Best movies like The Main Event

A Glove Story

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Main Event Starring Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Paul Sand, Whitman Mayo, and more. If you liked The Main Event then you may also like: Undefeated, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, The World's Greatest Athlete, Rebound, Rookie of the Year and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Hillary Kramer, a successful Perfume magnate, awakes one morning to find that her accountant has robbed her blind and left for South America. Going through all of her remaining assets she finds a boxer, purchased as a tax write-off. She decides to take Kid Natural, Eddie Scanlon, who is much more at home giving driving lessons, into the ring and use him as her key to riches. Eddie thinks this will only get him killed and resists.

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Undefeated

Lex 'El Animal' Vargas is a promising Portorican boxer in Queens, but lacks ambition to aim for the big career. That changes after his brother Paulie is accidentally shot dead by a teenager in an amateur hold-up on their late dad's shop, which he now closes to turn professional boxer. His star rises fast, but success brings its own problems, as he he lacks experience to handle professionals and resist the abuse they and his ghetto past entourage make of his generous nature.

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!

A small-town girl wins a date with a Hollywood star through a contest. When the date goes better than expected, a love triangle forms between the girl, the celebrity, and the girl's best friend.

The World's Greatest Athlete

Stuck with a feeble sports department, college coach Sam Archer (John Amos) faces the ax unless he can reverse the school's athletic fortunes. An African vacation with his assistant (Tim Conway) answers Archer's prayers when he spots the athletically gifted Nanu (Jan-Michael Vincent). Sam counts on Nanu's remarkable abilities to put the team back on the winning track. This upbeat farce boasts an impressive cast of comedians.

Rebound

An acclaimed college hoops coach is demoted to a junior varsity team after a public meltdown.

Rookie of the Year

12-year-old Henry Rowengartner, whose late father was a minor league baseball player, grew up dreaming of playing baseball, despite his physical shortcomings. After Henry's arm is broken while trying to catch a baseball at school, the tendon in that arm heals too tightly, allowing Henry to throw pitches that are as fast as 103 mph. Henry is spotted at nearby Wrigley Field by Larry "Fish" Fisher, the general manager of the struggling Chicago Cubs, after Henry throws an opponent's home-run ball all the way from the outfield bleachers back to the catcher, and it seems that Henry may be the pitcher that team owner Bob Carson has been praying for.

Jump In!

Story revolves around a young boxer, Izzy Daniels, who trains to follow in his father's footsteps by winning the Golden Glove. When his friend, Mary, however, asks him to substitute for a team member in a Double Dutch tournament, the young man discovers a hidden passion for jump roping

Kid Galahad

After completing his military service, Walter Gulick takes a job as a sparring partner at a gym, the owner of which sees potential in Walter as a professional fighter—and takes him under his wing.

The Air Up There

Jimmy Dolan is a college basketball coach who wants a big promotion. To get it, he needs to make a dramatic find. He ends up deep in Africa, hoping to recruit Saleh, a huge basketball prodigy Jimmy glimpsed in a home movie. But Saleh is the chief's son and has responsibilities at home, since the tribe's land is threatened by a mining company with its own hotshot basketball team.

The Bad News Bears Go to Japan

In this third film version of the Bad News Bears series, Tony Curtis plays a small time promotor/hustler who takes the pint-sized baseball team to Japan for a match against the country's best little league baseball team which sparks off a series of adventures and mishaps the boys come into.

The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings

In the world of 1930s Negro League baseball, a spirited team of renegade players travels around the Midwest looking for that one big score. Richard Pryor, Billy Dee Williams, and James Earl Jones star as three barnstorming ballplayers who take on prejudice and their own League's unfair rules while stealing cars, food and home base - anything to prove that they're the best team around. It's a showdown of brains over booby traps and sportsmanship over racial segregation as Bingo Long's All-Stars swing their way into a winning season;.

Black Cloud

Black Cloud, is an inspirational story about a young Navajo, Native American boxer, who overcomes personal challenges as he comes to terms with his heritage, while fighting his way for a spot on the US Olympic boxing team.

Gus

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.

The Comebacks

A comedy that spoofs the inspirational sports movies, The Comebacks tells the story of an out-of-luck coach, Lambeau Fields, who takes a rag-tag bunch of college misfits and drives them towards the football championships. In the process, this life-long loser discovers that he is a winner after all by redeeming himself, saving his relationship with his family and friends, and finding that there is indeed, no "I" in "team"!

The Cutting Edge

Two former Olympians, one a figure skater and the other a hockey player, pin their hopes of one last shot at Olympic glory on one another. That is, of course, if they can keep from killing each other in the process...

