The All-TIME 25 Best Sports Movies

Caddyshack

Orion Pictures / Everett Collection

The plot of Caddyshack, like any worthwhile sports comedy, is ridiculous. A country-club caddie with college ambitions kisses up to a bombastic judge, who then catches him frolicking with his racy niece Lacy; Bill Murray, playing groundkeeper Carl Spackler, chases a pesky puppet gopher around the course. The film is nothing more than a series of skits with dialogue — much of it improvised — still quoted hourly by fans of the 1980 cult classic. Which is nice.

Here’s Rodney Dangerfield as Al Czervick, a guest of the club who knows no decorum, and is accompanied by an Asian man: “This place is restricted, Wang, so don’t tell them you’re Jewish!” Or Chevy Chase, crooning to Lacy Underall: “I was boooorn to love you. I was boooorn to lick your face. I was boooorn to rub you. But you were born to rub me first.” Or Murray’s Spackler describing his time looping for the Dalai Lama: “So we finish the 18th and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, ‘Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.’ And he says, ‘Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.’ So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”

Next: The Damned United