Screen pass: Ten movies capture heart, humor of game America loves

Let's face it: There's only so much pre-game analysis you can sit through, and by now you know Aaron Rodgers' quarterback rating in the third quarter of outdoor night games better than your own phone number.

Why not kill the remaining hours before the big game by renting a few classic football flicks? While most pigskin pictures have a tendency to rely on familiar sports-movie clichés, predictable rah-rah moments and "win one for the Gipper" sentimentality, we've rounded up a 10 contenders that either deliver the tried-and-true with exceptional grit and heart, or follow an offbeat playbook.

1 North Dallas Forty (1979) -- This insider's peek at locker-room culture, with its emphasis on the self-medicating methods of athletes dealing with the agonizing pains of a pro football season, is more timely than ever given the current scrutiny of player safety in the NFL. Nick Nolte and Mac Davis make a naturalistic, comedic pair as two aging stars on a fictional Metroplex-area pro team. The film is marred only by its unconvincing game footage, which appears to have been shot at a deserted high school field in the middle of the night. (Any resemblance to the rowdy Dallas Cowboys teams of the 1970s is, of course, purely coincidental.)

2 Friday Night Lights (2004) -- Billy Bob Thornton gives a quietly commanding performance as the new coach of the Odessa Permian Panthers. He is expected to deliver a championship by seemingly every resident of the West Texas town. It's not quite as good as the TV series it spawned (which is wrapping up its final season this spring), but Peter Berg's adaptation of the nonfiction classic by Buzz Bissinger does capture the all-consuming passion for high school football in our fair state.

3 The Longest Yard (1974) -- Avoid the 2005 remake with Adam Sandler. The original cons-versus-guards gridiron showdown stars Burt Reynolds at the height of his good-ol'-boy stardom as an incarcerated former NFL hero who puts together a team of prisoners to take on the semi-pro squad of screws. Director Robert Aldrich successfully applies the lessons of his earlier film The Dirty Dozen to deliver a root-worthy team of rogues pitted against the Establishment.

4 Semi-Tough (1977) -- It's Burt Reynolds again, this time co-starring with Kris Kristofferson and Jill Clayburgh in a raunchy adaptation of a novel by Fort Worth's own Dan Jenkins. Teammates Reynolds and Kristofferson live platonically with the team owner's daughter (Clayburgh), but romantic complications threaten to bust up the happy threesome. Semi-Tough is as much a politically incorrect sendup of Me Decade fads like EST as it is a football film, but it does make for an entertaining "swingin' '70s" time capsule.

5 Black Sunday (1977) -- One more reason it's better to watch the big game at home than live and in person: There is very little danger of being attacked by a madman in a blimp when you are sprawled out on the couch with a six-pack and a bowl of Doritos. This political thriller directed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) builds a bit too leisurely toward the climactic terrorist attack, but the payoff is grand-scale action filmmaking, shot during the actual 1976 Super Bowl between Pittsburgh and Dallas. That both the NFL and Goodyear cooperated with the production is perhaps the most shocking development of all.

6 The Best of Times (1986) -- Robin Williams and Kurt Russell co-star as former high school football teammates who try to change their fortunes by replaying the big game against their hated rivals, which Williams blew by dropping a pass in the end zone. At its best, this admittedly uneven comedy plays like an off-brand Jonathan Demme movie, painting a quirky portrait of an insular community where the hurts and failures of the past are always bubbling just beneath the surface.

7 Invincible (2006) -- Walt Disney's take on the true story of regular Joe turned Philadelphia Eagles player Vince Papale follows a familiar underdog-makes-good arc without ever feeling like a bland retread. Mark Wahlberg plays the down-on-his-luck bartender who gets his big break when new Eagles coach Dick Vermeil (an oddly-cast but effective Greg Kinnear) holds open tryouts. First-time director Ericson Core delivers a palpable working-class Philly atmosphere, and the supporting cast, including Elizabeth Banks and Kevin Conway, is top-notch.

8 Rudy (1993) -- The inspirational true story of Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, an undersize son of a steelworker who dreams of playing football for Notre Dame, could have easily served as the basis for the sappiest movie ever made. Oh, who are we kidding. It probably is the sappiest movie ever made, but at least it has the courage of its own corny convictions. Sean Astin's heartfelt performance helps transform a character that could be viewed as a single-minded simpleton into an endearing folk hero.

9 Big Fan (2009) -- The dark side of sports fandom is exposed in this pitch-black comedy from former Onion editor-in-chief Robert Siegel, starring Patton Oswalt as an obsessive New York Giants supporter. At times reminiscent of Martin Scorsese's King of Comedy, Big Fan taps into the unhealthy monomania that fuels sports talk radio, and should be viewed as a cautionary tale by anyone who may be a bit too excited for the big game.

10 MASH (1970) -- The film that spawned the long-running TV series has been described as a Vietnam War allegory, a seminal counterculture work, and one of Robert Altman's masterpieces, but it also happens to be the funniest football movie ever made. The gridiron showdown between the big brass and the ragtag 4077th is a marvel of physical and verbal slapstick, as well as a nifty bit of anti-authoritarian satire aimed squarely at the wartime mentality.