The Cutting Edge: Fire & Ice

Alexandra "Alex" Delgado, a pairs figure skater, found her career come to an abrupt halt after her partner (on and off the ice) became injured. As their love affair cooled, a heartbroken Alex stopped competing and turned to teaching. Enter James Van Behr the smoldering bad boy of speed skating, who has had fiery Alex in his sights as a skating partner ever since he was banned from speed skating. There aren't many girls who say no to him but she may well be the first. However, he pushes her buttons, challenging her like no one else - and her fighting spirit returns. She agrees to be his partner and they begin a grueling practice regimen fueled (and occasionally derailed) by their own tempestuous relationship, which heats up as they get closer to competition. But will their passion destroy Alex's chance to bring home the gold again?

The Cutting Edge: Going for the Gold

Two ice skaters develop a love-hate relationship while dreaming of Olympic glory.

Slam Dunk Ernest

Ernest P. Worrell becomes a basketball star after an angel bearing an uncanny resemblance to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gives him a pair of magic sneakers.

Fever Pitch

A romantic comedy about a man, a woman and a football team. Based on Nick Hornby's best selling autobiographical novel, Fever Pitch. English teacher Paul Ashworth believes his long standing obsession with Arsenal serves him well. But then he meets Sarah. Their relationship develops in tandem with Arsenal's roller coaster fortunes in the football league, both leading to a nail biting climax.

Fever Pitch

Lindsay is stuck in the middle of her relationship with Ben and his passion for the Boston Red Sox.

Girlfight

Diana Guzman begins to train as a boxer and achieves impressive success, blazing new trails for female boxers, all while keeping it a secret from her father.

Gladiator

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.

The Hot Flashes

An unlikely basketball team of unappreciated middle-aged Texas women, all former high school champs, challenge the current high school girls’ state champs to raise money for breast cancer prevention. Sparks fly as the women go to comic extremes to prove themselves on and off the court, become a national media sensation, and gain a new lease on life.

The Break-up Artist

A woman who gets paid to break people up is forced to become a matchmaker when some new competition muscles her out of the break-up business. Now, in order to save her company (and keep her high-priced wardrobe) she'll have to rely on her old nemesis: love.

The Sixth Man

A college athlete returns from the dead to help his brother's basketball team win the NCAA title.

Tough Enough

An aspiring country singer, whose money is disappearing faster than his career opportunities, enters a "Tough Man" amateur boxing contest to earn some cash to pay his bills. Amazingly enough, he wins it, and is picked to go onto the national finals. He's torn between his first love, music, and the glitz, glamor and money of the "Tough Man" world.

6.2 / 10 2007 Comedy
suggested by: silver screen

The Hammer

Approaching forty, Ferro is unsatisfied with his life as a construction worker and part-time boxing instructor in Los Angeles, CA. After a successful bout with a young pro boxer, Ferro decides to don the gloves one last time. The movie recounts his unlikely quest for Olympic gold.

The Great White Hype

When the champ's promoter, Rev. Sultan, decides something new is needed to boost the marketability of the boxing matches, he searches and finds the only man to ever beat the champ. The problem is that he isn't a boxer anymore and he's white. However, once Rev. Sultan convinces him to fight, he goes into heavy training while the confident champ takes it easy and falls out of shape.

Ice Castles

Young, beautiful, talented Alexis Winston comes from nowhere to become a figure skating superstar. But her rise to stardom isn’t easy. She has to push herself, reinvent herself, and most painfully of all, leave her hometown boyfriend behind. When a tragic fall leaves her blind, she needs someone to believe in her, to love her; someone to convince her she has the strength to skate and dream again.

Like Mike 2: Streetball

Another young boy with 'hoop dreams' finds an old pair of Michael Jordan's sneakers and can suddenly play ball like the greatest player in the world.

Major League

When Rachel Phelps inherits the Cleveland Indians from her deceased husband, she's determined to move the team to a warmer climate—but only a losing season will make that possible, which should be easy given the misfits she's hired. Rachel is sure her dream will come true, but she underestimates their will to succeed.

Major League: Back to the Minors

At the behest of Roger Dorn -- the Minnesota Twins' silver-tongued new owner -- washed-up minor league hurler Gus Cantrell steps up to the plate to take over as skipper of the club's hapless farm team. But little does he know that Dorn has an ulterior motive to generate publicity with a grudge match between the big leaguers and their ragtag Triple A affiliate.

Matilda

A small-time talent agent discovers an amazing boxing kangaroo and figures to use it as his stepping-stone into the big time.

5.9 / 10 1992 Comedy
suggested by: user114msdicvh

Mr. Baseball

Jack Elliot, a one-time MVP for the New York Yankees is now on the down side of his baseball career. With a falling batting average, does he have one good year left and can the manager of the Chunichi Dragons, a Japanese Central baseball league find it in him?

Side Out

A law student comes to California for the summer and ends up playing professional volleyball.

The Man from Left Field

After taking a job managing a little league team, a homeless man inspires the kids to reach for it all and they inspire him to reclaim his life.

