01
Breaking Away
Why this pick
Its scrappy working-class athletes, teasing ensemble chemistry, and dry-eyed affection for youthful ambition carry the same lived-in, anti-glamour underdog spirit.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1976 1h 42m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
The Bad News Bears
ComedyFamily
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved The Bad News Bears, try these.
01
02
The Sandlot
Why this pick
Like the Bears, its kids feel messy, competitive, and genuinely young, with baseball serving as the setting for rowdy camaraderie rather than polished triumph.
03
Meatballs
Why this pick
This has a similarly loose, irreverent 1970s comic rhythm: a ragtag group of kids, an imperfect adult leader, and an underdog competition treated with heart but little sentimentality.
04
Hardball
Why this pick
A reluctant, flawed coach and a neglected youth baseball team recreate the uneasy adult-child bond and hard-won team feeling, though in a more dramatic register.
05
Little Giants
Why this pick
Its misfit youth squad and comic resistance to win-at-all-costs parents echo the Bears’ pleasure in letting supposedly untalented kids claim the field.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
Morris Buttermaker, an Alcoholism and former minor-league baseball pitcher, is recruited by Bob Whitewood, a city councilman and attorney who filed a lawsuit against an ultra-competitive Southern California Youth Baseball League which excluded the least skilled athletes (including his son) from playing. In order to settle the lawsuit, the league agrees to add an additional team - the Bears - which is composed of the worst players. Buttermaker becomes the coach of the unlikely team, which includes (among others) a near-sighted pitcher, an overweight catcher, a foulmouthed shortstop with a Napoleon complex, an outfielder who dreams of emulating his idol Hank Aaron, two non-English-speaking Mexican immigrants, a withdrawn and bullied boy named Timmy Lupus, and a motley collection of other "talent". Shunned by the more competitive teams (and competitive parents), the Bears are the outsiders. They play their opening game, and do not even record an out, giving up 26 runs before Buttermaker wikt:forfeits the game.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Walter Matthau
Coach Morris Buttermaker
Tatum O'Neal
Amanda Whurlitzer
Ben Piazza
Councilman Whitewood
Vic Morrow
Coach Roy Turner
Erin Blunt
Ahmad Abdul Rahim
Scott Firestone
Regi Tower
George Gonzales
Miguel Agilar
David Pollock
Rudi Stein