Best movies like All Things Fall Apart

When a high school football star is suddenly stricken with irreversible total blindness, he must decide whether to live a safe handicapped life or bravely return to the life he once knew and the sport he still loves.

Set against the backdrop of a high school football season, Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin’s documentary UNDEFEATED is an intimate chronicle of three underprivileged student-athletes from inner-city Memphis and the volunteer coach trying to help them beat the odds on and off the field. For players and coaches alike, the season will be not only about winning games — it will be about how they grapple with the unforeseeable events that are part of football and part of life.

When a plane crash claims the lives of members of the Marshall University football team and some of its fans, the team's new coach and his surviving players try to keep the football program alive.

Molly is a high school track coach who knows just as much about football as anyone else on the planet. When a football coach's position becomes vacant, she applies for the job, despite snickers from fellow staff members and her former husband.

Love and unity in a school torn by racism and hate in the 1970s. A gifted high school football player must learn to embrace his talent and his faith as he battles racial tensions on and off the field.

When the Texas Southern Armadillos football team is disqualified for cheating and poor grades, the University is forced to pick from a team that actually goes to school. Will they even win a single game?

A semi-fictional account of life as a professional football player. Loosely based on the Dallas Cowboys team of the early 1970s.

A former football hero cannot accept his career is over. He loses himself in alcohol and women.

A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.

Rudy grew up in a steel mill town where most people ended up working, but wanted to play football at Notre Dame instead. There were only a couple of problems. His grades were a little low, his athletic skills were poor, and he was only half the size of the other players. But he had the drive and the spirit of 5 people and has set his sights upon joining the team.

It's recruiting time and despite being short and scrawny, Johnny Walker is America's hottest young football prospect. His dilemma: should he take one of the many offers from college talent scouts or should he attend the local state college with his girlfriend and give up his football career?

Tom Berenger leads an outstanding cast in this bone-crunching dramatization of legendary college football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's debut at Texas A&M in the summer of 1954. The often unnerving story finds Bryant ducking the school's good ol' boy network of rich, influential alumni by spiriting his new team away to a makeshift training base in a tiny town called Junction. There, Bryant runs the equivalent of a POW camp, brutalizing an oversized, underdeveloped bunch of rowdy young men and tormenting those who seek medical attention for cracked spines and deadly heat exhaustion. Berenger delivers a warts-and-all performance as the vulgar, monstrous, yet much-respected Bryant, and the direction by seasoned television vet Mike Robe is brisk and almost explosively charged. Whatever one thinks of Bryant's punishing methods, the film does not flinch from telling its powerful tale. --Tom Keogh

Sensitive study of a headstrong high school football star who dreams of getting out of his small Western Pennsylvania steel town with a football scholarship. His equally ambitious coach aims at a college position, resulting in a clash which could crush the player's dreams.

The story of a New York pro baseball team and two of its players. Henry Wiggen is the star pitcher and Bruce Pearson is the normal, everyday catcher who is far from the star player on the team and friend to all of his teammates. During the off-season, Bruce learns that he is terminally ill, and Henry, his only true friend, is determined to be the one person there for him during his last season with the club. Throughout the course of the season, Henry and his teammates attempt to deal with Bruce's impending illness, all the while attempting to make his last year a memorable one.

In a depressed Texas town, British foreign exchange teacher Anna attempts to inject some life into her hopeless kids by introducing them to soccer. They're terrible at first, but Anna and her football-hero assistant whip them into shape. As they work overtime, the pair help kids build their self-esteem and also get involved in solving family squabbles.

The story of professional football players Gale Sayes and Brian Piccolo, and how their friendship on and off the field was affected when Piccolo contracted a fatal disease

The California Atoms are in last place with no hope of moving up. But by switching the mule from team mascot to team member, (He can kick 100 yard field goals!) they start winning, and move up in the rankings, Hurrah! The competition isn't so happy.

In 1966, Texas Western coach Don Haskins led the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team to the NCAA national championship.

Inspired by the true story of Vince Papale, a man with nothing to lose who ignored the staggering odds and made his dream come true. When the coach of Papale's beloved hometown football team hosted an unprecedented open tryout, the public consensus was that it was a waste of time – no one good enough to play professional football was going to be found this way.

A small, turbulent town in Texas obsesses over their high school football team to an unhealthy degree. When the star tailback, Boobie Miles, is seriously injured during the first game of the season, all hope is lost, and the town's dormant social problems begin to flare up. It is left to the inspiring abilities of new coach Gary Gaines to instill in the other team members -- and, by proxy, the town itself -- a sense of self-respect and honor.

A native-American lacrosse team makes its way through a prep school league tournament.

Louisiana football star Gavin Grey had it all. He was an All-American champion who married his high-school sweetheart, homecoming queen Babs Rogers, and who was a hero to his hometown. Yet after a failed professional career, Gavin realizes that fame and success have passed him by and that he no longer is the hero everyone keeps reminding him he should still be. His dissatisfaction with his life leads to strains in his marriage, and Gavin begins to wonder who he is, if he's not a hero anymore.

A losing coach with an underdog football team faces their giants of fear and failure on and off the field to surprising results.