A Shot at Glory

The irascible manager of a lower-division Scottish football side must contend with problems off and on the field when his team's impatient American owner demands they win the Scottish Cup or else be relocated to Ireland, while also dealing with the forced arrival of a new star striker - who happens to be his estranged son-in-law, whom he blames for the breakdown of his relationship with his daughter.

Price of Glory

An ex-boxer, living with the knowledge that his fight career was cut short by a crooked manager, channels his bitter disappointment in a single-minded quest for boxing championships for his three sons. We see them in pee-wee Silver Glove matches with dad constantly pushing them. Ten years later, they're young men, with dad as both father and manager. A professional promoter, Nick Everson, wants to sign the boys, but dad rejects those offers. Then, in expressions of their varied relationships with their father, each son makes his own decisions. Can dad ever step aside, and can the family hold together?

Safe at Home!

A Florida boy (Bryan Russell) tells his Little League buddies that his father knows two New York Yankees (Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris).

The Kid

Jimmy Albright is a young athlete with a passion for boxing. His mentor, Harry Sloan, an aging trainer and former boxer, sees Jimmy's potential, not only as a boxer but as a young man. With Harry's guidance, Jimmy trains and fights his way to the top of his division. All things appear to be on track, except for one small twist: Jimmy's parents, Don and Doreen, don't know he's a boxer...

Underdogs

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.

Finding Buck McHenry

When an 11 year old boy gets cut from his Little League baseball team, he sets out to form his own team.

Skid Marks

Budget cuts force two rival ambulance companies and their misfit medics to go head-to-head to save their patients, their jobs and their beer money, all in the name of emergency medicine.

Soccer Dog: The Movie

A heart-warming comedy about the friendship between the new kid in town and a soccer-playing dog on the lam from the dog-catcher. It's up to these two underdogs to win the PeeWee Soccer League championship game.

The Cutting Edge: Chasing the Dream

A world class ice skater eager to take the top prize in the biggest competition around finds his dreams going up in flames after his partner suffers a debilitating injury in this romantic sports drama starring Matt Lanter, Francia Rosa, and Christy Carlson Romano. Zack (Lanter) was headed for the gold when his partner suffered an injury that made competing impossible, but could a feisty female hockey player prove the key to keeping his illustrious career on track? Alexandra is an amateur Latina hockey player who has never skated professionally and doesn't much care for Zack, though a little determination goes a long way in helping Zack convince her to join him on the ice. Now, as this unlikely pair begins the arduous training process that could make them both bona-fide superstars, the girl with the icy attitude finds her handsome partner's warmth and charm bringing about a most unexpected thaw.

Gym Teacher: The Movie

Dave Stweie was America's hope for the gold in the 1988 Seoul Games.... until he ran face first into the vault. After Suffering humiliation on a global scale, Dave eventually faded into obscurity and became a gym teacher. A gym teacher with the drive of a former Champion, that is, who takes his job seriously. Very seriously!

Counterpunch

Based on a true story. A young boxer, Emilio, from the wrong side of the tracks with big dreams of winning the Golden Gloves boxing championship, finds himself at a cross roads after being locked up. As he fights his way back into the winning circle he gets a second shot at the championship title. As he is toe to toe in the ring with his competitor he'll throw all the punches and be the last man standing.

4.8 / 10 1979 Comedy
suggested by: user656ajcz1atn

Fast Break

David Greene is a New York basketball enthusiast, who wants to coach. He is then offered the coaching job at a small Nevada college. He brings along some players, who are a bit odd but good. Like Swish who unknown to the rest of the team is a girl. Preacher, who's being sought by some nefarious characters. And D.C., who's a fugitive. And along with some of the students at the college, he turns them into a contender. In order to give the tam the respect they deserve and some exposure, Greene schemes to try and get the number 1 team led by Bo Winnegar, to play them.

Love on the Air

When a radio host gets dumped by her boyfriend on-air and soon has her break up exposed even further by a shock jock, she needs to regain her confidence while working with the same man who humiliated her in front of his viewers.

6.0 / 10 2001 Comedy Drama
suggested by: user891vm283mxk

The Sports Pages

Dr. Lionel Waddems (Bob Newhart), a golf fanatic. is put on trial for killing his golf partner (Played by Kelsey Grammer). The movie follows the trial in the news and features interviews by people who knew the men. It is based on 2 short stories "How Doc Waddems Finally Broke 100" and "The Heidi Bowl".

One Hit From Home

After suffering a career ending knee injury, pro-baseball superstar Jimmy Easton returns to a place he has not been in a very long time.... home. Here, Jimmy confronts dark memories from a tragic past as he tries to make peace with a life he once left behind. Things take an unexpected turn when he is forced back into the world of baseball as the coach of an underachieving college team.

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