Sports movies are nearly all horrible. They are. Horrible. Not just bad. Awful.

I was reminded of this while watching the ridiculous sports movie named Wimbledon, starring Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst and apparently made by a bunch of people who have zero idea how a tennis tournament … or a tennis match … or Wimbledon work.

Maybe it’s just me, preferring that my sports movies actually resemble the sport itself. In five minutes of watching “Wimbledon” these not-so-minor issues came up:

1. The men’s and women’s semifinals appear to have been staged (according to the movie) at the same time, or at least the men’s semi starring Bettany and the women’s with Dunst. Also, neither match is played on Centre Court. Basic and ridiculous flaws.

2. When Bettany plays in the final (spoiler alert, if you have the stomach for the movie), the Centre Court grass is not nearly brown enough. Everyone knows that on the last day of Wimbledon the grass at Centre Court is beaten half to death, with huge brown patches. Not in this movie. Almost 100 percent green. Wrong.

3. The players apparently exit the court directly into an area where fans can gather. Uh, no.

4. The idea of a British man playing in the Wimbledon final is actually under-sold. The movie is feebler than real life would be. A Brit guy in the final … it would be madness. Chaos. Fans would be hyped to the nth degree. The fans in “Wimbledon” have the same level of “excitement” throughout. You know, like they were extras sitting around for a whole day or three.

5. Kirsten Dunst is seen to run on camera, which is a mistake, because she clearly is not remotely athletic. Actually, she has the sort of soft/semi-flabby look that Chris Evert could have gotten away with before Martina Navratilova, but not since.  Which is about 30 years now.

Ack. Hate-hate-hated it … and it got some decent reviews. By people who know nothing of sports, perhaps.

(And an aside here: Maybe people professionally involved in sports, including sports journalists, are doomed to hate sports movies because they are so patently false … maybe the same way cops thumb their noses at cop movies, and doctors guffaw during medical movies …)

So, I was reviewing sports movies in my head, thinking of those I don’t despise … and I was thinking “a Top 10” … but I can’t really get that far. So here is my top five.

5. Talladega Nights. Yes, I’m going there. It’s not really a sports movie, it’s a Will Ferrell movie, but it has lots of Nascar footage, and it’s funny. So it doesn’t have to be authentic. Will Ferrell saying grace to “sweet baby Jesus” kills me.

4. The Natural. Robert Redford as a young Roy Hobbs is ludicrous. Of course.  Bob was 48 when the movie came out, in 1984. And in a way it’s not really about baseball, which helps save it. It’s about Camelot, etc. (oops; another spoiler alert) and a magic sword/bat. But it’s a good movie, with a lot of baseball in it. Redford is less awful than most actors at throwing the ball and swinging the bat, even at his advanced age, and the movie has a batch of memorable scenes and characters, from his Roy Hobbs character striking out (the equivalent of) Babe Ruth, to the shocking scene with Barbara Hershey, to the baseball writer/cartoonist Max Mercy played by Robert Duvall (a cliche, and a false cliche, but what the hell), the alluring but poisonous Kim Basinger character, the evil owner, the folksy manager (Wilford Brimley) and the world-wise coach (Richard Farnsworth). The exploding scoreboard, the bloody jersey (prefiguring Curt Schilling’s bloody sock), the virginal Glenn Close all in white in the stands … Yes. This works. Even with a 48YO man playing a teenager.

3.  Eight Men Out. The telling of the 1919 Black Sox scandal is a great story, one that should be reviewed regularly as a cautionary tale of how easy it was to allow the Fall Classic to slip into the control of a gambler/con man. This is documentary as compelling film. John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, David Strathairn are convincing as ballplayers. Even though we already know how this is going to turn out, to see it all unfold is riveting. And the baseball scenes are almost convincing, as is the evocation of 1919/1920. Also, the movie that spurred the “Buck Weaver was innocent” truthers into action.

2. Hoosiers. The only stick/ball sport in my top five that isn’t baseball. (Football is just too hard to do with the slightest degree of verite.) Another great story, of tiny Milan High School winning the Indiana state championship (oops, spoiler after-alert). Gene Hackman nails the coach, and the players are properly youthful and fairly athletic, but this being set in the 1950s (and made in 1986), they don’t have to be NBA-level good (which kills most basketball movies). Spot on in showing us how important the game was in places like Indiana back then (and perhaps even now).

1. Field of Dreams. Yes, hard to imagine Kevin Costner could be the leading man at the top of any serious movie list, but there it is. Also, two of my top five have to do with the Black Sox. Hmm. Was that such an enormous cultural event that it resounds right through to today? This is the famous “If you build it, they will come” movie, of the Costner character chasing a dream or a fantasy, and long-dead figures emerging from an Iowa corn field, and Burt Lancaster as Moonlight Graham, and one magnificent speech by perhaps the greatest speechifying actor of our time, James Earl Jones. And to save you from looking it up, here’s what I am talking about:

“Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh … people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

I choke up every time I hear or even read that. A great, great movie, and the root of it, the concepts of unresolved guilt and the missing opportunities between fathers and sons and the of American cultural touchstone that is baseball … this is that rarest of jewels — a great sports movie.

And if you want another opinion, here are the top 25 sports movies (as of 2004), according to ESPN and from ESPN fans. Most of them, you couldn’t pay me to see, but somebody likes them.