10 Baseball Movies That Knocked It Out Of The Park

5. The Natural

Anyone who feels romantic about baseball or nostalgic for "the good old days" of the game will swell with inspiration over the fictional story of Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford), a washed-up pitcher who, at the age of 35, becomes a major league phenomenon in 1939.

The film takes on a fairy tale air, especially in the opening sequence when Hobbs fashions a baseball bat (which he calls Wonderboy) from a piece of a tree struck by lightning. The rest of the film continues this atmosphere of romantic unreality, which is complemented with rich cinematography of near-dusk lighting and golden hues. This is the quintessential "baseball as romance" film.

Director Barry Levinson's stroke of genius was hiring Robert Redford to play Hobbs. The 48 year-old Redford (still amazingly young looking) had the perfect combination of incredible good looks and masculine charm to sell this imaginary, fairy tale story. The film's climax is one of the most memorable in sports movie history, as Hobbs' story comes to its emotionally-satisfying and over-the-top conclusion. The accompanying score to this sequence (written by Randy Newman) is at once magical and mysterious, and is considered one of the greatest sports themes ever.

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