Paul Newman plays Reggie Dunlop, the player-coach of the Charleston Chiefs, in George Roy Hill’s (The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) Slap Shot. Both Dunlop and his team have seen better days: the Chiefs can’t buy a win, and his marriage seems to be in the sin bin. What to do? Bring in a trio of thuggish, bespectacled brothers (Jeff and Steve Carlson and David Hanson) who don’t play nice on the ice, that’s what. Slap Shot fully justifies its R rating, with Newman and company filling the air with profanity as vulgar as their playing style. Screenwriter Nancy Dowd based the nasty language on tape recordings her brother (a minor-league hockey player for the Johnstown Jets who served as the film’s technical adviser) made while in the locker room and on his team bus.
The All-TIME 25 Best Sports Movies
Though we've left out some sentimental choices — cry us a river over "Brian's Song" another time — we're confident that you'll discover some new favorites
Slap Shot
Full List
Winning
- The Big Lebowski
- Body and Soul
- Breaking Away
- Bull Durham
- Caddyshack
- The Damned United
- Downhill Racer
- Eight Men Out
- Field of Dreams
- Hoop Dreams
- Hoosiers
- The Freshman
- The Hustler
- Lagaan
- Major League
- Million Dollar Baby
- Million Dollar Mermaid
- Olympia
- Raging Bull
- Rocky
- Shaolin Soccer
- Slap Shot
- Speed Racer
- Tokyo Olympiad
- When We Were Kings