Baseball Movies for Grownups

The Natural (1984) The mythic iconology of baseball has never been more majestically re-created on screen than in Barry Levinson’s ode to the world’s greatest game. The images of The Natural seem to have been burned into our consciousness before we even saw the film: The Wonder Boy Bat, hewn by lightning hitting a tree; the sepia-toned images of hot summer days in single-deck stadiums; the very face of Robert Redford as the middle-age “kid” who comes out of nowhere to become a phenomenon, the perfect combination of small-town good guy and tragic hero. And swelling above it all, Randy Newman’s magnificent score, destined to play in our heads with each small victory, played out in our small lives, as we aspire to be something bigger than ourselves, just like the gloriously ordinary Roy Hobbs.