Well, since the movie was based on a bitter tell-all book by former Cowboy receiver Peter Gent, it might be wrong to call the North Dallas Bulls the “protagonists” of North Dallas 40, but Nick Nolte and Co. lose the playoff game when the ostentatiously Christian backup QB fumbles the snap for the extra point that would have tied the game and sent it to overtime.
Mystery, Alaska (1999)
If the national spelling bee is a sport, then: A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)
There’s also Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown. That guy just can’t catch a break.
I’ve often said that the best sports movies are those where the result of the big game at the end goes against the type of the movie. In The Bad News Bears and Rocky, the heroes lose but are still triumphant. In The Hustler, Fast Eddie wins his rematch with Fats but it’s still a tragedy.
I was going to say that the protagonists were originally going to lose at the end of Dodgeball, but according to imdb, it was an alternate ending that was not intended to be the true ending.
Slapshot?
Not a movie, but Pat Conroy’s My Losing Season is a nonfiction account of his senior year playing basketball for The Citadel. The team sucked that year. He learned a lot more by losing, he said, than he ever did by winning. Good book.
Murderball.
Moneyball. The A’s win the division, but lose in the first round of the playoffs.
Any Given Sunday - the Sharks win the playoff game onscreen, but go on to lose the Pantheon Cup.
That’s because of all the Charlie Browns in the world, he’s the Charlie Browniest.
Nope. The Chiefs win after Braden strips at mid-ice.
Did they win, though, or was the game called? That’s why I added a question mark.
If they didn’t win, the parade they threw for them at the end of the movie, with the cup in hand, was a bit of a waste.
Oh yeah. Forgot about that.
Given the scene at the Gotham football stadium, I don’t suppose The Dark Knight Rises qualifies…?
I thought I heard that entire ending was itself a joke?
Or The Sum of All Fears ?
Annapolis, after it changed into a sports movie halfway through.
I’m not sure whether Million Dollar Baby counts.