HERE'S WHY Because it perfected the formula. Why have one nigh-invulnerable black heavyweight when you can have two? Why have one viscerally adrenalized fight when you can have three? The story of the Italian Stallion's defeat at the hands of and subsequent victory over Clubber Lang — the only actually scary performance of Mr. T's career — packs all the inspirational triumph you look for in a Rocky flick (and a touch of casual racism that you don't), but Rocky III's true gift to sports cinema is the anatomically fetishized, borderline homoerotic training sequence. That, and ''Eye of the Tiger.''
EXTRAS We pity the DVD fools who included nothing but a measly trailer. If we find them, our prediction for the encounter? Pain.
FINAL SCORE Twenty notches below the first Rocky on our list, but the most fun installment in the whole series. — Marc Bernardin
HERE'S WHY Harold Lloyd may not have had the comic chops of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, but the slapsticky silent-film star produced the first great sports comedy. As Harold ''Speedy'' Lamb, Tate U's resident ''college boob,'' Lloyd is hilarious and heartwarming in his quest for acceptance on campus and on the football field. His gags in the ''Big Game'' — lining up for the wrong team, unlacing the ball and hiding it behind his back, mistaking a hat for the pigskin — have been aped for 80 years. As has his last-second score to win the game and the girl.
DID YOU KNOW? Most of the football footage was filmed during breaks in a Berkeley-Stanford game.
EXTRAS The film comes in the new seven-disc Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection, which includes 15 films, 13 shorts, and the star's own home movies.
FINAL SCORE Imagine The Waterboy, but a million times better. — Dalton Ross
HERE'S WHY A recurring theme in sports films is chance — second chances, best chances, last chances. Ron Howard's stirring recounting of Depression-era boxer James J. Braddock's shot at the heavyweight brass ring manages to encompass all three. Russell Crowe employs his by-now-standard gravitas to play a champion who fought against a world that tried to break him and found his feet again in the square circle. And the fights themselves are more vividly captured than in any film since Raging Bull.
DID YOU KNOW? Angelo Dundee — who trained Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard — cameos as one of Braddock's cornermen.
EXTRAS A decent undercard of deleted scenes, docs, and commentaries from Howard and writers Akiva Goldsman and Cliff Hollingsworth appear on the two-disc set, due out Dec. 6.
FINAL SCORE Don't let Crowe's real-life brushes with thuggery deter you: Cinderella's a fight fable for the ages. — Marc Bernardin
HERE'S WHY When Dennis Quaid is bad, he's god-awful. But when he's good, there's no one who can pilot a three-hankie male weepie with the same grizzled assurance. Exhibit A is this apple-in-the-throat yarn about Jim Morris, a real-life high school baseball coach and ex-pitcher whose arm gave out just as he was about to turn pro. Encouraged by his young players to give the majors another shot, Morris makes it to the Show and resolves his daddy issues with coldhearted pop Brian Cox. We defy you to find a dry eye in the house as the credits roll.
DID YOU KNOW? The real Morris has a cameo as an umpire.
EXTRAS Commentaries by Quaid and director John Lee Hancock, deleted scenes, and a doc on Morris
FINAL SCORE Field of Dreams plus Seabiscuit with a slider. — Chris Nashawaty
HERE'S WHY Yup, that's Warren Beatty nearly being decapitated on the field by surly NFL legend Deacon Jones. For that alone, Beatty deserved his Best Actor Oscar nod, one of four he received (also Best Director, Best Writer, Best Picture) for the wry supernatural romance about a mistakenly deceased Los Angeles Ram determined to play in the Super Bowl. The gridiron climax looks and feels real — from the Rams' opponent, the Pittsburgh Steelers, to the postgame interview by NBC's Dick Enberg.
DID YOU KNOW? Beatty wanted Muhammad Ali to star as Joe Pendleton in this remake of 1941's Here Comes Mr. Jordan, in which the lead was a boxer instead of a quarterback.
EXTRAS Fumble.
FINAL SCORE A ravishing Julie Christie is worth an extra 14 points to any good football movie. — Jeff Labrecque
HERE'S WHY John Huston's skid-row saga about a washed-up alcoholic boxer (a never-better Stacy Keach) and a promising young amateur (a 22-year-old Jeff Bridges) is all about the pugs who never make it out of the spit-bucket world of musty gyms. When a middle-aged loser like Keach is given his meager cut of the door money after getting turned into hamburger in the ring, you catch a glimpse of something that isn't even about sports anymore — it's about the flip side of the American Dream.
DID YOU KNOW? Keach and Bridges' coach in the film is played by the future ''Coach'' from Cheers, Nicholas Colasanto.
EXTRAS As skimpy as Bridges' boxing trunks: a couple of trailers and the lavish option of watching the movie with French subtitles.
FINAL SCORE Barfly with boxing gloves. — Chris Nashawaty
