20 best movies like The Stratton Story (1949)

The true story of boxer, Jim Braddock who, in the 1920’s after his retirement, has a surprise comeback in order to get him and his family out of a socially poor state.

In every generation, a torch passes from father to son. And that timeless dynamic is the beating heart of Tommy's Honor - an intimate, powerfully moving tale of the real-life founders of the modern game of golf.

As bareknuckled boxing enters the modern era, brash extrovert Jim Corbett uses new rules and dazzlingly innovative footwork to rise to the top of the top of the boxing world.

A coming of age drama following the life of Matt Hamill, the first deaf wrestler to win a National Collegiate Wrestling Championship.

Summer 1962 and Olli Mäki has a shot at the world championship title in featherweight boxing. From the Finnish countryside to the bright lights of Helsinki, everything has been prepared for his fame and fortune. All Olli has to do is lose weight and concentrate. But there is a problem – he has fallen in love with Raija.

The true story of an 84 year-old Kenyan villager and ex Mau Mau freedom fighter who fights for his right to go to school for the first time to get the education he could never afford.

Soul Surfer is the inspiring true story of teen surfer Bethany Hamilton. Bethany lost her left arm in a shark attack and courageously overcame all odds to become a champion again, through her sheer determination and unwavering faith.Bethany (AnnaSophia Robb) was born to surf. A natural talent who took to the waves at a young age, she was leading an idyllic life on Kauai, participating in national surf competitions with her best friend Alana (Lorraine Nicholson), when everything changed. On Halloween morning, a 14-foot tiger shark came out of nowhere and seemed to shatter all her dreams.Soul Surfer reveals Bethany's fight to recover from her ordeal and how she grappled with the question of her future. Strengthened by the love of her parents, Tom (Dennis Quaid) and Cheri (Helen Hunt), and supported by her youth group leader Sara (Carrie Underwood), Bethany refuses to give in or give up, and begins a bold return to the water.

Though a childhood bout with polio left him dependent on an iron lung, Mark O'Brien (John Hawkes) maintains a career as a journalist and poet. A writing assignment dealing with sex and the disabled piques Mark's curiosity, and he decides to investigate the possibility of experiencing sex himself. When his overtures toward a caregiver scare her away, he books an appointment with sex surrogate Cheryl Green (Helen Hunt) to lose his virginity.

In 1966, Texas Western coach Don Haskins led the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team to the NCAA national championship.

A chronicle of Babe Ruth's phenomenal story--from his hard knock beginnings at a Baltimore orphanage, to his meteoric rise to baseball superstardom and his poignant retirement from the game. His amazing career included seven American League pennants, four World Series championships, two tempestuous marriages and a wild lifestyle that earned him numerous suspensions.

New Jersey car mechanic Stacie Andree and her police detective girlfriend Laurel Hester both battle to secure Hester's pension benefits after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

A young man aspiring for recognition of his talents battles against his estranged father's sentiment towards him as the father deals with his own demons.

Up-and-coming sports reporter rescues a homeless man ("Champ") only to discover that he is, in fact, a boxing legend believed to have passed away. What begins as an opportunity to resurrect Champ's story and escape the shadow of his father's success becomes a personal journey as the ambitious reporter reexamines his own life and his relationship with his family.

Housewife and mother Penny Chenery agrees to take over her ailing father's Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge. Against all odds, Chenery - with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin - manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.

A track coach in a small California town transforms a team of athletes into championship contenders.

This film is a glimpse into the life, love and the unconquerable spirit of the legendary Bruce Lee. From a childhod of rigorous martial arts training, Lee realizes his dream of opening his own kung-fu school in America. Before long, he is discovered by a Hollywood producer and begins a meteroric rise to fame and an all too short reign as one the most charasmatic action heroes in cinema history.

The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.

This film follows the remarkable and inspirational true story of Paul Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night.

It's the true-life story of legendary track star Steve Prefontaine, the exciting and sometimes controversial "James Dean of Track," whose spirit captured the heart of the nation! Cocky, charismatic, and tough, "Pre" was a running rebel who defied rules, pushed limits ... and smashed records ...

In 1980, the United States Ice Hockey team's coach, Herb Brooks, put a ragtag squad of college kids up against the legendary juggernaut from the Soviet Union at the Olympic Games. Despite the long odds, Team USA carried the pride of a nation yearning for a distraction from world events. With the world watching, the team rose to the occasion, prompting broadcaster Al Michaels' now famous question to the millions viewing at home: "Do you believe in miracles?" Yes!

The true story of underdog boxer, Chuck Wepner, who gets a shot to fight the champ, Muhammed Ali.

The Theory of Everything is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.

Jazz legend Chet Baker finds love and redemption when he stars in a movie about his own troubled life to mount a comeback.

