What are the top sports movies of all time?

As a fan of sports movies, I was pretty excited about the list of nominees for best picture this year. I admit I haven't seen any of them, but I couldn't remember the last time two sports movies made the final five.Frankly, I was a little surprised that wide receiver Michael Clayton's modest career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers merited a feature-length film, and I thought it was very daring they would cast George Clooney as an African-American ballplayer from LSU. I'm thinking maybe that's why it didn't win.From the beginning, I was rooting for There Will Be Blood because hockey movies never seem to get their due. I could kind of see why Slap Shot wasn't considered great art, but how Mystery, Alaska missed out is a mystery to me. It used to be easy to come up with a top 10 list of sports movies because there weren't that many of them. Then along came Rocky, and that opened the floodgates. Now they put out a new version of the same story once a month -- heroic underdogs with no shot miraculously win in the end. It's all very inspirational.Basketball and the Oscars have one important thing in common -- makeup calls. For example, you might remember Denzel Washington winning best actor for Training Day in 2001 as a makeup for not winning when he should have, for The Hurricane two years earlier. Or Sean Penn winning for Mystic River in '03 when he should have won for I Am Sam the year Washington was getting his makeup call.The makeup call came to sports movies in 1981, when Chariots of Fire won best picture one year after it should have gone to Raging Bull. I was under the impression two sports movies in a row won best picture in this decade -- Million Dollar Baby in '04 and Crash in '05 -- but it turns out Crash was not a NASCAR movie after all. Seems like sort of a bait and switch to me.If you judged sports movies by the Oscars, you'd have to say the best of all time are those that have won best picture: Rocky, Chariots of Fire, Gladiator and Million Dollar Baby. Since none of these even make my top 10, I am forced to conclude the Oscars have no clue when it comes to sports movies.In case you have trouble remembering all the sports movies they're making these days, I recommend Sports Cinema -- 100 Movies, the 2006 compendium by Randy Williams. The whole book is a countdown. No. 100 is 1932's Million Dollar Legs, starring W.C. Fields. No. 1 is 1961's The Hustler starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason.Personally, I like color in my sports movies, so I don't include either of these on my list. I do have a b&w in there, but it's British, so that's different. I haven't looked back at previous lists I've been asked to compile, so no fair pointing out that I've been inconsistent. For one day only, here's my top 10:No. 10: Downhill Racer, 1969. If you struggle to understand the Bode Miller story, catch Robert Redford's performance as David Chappellet.No. 9: Mystery, Alaska, 1999. Somehow, even with Russell Crowe, this doesn't make Williams' top 100. What can I say? It had me at hello. Which reminds me, Williams includes Jerry Maguire on his list, which I wouldn't watch again if you paid me. So, yeah, it's a little subjective.No. 8: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, 1962. The original alienated- youth- finds-meaning-in-sports movie, without any of the Hollywood nonsense.No. 7: North Dallas Forty, 1979. Based on former Cowboys wide receiver Pete Gent's novel, this is about the only pro football movie that's ever tried to tell it straight. Nick Nolte at his best.No. 6: When We Were Kings, 1996. It took 22 years to get this documentary released, but the unforgettable portrait of Muhammad Ali was worth the wait. Bonus feature: B.B. King in his prime.No. 5: Hoosiers, 1986. The original David-and-Goliath basketball story is inspiring and all, but Dennis Hopper and Barbara Hershey make the movie.No. 4: Breaking Away, 1979. Peter Yates combined high comedy with cycling and a coming-of-age story. A hard movie not to love.No. 3: Eight Men Out, 1988. Maybe the most under-appreciated great sports movie. It's John Sayles' take on the 1919 Black Sox scandal in which he appears as the sportswriter Ring Lardner, and David Strathairn does a memorable turn as Eddie Cicotte.No. 2: Hoop Dreams, 1994. The story you never hear because we generally require happy endings. It took seven years to film this documentary about a couple of Chicago hoops prodigies. For all the kids whose hoop dreams don't come true.No. 1: Raging Bull, 1980. Martin Scorsese. Robert De Niro. Joe Pesci. Based on Jake LaMotta's life story. I mean, c'mon.Granted, many other films have a valid claim to the top 10. You have to find a way to make the list manageable. Personally, I eliminate all Kevin Costner and Sylvester Stallone movies at the beginning, which cuts the number down quite substantially.But you should feel free to make your own rules.(Contact Dave Krieger of the Rocky Mountain News at www.rockymountainnews.com.)