Best movies like Trouble Along the Way

Wild, Wayne and Wonderful All The Way!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Trouble Along the Way Starring John Wayne, Donna Reed, Chuck Connors, Charles Coburn, and more. If you liked Trouble Along the Way then you may also like: 23 Blast, Yes Sir, That's My Baby, Undefeated, Wildcats, Necessary Roughness 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.

Struggling to retain custody of his daughter following his divorce, football coach Steve Williams finds himself embroiled in a recruiting scandal at the tiny Catholic college he is trying to bring back to football respectability.

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23 Blast

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.

Yes Sir, That's My Baby

At a college, a group of ex-GIs clash with their wives about over playing football.

Undefeated

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.

Wildcats

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.

Necessary Roughness

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?

Over the Goal

The Carlton State star quarterback is wrongly thrown in jail, almost guaranteeing a major loss as well as costing the college a donation which would save the school from closing.

Right Cross

A sportswriter forms a ring triangle with a fight manager's daughter and her Mexican-American boxer.

Rise and Shine

The college president, the head cheerleader and a gambling gangster try to keep a flunking football star in the game

Rudy

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.

The Junction Boys

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

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"!

12 Mighty Orphans

Haunted by his mysterious past, a devoted high school football coach leads a scrawny team of orphans to the state championship during the Great Depression and inspires a broken nation along the way.

Facing the Giants

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

The Freshman

Harold Lamb is so excited about going to college that he has been working to earn spending money, practicing college yells, and learning a special way of introducing himself that he saw in a movie. When he arrives at Tate University, he soon becomes the target of practical jokes and ridicule. With the help of his one real friend Peggy, he resolves to make every possible effort to become popular.

The Gladiator

A man returns to college and is talked into joining he football team and is a real joke on the team, until he is given a drug that gives him super strength.

Good News

At fictitious Tait University in the Roaring '20s, co-ed and school librarian Connie Lane falls for football hero Tommy Marlowe. Unfortunately, he has his eye on gold-digging vamp Pat McClellan. Tommy's grades start to slip, which keeps him from playing in the big game. Connie eventually finds out Tommy really loves her and devises a plan to win him back and to get him back on the field.

Horse Feathers

Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley U, hires bumblers Baravelli and Pinky to help his school win the big football game against rival Darwin U.

Little Giants

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?

Brown of Harvard

Tom Brown shows up at Harvard, confident and a bit arrogant. He becomes a rival of Bob McAndrew, not only in football and rowing crew, but also for the affections of Mary Abbott, a professor's daughter.

Two Minutes to Play

Martin Granville Jr., a star track-and-field athlete, has intentions of going to Claxton College, but changes his mind when he meets Pat Meredith, a co-ed at a rival college, changes his mind team and goes to college there, just as his father Martin Granville Sr., an alum of the school, had wished. But his father has ordered him not to play football. "Dad" Granville, has offered a $100,000 endowment to his old school, not knowing his son has joined the football team, but is going to withdraw it if his son plays in the Big Game against Claxton.

Maker of Men

Bob plays football badly so his father Coach Dudley, his girlfriend Dorothy and his school reject him. He joins a rival college team and aims to defeat his dad's team.

Paterno

After becoming the winningest coach in college football history, Joe Paterno is embroiled in Penn State's Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal, challenging his legacy and forcing him to face questions of institutional failure regarding the victims.

The Plastic Age

Hugh Carver is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. He falls in love with Cynthia Day, a popular girl who loves to party, and finds that it's impossible to please her and still keep up with his studies and athletic training. Soon the two face some difficult decisions.

The Program

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.

Safety

The story of Ray-Ray McElrathbey, a freshman football player for Clemson University, who secretly raised his younger brother on campus after his home life became too unsteady.

Sunset Park

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

That's My Boy

Featuring members of the 1931 National Champion football team from the University of Southern California Trojans, with team members Russell Saunders and Oscar "Dutch" Hendrian also cast in roles other than just team members.

