Rocky lost in the first film.
The Dallas team in North Dallas Forty lost the game at the end, though it isn’t entirely clear the significance of the game. It looks like it was the last game of the season and they needed to win to make the playoffs.
The Allied team ties in Victory.
The Bad News Bears lose.
The Indians win the play-in game in Major League but lose in the ALCS.
The best sports movies are those in which the ending goes against type; Rocky and the Bad News Bears lose and are triumphant, Fast Eddie (in The Hustler) wins and it’s a tragedy.
There are exceptions; Slap Shot for one.
Thought of another one, the basketball team in “The White Shadow” don’t win it all in Season one. But like Hollywood sequels in three of the movies I mentioned, they succeed at least once in a subsequent season.
Apollo Creed Lost in II
Clubber Lang Lost in III
Ivan Drago Lost in IV
The Yankees lost the one game Play off in Major League
The Cowboys lost in Little Giants
Johnny Lost in The Karate Kid
But everyone wanted them to lose… as far as the “Hero” of the film
Tin Cup, lost in Tin Cup
The hockey team in Mystery, Alaska
Are we talking just film, or books too?
In the novel The Natural, unlike the movie, Hobbs struck out in the end.
There’s also Casey at the Bat, of course.
The North Dallas Bulls lost a playoff game to Chicago. Nick Nolte had just scored a last-second touchdown, and the team needed an extra point to tie the game and go to overtime… but the vocally Christian backup quarterback was the holder, and he dropped the snap. Dallas lost by 1 point.
I SUSPECT that playoff game was a fictionalized version of The Ice Bowl, in which the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Packers in miserable (but very different) weather conditions (the fictional game took place in a heavy rain, rather than in bitter cold).
Peter Gent denied it, but Roger Staubach has always believed that inept Christian quarterback was supposed to be him. And Roger is almost certainly correct.
Anyway, that game was the end of the season for the Bulls. And almost immediately afterward, the team found an excuse to cut Nolte on moral grounds.
Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson) loses his big bowling match with Bill Murray, in Kingpin.
In*** Brewster’s Millions***, Richard Pryor spends a fortune to get the Yankees to play his minor league team. The Yankees stomp them.
In Talladega Nights, Ricky Bobby loses the big race (John C. Reilly wins it), though he ACTS as if he won!
Lightning McQueen lets bad guy Chick Hicks win the Piston Cup, at the end of Cars.
Yes, this is the canonical example. There is no joy in Mudville; mighty Casey has struck out.
The Miami Sharks in Any Given Sunday won their playoff game on-screen, but went on to lose the Pantheon Cup.
To me, one thing that makes Rocky a great story is that the decision at the end of the fight seems to be in the background as Rocky and Adrian are calling to each other. If you’re not paying close attention, you might even miss the fact that Rocky lost.
Further, in Rocky’s mind, I think he did win. Before the fight, he says to Adrian:
I agree, Rocky *did *win, in the way that matters, since he achieved the goal he had set for himself and which no one else but Adrian believed he could achieve.
In the recent “Rocky: The Musical” on Broadway, the posters announced “Love Wins”, but the show lost, as it closed after a short run.
How can I unlearn that there’s a musical Rocky??!! EEEEKK!
The team isn’t fictional but -------- A Pennant for the Kremlin will forever be my favorite baseball fiction.
The Deep Space 9 baseball team that Captain Sisko fielded against the Vulcans lost, but scored on the Vulcans (and made the Vulcan captain lose his temper) so it was a moral victory.
What, did they use the hidden-ball trick?
In The Replacements the team wins the game, but since the strike ended they all lost their jobs.
Does that count?
Maggie in Million Dollar Baby lost her title fight. (Apparently. The only mention of a possible result was when she tells her mother, “I won, didn’t I?”, and her mother responds, “They’re saying that you lost the fight.”
Just in case somebody wants to see it but just hasn’t gotten around to it yet:
The champion hits Maggie after the bell, when the referee’s back is turned; Maggie falls and breaks her neck on the leg of a stool. Presumably, we are led to believe from her mother’s statement that since the referee didn’t see the late hit, the champion was declared the winner by knockout (or is this considered a TKO) when Maggie couldn’t answer the bell for the next round.
Also, the main team in Friday Night Lights (the movie) lost.
That’s Escape to Victory for those of you outside of North America. No, I have no idea either why it has two different titles.
And what about the goalkeeper whose arm they had to break back in the POW camp so Stallone’s character could be on the team? I have a feeling he didn’t exactly “win” either.