I think she was delusional about the sport’s power to win over every audience. What can be said with certainty is that baseball is inextricably linked with American history, particularly in the 20th century. If its hold on us has loosened somewhat, we can still look at the sport’s history and see reflections of everything that was happening in the broader culture across those decades.
The same holds true for baseball movies, to an extent. There have been many hundreds of them over the last century—the genre is very nearly as old as film itself—but a lot of them are forgettable, niche films that play best to audiences already enamored of the sport. That’s fine (lots of people do love baseball), but there’s also something to be said for movies that don’t preach to the already converted. The very best baseball movies appeal to somewhat broader audiences, appealing to those of us with...limited interest in watching an actual baseball game, but who will absolutely watch a movie if it’s about a bunch of scrappy underdogs trying to prove once and for all that they’re not losers. Or if it stars Madonna. Or has ghosts.
In honor of opening day, here are 14 movies that reach beyond the baseball diamond to appeal to viewers who can’t tell an earned run from an outfield assist. A few of them might even make you think about watching an actual game.