Tommy Riley has moved with his dad to Chicago from a 'nice place'. He keeps to himself, goes to school. However, after a street fight he is noticed and quickly falls into the world of illegal underground boxing - where punches can kill.

Like millions of kids around the world, Santiago harbors the dream of being a professional footballer... However, living in the Barrios section of Los Angeles, he thinks it is only that--a dream. Until one day an extraordinary turn of events has him trying out for Premiership club Newcastle United.

When Danny O'Shea's daughter is cut from the Peewee football team just for being a girl, he decides to form his own team, composed of other ragtag players who were also cut. Can his team really learn enough to beat the elite team, coached by his brother, a former pro player?

A socially inept fourteen year old experiences heartbreak for the first time when his two best friends -- Cappie, an older-brother figure, and Maggie, the new girl with whom he is in love -- fall for each other.

A young man finds solace with a young woman, his mother, and a high-school football coach who recruits him to quarterback a six-man team.

This ensemble comedy follows the Pullham University Bluecocks, a small liberal arts college with a Division III football program (the lowest division in the NCAA). When the head coach unexpectedly dies, the future of the flailing football program is in jeopardy, as they have not had a winning season in decades. In a desperate attempt to create some media attention for the athletic program and the university, President Georgia Anne Whistler hires known lunatic and felon, Coach Rick Vice, for what could be the football programs final season.

A drama revolving around characters whose lives are transformed one summer at an exclusive East Coast country club.

Teenagers at a juvenile detention center, under the leadership of their counselor, gain self-esteem by playing football together.

Henry Steele is a basketball phenom at his small town high school, but when he matriculates to a big city university on a scholarship, soon realizes that he has few skills outside the sport. Expected by his coach to contribute significantly to the team, Henry is overwhelmed by the demands on his time, the "big business" aspect of college sports, and the fact that he never fully learned to read. Things look bleak for Henry when Janet Hays, a pretty graduate student, is assigned as Henry's tutor. Her intellect and strength lift Henry out of his doldrums just in time to battle the coach, who attempts to rescind Henry's scholarship.

Failed college coach Norman Dale gets a chance at redemption when he is hired to coach a high school basketball team in a tiny Indiana town. After a teacher persuades star player Jimmy Chitwood to quit and focus on his long-neglected studies, Dale struggles to develop a winning team in the face of community criticism for his temper and his unconventional choice of assistant coach: Shooter, a notorious alcoholic.

Several players from different backgrounds try to cope with the pressures of playing football at a major university. Each deals with the pressure differently, some turn to drinking, others to drugs, and some to studying.

The true story of Jasmine Plummer who, at the age of eleven, became the first female to play in Pop Warner football tournament in its 56-year history.

Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson are the greatest players in the Colored leagues, and everyone expects that one of them will make the leap to the Major Leagues, now that there is talk of integration. But, unexpectedly, it's the rookie with the army record, Jackie Robinson, that gets tapped to be the first.

Based on the real-life relationship between teammates Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers and the bond established when Piccolo discovers that he is dying.

A school teacher takes over a talented, but undisciplined high school basketball team and turns them into a winning team.

A three-way friendship between two free-spirited professional football players and the owner's daughter becomes compromised when two of them become romantically involved.

Talent can only get you so far. For golfer Luke Chisholm, that turns out to be Utopia, Texas -- where he's left stranded after blowing his pro debut.

High school football coach, Harold Jones befriends Radio, a mentally-challenged man who becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson, South Carolina. Their friendship extends over several decades, where Radio transforms from a shy, tormented man into an inspiration to his community.

Freddie Steinmark, an underdog on the gridiron, faces the toughest challenge of his life after leading his team to a championship season.

Alex, blind since the age of two, dreams of running for his school's cross-country team. His father, a probation officer, finds a running partner who spends his time 'running' from the law.

The story of a small-town high school football team in rural Ohio destined to play their cross-town rival, a perennial powerhouse, while standing up for an entire community.

A former high-school football star loses his shot at a college scholarship due to a devastating gridiron injury, but gets a second chance at living his dream.

This teen drama follows high-school senior David Wakefield, a talented runner who is set on leading his track-and-field team to victory. As David continues to hone his running skills, he carries on a romance with his pretty sweetheart, Alice Baker, and struggles with other issues that come with the transition to adulthood. Also factoring into David's life is the Vietnam War, with the draft fully underway and young men being regularly called into service.

The story of the year the Oxford and Cambridge boat race changed from a gentleman's race to one where winning was everything.

A coming of age drama following the life of Matt Hamill, the first deaf wrestler to win a National Collegiate Wrestling Championship.

This is based on the true story about the relationship between Penn State football player John Cappelletti and his younger brother Joey, who has leukemia. John and Joey's bond is a strong one. Joey hangs out with John in the Penn State locker room, and inspires him to be the top college football player in the country. Their bond knows no boundaries and goes beyond making touchdowns and winning awards.

Out on the lacrosse pitch, wealthy but troubled Jesse and poor but driven Tosha form an easy and deep bond, but their relationship is threatened once they enter the hallways of an elite prep school they attend in Washington, D.C. There, they must work to overcome racial and other tensions in their classmates, and in themselves, if they hope to keep their friendship alive.