right?
i mean they can’t all be fairly run of the mill team-struggles-through-great-difficulties-and-wins-the-important-game-in-the-dying-seconds type movies, can they? are there any stand outs? what are they?
please don’t let me declare this genre as dead.
Depends on how strictly you mean “sports movie.” FWIW, my favorites which make it past your filter would be
Bull Durham (IMHO, the greatest baseball movie ever made)
Little Big League
The Nat… no, I guess you’d rule that one out 
Field of Dreams: A 60’s radical turned Iowa farmer uses the ghosts of baseball greats of yore to reconcile himself with his long-dead father. Through the magic of baseball he finally gets to tell his father that he loves him, and so on. Along the way he also reconciles his 60’s radicalism and ties up some loose ends in his life, yada yada yada.
Brian’s Song: Uh, something about race relations in the NFL in the sixties, and SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT the white guy (roomie of the black guy) dies.
For god’s sake, stay away from “Rudy.” Not because it fits the clicheed plot line you described, but because – well, trust me. You just don’t want to see that movie.
North Dallas Forty - especially great if you hate the whole “happy ending” deal.
Here is my criteria for sports movies. If the climax of the movie has the plucky misfit underdogs scoring the winning point at the last second of the last game of the season, which just happens to be against their odious rivals, then that movie cannot, by definition, be a good sports movie.
This has got to be the absolute stupidest sports movie cliche there is. There are all kinds of issues you can deal with through sports. Bull Durham, hell, even Jerry Maguire were about sports but not stupid.
In fact, I might go so far as to say that any sports movie that doesn’t use this cliche is probably a decent movie. I can’t think of a single sports movie that didn’t use this cliche that wasn’t pretty good.
**Baseball:**Bang the Drum Slowly with Robert De Niro and Michael Moriarty, from Mark Harris’ excellent novel. This was part of Harris’s baseball trilogy, but I can’t remember the other titles and I don’t think they made it to your local gigaplex anyway.
**Horse Racing:**Francis Goes to the Races with Donald O’Connor, Piper Laurie and Chill Wills doing Francis. For those born after 1980, Francis is a (or the) talking mule.
**Track and Field:**Personal Best with the ultra-delicious Mariel Hemingway, directed by Robert Towne.
Jerry McGuire was not a sports movie. It was a sinister plot to get us to see a chick flick.
Eight Men Out is a good sports movie. You may want to read up on the black sox scandal first or else it may require a few viewings to catch everything.
Major League was pretty funny.
Bang the Drum Slowly is actually the second part of a four part series of baseball novels by Mark Harris, all of which center around the character of Henry Wiggen, aka Arthur.
The first book is “The Southpaw” followed by “Bang the Drum Slowly”, then came “Ticket for a Seamstich”, which was both very short and not very interesting. In 1979, Harris published “It Looked Like Forever”, which concluded the tale of Henry Wiggen. That book was not very memorable. “The Southpaw” is a very good book BTW.
The Moriarity-DeNiro version of BTDS is superior to the earlier TV version, which featured Paul Newman and Albert Salmi, although the former does feature some pretty outrageous 1970s era clothing.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Gus, The Field Goal Kicking Mule
Both Here Comes Mr. Jordan and Heaven Can Wait have sports themes and they are both well-done comedies.
Without a doubt, the worst sports themed film I’ve ever seen is The Slugger’s Wife. It was bad on so many levels.
but doesn’t meet the criteria of the OP, IIRC.
Some that were already mentioned, Field of Dreams/Bull Durham both kick! The Sandlot, while a kids movie, is still pretty damn good.
Slap Shot… all fun.
I’ve never seen Raging Bull (Boxing)… but it was named the best movie of the 80’s… so it can’t be all bad. Of Course, Rocky… he doesn’t win. His victory is merely going the distance and proving that he isn’t a loser.
I put this down, because I think even though it contains the cliche… it works. Though mostly because we know its a true story-- Hoosiers. It’s a very good movie
That’s all I can think of right now. Of course, I’ll think of a good dozen when I sign off, and then they’ll all be gone tonight when I’m at my computer again.
I agree, that was the first thing that popped into my head. Beautifully filmed and great cast as well.
What, no one’s mentioned A League of Their Own? It’s so much more than a sports movie; it’s about two sisters and their attitudes to each other. I can’t really describe it except that I love it.
Face-Off
Gladiator
Ben Hur
Two of my favorite sports movies are “Horse Feathers” and “A Day at The Races” with the Marx Brothers playing havoc with college football and horse racing respectively. (Ok, the boys do “struggle through great difficulties and win at the last minute,” but I’d hardly call them run-of-the-mill.)
The Fan, with de Robert de Niro as a fan completely obsessed with a baseball player played by Wesley Snipes, wasn’t that great a movie, but it was rather different.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Chariots of Fire yet (the two protagonists hardly being run of the mill).
Rocky was a pretty good movie. No really, don’t laugh. If you haven’t seen it in a few years go ahead and rent it. And be amazed that Sly can actually write a good film.
Marc
Rollerball
“Dynamite Hands,” the first half of “Movie Movie” (OK, he wins, but his manager kicks the bucket 
)
I’ll throw a bone in for Days of Thunder. Eh, I’ll vouch for The Program also.
The Club. Brilliantly cynical Australian humour, about a declining Aussie Rules football team. It’s full of backstabbing and hypocrisy. However I recall that the team gets to the cup final, so it may have an against the odds victory ending.
Ahem… “Of Course, Rocky… he doesn’t win. His victory is merely going the distance and proving that he isn’t a loser.” Scroll up.
I agree… I saw it on TV maybe a year ago and I couldn’t believe how good it really is. I remembered it differently because I remembered it as a kid. Seeing it now was a totally different experience, and really vaulted this movie up into the tops of my favorite movie lists.