My life didn't turn out the way I expected.
-Roy Hobbs

It's one of the most beloved baseball films of all time and it's in no way a realistic depiction of the game itself. It's a mythological look at baseball and the legend of the player. Beyond baseball it's also about repeating life's mistakes even though you're continuously paying for them. The entire film is ludicrously sentimental and therefore a cynic's nightmare, but one can't deny that the film contains some scenes that are perfection on film.

It's roles like this that Robert Redford excels at. Even when you have no doubt that he's going to strike out someone at bat or hit a home run of his own you can't help but want it to happen. He's the hero that has everything to prove for all the right reasons.

The cast is fantastic and is filled with real characters that just seem to click with one another. You'd swear that Wilford Brimley and Richard Farnsworth had been running a baseball team together for at least 20 years. Kim Basinger gives a better performance here then she has for most of her career after and Robert Duvall is his usual self, he can do no wrong.

Lastly the film contains the most iconic moment in any baseball film ever made and it couldn't have been done without Caleb Deschanel's cinematography combined with Randy Newman's now legendary score. The scene in question isn't just a memorable moment for a baseball movie, but it's a memorable moment in film history period.