Friday Night Lights

So much more than a football movie.

Few films have shown so powerfully the slashing double edge of sports fever.

A heart-pounding big-screen treatment that captures all the action of a tumultuous season while showing the emotional toll on the players.

The affecting, gruelling result is less a document of recreational sport than one of obligation and ordeal.

The best sports movie for years, as it's not about sport at all. Forget fears of jingoistic grandstanding, this is an un-American all-American tale that deserves attention.

The 2004 drama filled the gaping need for a film about toxic small-town football culture and gave the sport a much more realistic slant.

Friday Night Lights still remains one of the most entertaining and engrossing sports movies of the past two decades.

The game sequences do stand out, but this refreshingly no-frills affair also finds time to question the value of the win-at-all-costs ethos rife in modern sport.

With Billy Bob Thornton's garrulous Coach Gary Gaines masterminding every play, you'll get caught up in the action even if you can't tell your 'first-and-down' from your 'time-out.'