Out of Africa tells the story of the life of Danish author Karen Blixen, who at the beginning of the 20th century moved to Africa to build a new life for herself. The film is based on the autobiographical novel by Karen Blixen from 1937.

After falling off a cliff and suffering substantial injures, for 48 long hours a young surfer must face a merciless nature and his own physical and mental agony to try to survive.

Zamperini returns to California where he wound up marrying Cynthia Applewhite while wrestling with untreated PTSD, suffering constant nightmares, angry, bitter and deeply depressed, his wife convinces Zamperini to attend the 1949 Billy Graham Crusade.

Oversized African-American, Michael Oher, the teen from across the tracks and a broken home, has nowhere to sleep at age 16. Taken in by an affluent Memphis couple, Michael embarks on a remarkable rise to play for the NFL.

Liz Gilbert had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having – a husband, a house and a successful career – yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy, the power of prayer in India and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali.

Tod Lubitch is born with a deficient immune system. As such, he must spend the rest of his life in a completely sterile environment. His room is completely hermetically sealed against bacteria and virus, his food is specially prepared, and his only human contact comes in the form of gloved hands. The movie follows his life into a teenager.

Rudy grew up in a steel mill town where most people ended up working, but wanted to play football at Notre Dame instead. There were only a couple of problems. His grades were a little low, his athletic skills were poor, and he was only half the size of the other players. But he had the drive and the spirit of 5 people and has set his sights upon joining the team.

The life of celebrated but reclusive author, J.D. Salinger, who gained worldwide fame with the publication of his novel, The Catcher in the Rye.

Patch Adams is a doctor who doesn't look, act or think like any doctor you've met before. For Patch, humour is the best medicine and he's willing to do just anything to make his patients laugh—even if it means risking his own career.

A Taiwanese high school baseball team travels to Japan in 1931 to compete in a national tournament.

An exploration of the life and music of Miles Davis.

The story of a man whose love for football, for England and for the love of his life, Margaret, saw him rise from Nazi 'villain' to British hero. Bert Trautmann, the German goalkeeper won over even his harshest opponents by winning the FA Cup Final for Manchester City in 1956 - playing on with a broken neck to secure victory.

When a devastating attack shatters Mark Hogancamp and wipes away all memories, no one expected recovery. Putting together pieces from his old and new life, Mark meticulously creates a wondrous town named Marwen where he can heal and be heroic. As he builds an astonishing art installation — a testament to the most powerful women he knows — through his fantasy world, he draws strength to triumph in the real one.

Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling Hollywood star and notorious ladies man, flouted convention all his life, but never more brazenly than in his last years when, swimming in vodka and unwilling to face his mortality, he undertook a liaison with an aspiring actress, Beverly Aadland. The two had a high-flying affair that spanned the globe and was enabled by the girl's fame-obsessed mother, Florence. It all came crashing to an end in October 1959, when events forced the relationship into the open, sparking an avalanche of publicity castigating Beverly and her mother - which only fed Florence's need to stay in the spotlight.

High school football coach, Harold Jones befriends Radio, a mentally-challenged man who becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson, South Carolina. Their friendship extends over several decades, where Radio transforms from a shy, tormented man into an inspiration to his community.

A combination "before the rage" and "after the rage" of world middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta's tumultuous life and times.

The life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle -- a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.

The controversial true story of a gay activist who rejects his homosexuality and becomes a Christian pastor.

Pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.

Ned Hanlan was Canada's most successful sculling champion at the turn of the 20th century. This dramatization of his life begins in his youth, when the wild young man is informally adopted by a gambler who promotes Ned on the sculling circuit, betting on the boy's rowing skills solely to make money off him. Later, a ruthless businessman named Knox takes over Ned's career, but when Ned realizes how dishonest Knox is, he finds another manager. Walter is an inventor and the first honest man Ned has dealt with in his career and, under Walter's guidance, Ned rises to great success in the sculling world.

Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday. Her late childhood, stint as a prostitute, early tours, marriages and drug addiction are featured.

Poor physics student Marie is studying at the Sorbonne in 1890s Paris. One of the few women studying in her field, Marie encounters skepticism concerning her abilities, but is eventually offered a research placement in Pierre Curie's lab. The scientists soon fall in love and embark on a shared quest to extract, from a particular type of rock, a new chemical element they have named radium. However, their research puts them on the brink of professional failure.

The story of Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to put together a baseball team on a budget, by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players.

The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.

The love affair between poet Percy Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin resulted in the creation of an immortal novel, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.”

Based on a true story, in which Richmond High School head basketball coach Ken Carter made headlines in 1999 for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic results.

The story of the life and career of the baseball hall of famer, Lou Gehrig.