12 Great Baseball Movies to Stream Now

A League of Their Own (1992)

Tom Hanks is like a human whoopie cushion as the hard-drinking, tobacco-chewing manager of the Rockford Peaches, an all-female baseball team whose roster includes Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell and Geena Davis. Inspired by the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which was launched in 1943 when male players were off at war, director Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own may be light and breezy, but it also manages to be about something much bigger than baseball. It's about women finding their voices and independence and sisterhood through sports. Just don't tell that to Hanks’ crusty Jimmy “There's no crying in baseball!” Dugan.

Watch it: A League of Their Own

The Natural (1984)

Maybe you've seen this one before, maybe it's new to you. Either way, who would want to pass up the chance to watch (or rewatch) Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs — an earnest and gifted country-bumpkin slugger whose career is cut short by a femme fatale (Barbara Hershey). Based on Bernard Malamud's mythic 1952 novel, the story doesn't end there. In fact, it's just getting started. Years pass and Hobbs returns for one last shot at twilight glory with the help of a good woman (Glenn Close), a curmudgeonly manager (Wilford Brimley) and a bat forged from a tree felled by lightning called “Wonderboy.” The Natural is so magical it belongs in Cooperstown.

Watch it: The Natural

42 (2013)

Before he vaulted to superstardom as the Marvel superhero Black Panther, the late Chadwick Boseman established himself as one of the most gifted actors of his generation in a string of smaller films that emphasized emotion over special effects. Take this biopic about a different kind of superhero (a real-life one), Jackie Robinson. 42 (Robinson's uniform number) charts the inspirational and barrier-breaking story of the first African American player in the majors — both what he had to endure and how he managed to summon the quiet strength to overcome adversity. Anyone who saw Boseman as Jackie when 42 hit theaters back in 2013 knew that he was going to be a star. Sadly, his untimely death from cancer last year cut short a career that would have been a privilege to see where it went next.

Watch it: 42

Field of Dreams (1989)

No list of great baseball films would be complete without Field of Dreams. Sure, some may find its magical-realist, fathers-and-sons message as, well, corny as its Iowa cornfield setting. But this one of those “male weepies” that makes grown men so choked up that they can't help but reach for their hankies. Kevin Costner is stoic perfection as Ray Kinsella, a Midwest farmer who builds a baseball diamond in his field after hearing a ethereal voice telling him, “If you build it, he will come.” The ‘He’ turns out to be the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta). Field of Dreams not only understands that die-hard baseball fans are a sentimental lot, but also that that sentimentality is nothing to be ashamed of.

Watch it: Field of Dreams

Eight Men Out (1988)

Writer-director John Sayles turns back the clock to recount the story of baseball's original sin as a group of on-the-take Chicago White Sox players scheme to throw the 1919 World Series. Sayles assembled a terrific cast of actors (John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, D.B. Sweeney) and non-actors (Studs Terkel as a hardened sportswriter), but the story is the star here. After all, this was the moment when America's pastime first lost its innocence (and unfortunately, it wouldn't be the last). But Eight Men Out isn't a cynical film — or at least an overly cynical film — it shows us the sacred beauty of the game while also showing us how much can be lost when human beings give in to temptation.

Watch it: Eight Men Out

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The Rookie (2002)

Dennis Quaid is ideally cast as a high school science teacher in this heart-warming adaptation of a true story about a man who musters the courage to pursue his major league dreams long after most would have given up on them. Egged on by his adoring students, Quaid's Jimmy Morris stumbles and struggles at first, but he won't be defeated. The film's inspirational message isn't quite as heavy-handed as it sounds thanks to Quaid, who was 48 when it came out. The years of mileage on the actor's face (not to mention his palpable sense of regret and determination) make you root for his underdog hero like he was starting the seventh game of the World Series. The Rookie is an underseen home run of a movie.

Watch it: The Rookie

Damn Yankees (1958)

While there are tons of baseball movies, there isn't exactly an overwhelming number of baseball-themed musicals. But Damn Yankees imbues the game with an infectious dose of Broadway razzle dazzle thanks to Gwen Verdon as a temptress named Lola who bewitches an aging baseball fan (Tab Hunter) into selling his soul to the devil (Ray Walston) so he can help lead his beloved Washington Senators past the New York Yankees to win the pennant. Even if you're not a die-hard baseball fan, Verdon's vixenish rendition of “What Lola Wants” will leave you tapping your toes through even the longest seventh-inning stretch.

Watch it: Damn Yankees

Tatum O'Neal, Jackie Earle Haley, Alfred Lutter III and Walter Matthau in "The Bad News Bears."

Courtesy Everett Collection

The Bad News Bears (1976)

Viewed today, the original Bad News Bears (it was remade in 2005) seems as politically incorrect as you can get. It's also a riot. This slobs-versus-snobs tale featuring a cast of pint-sized losers, malcontent rebels and foul-mouthed outcasts as the worst Little League team in Southern California crackles with merry prankster charm due to Walter Matthau as the team's boorish and blotto manager, Morris Buttermaker. Tatum O'Neal and Jackie Earl Haley give hall-of-fame child actor performances as a tomboy pitcher and rebel-without-a-cause slugger who turn the awful team's fortunes around. A movie this over the line could never be made today, which is a shame because it's a profane comic masterpiece.

Watch it: The Bad News Bears

Chris Nashawaty, former film critic for Entertainment Weekly, is the author of Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story and a contributor to Esquire, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.