The Time, the Place and the Girl

A musical comedy that follows the progress of a college All America football player whose swollen head is deflated when, after graduating , he takes a job as a Wall Street stock salesman. While poor at selling, he knows how to charm women and his boss has him concentrate his efforts on disposing of bad stock to gullible females, one of whom turns out to be the wife of his boss. The film is considered lost, with only its soundtrack remaining.

Radio

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.

Alex & Me

An uplifting story of the passion and drive it takes to succeed and the power of family to help realize your dreams.

Father Was a Fullback

Coach George Copper's college football team is losing game after game, much to the dismay of stiff-and-stuffy but influential alumni Roger Jessup, and also having trouble at home with his oldest daughter, Connie. The team keeps losing and Coach Cooper is about to lose his job as his efforts to win the last game of the season, against the team's Big Rival, end in disaster. But, unknown to he and his wife, Elizabeth, Connie has sold an article, called "I Was a Bubble Dancer" to a 'True-Confession" magazine, and the girl-who-couldn't-get-a-date becomes suddenly popular and, because of her, the high-school football star from another town decides to play his college-ball for Coach Cooper. Jessup is forced to keep Cooper on as the school's football coach.

My All American

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

College Coach

Ruthless Coach Gore creates turmoil at a college by hiring players and alienating students. Along the way, the coach loses his wife Claire Gore to a grandstanding player. Inside look at college football of the 1930s replete with fake grades, non-student players, and the importance of football to a college's reputation.

The Guy Who Came Back

Former football star Harry Joplin is down on his luck, both in his career and in his married life. He seems convinced of his own unworthiness, but a chance to play in a charity football game helps him see his life in a new light.

One Minute to Play

"Red" Wade, a star high-school football player, has intentions of going to Claxton College, which has a powerhouse football team, but changes his mind when he meets the sister of the pitiful Paramlee team and goes to college there, just as his father, an alum of the school, had wished. But his father has ordered him not to play football. "Dad" Wade, has offered a $100,000 endowment to his old school, not knowing his son has joined the football team but is going to withdraw it if his son plays in the Big Game against Claxton. This puts "Red" between a rock and a hard place.

Smith of Minnesota

This biopic takes an in-depth look into the life of Minnesota All-American football player Bruce Smith. The story is framed by a screenwriter's interview with the famed halfback. In order to garner information, the scenarist is assigned to live with Smith. During the film, Smith shares his thoughts on football and anecdotes from his life.

America Brown

A coming-of-age drama that centers on a young quarterback from West Texas, a priest in New York, and the two women in their lives.

Touchback

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.

College Humor

A college professor and the school's star football player are both rivals for the same beautiful coed.

Swing That Cheer

Undeniably talented on the gridiron, Bob Potter is equally undeniably an arrogant pain in the posterior. So swell-headed does Potter become that he can never admit to himself that his blocking-back teammate Larry Royal is equally responsible for Bob's success. To teach his pal a lesson, Larry feigns an injury and pulls out of the Big Game, forcing Bob to have a go at it alone.

SnowComing

Samantha, once jilted by her high school sweetheart Jake during Snowcoming, returns home to honor her football coach father, who’s retiring, and runs into Jake, now a famous quarterback. After seeing the library needs updating, Samantha asks Jake to use his celebrity as a draw for a “Tailgate at the Library” fundraiser.

Greater

The incredible true story of the greatest walk-on in the history of college football.

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.

Sweetheart of the Campus

Ruby Keeler teams with the Nelsons (of TV and radio fame) as the singer in Ozzie's band. The setting is a college campus which is suffering from monetary woes, but somehow Ozzie's band manages to attract enough attention to increase the enrollment and keep the school from having to shut down.

Sunny Skies

Story of a football hero whose temper and drinking threaten his spot on the team, and his romantic life. His naive comical roommate remains his steadfast supporter.

The Halfback of Notre Dame

A high school halfback must choose between the gridiron dreams of his football coach father, and his own dream of becoming a musician.

Most Precious Thing in Life

An unwed mother watches as her illegitimate son is raised by others. Director Lambert Hillyer's 1934 drama stars Jean Arthur, Richard Cromwell, Donald Cook, Anita Louise, Jane Darwell, Mary Forbes and Ward Bond.

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