Which runner in history most deserves a Hollywood movie?

Lowkey think the answer could be...Sinead Diver.

I thought of Lomong, Mills, Zamperi, Owens. Had not had Longboat in mid, but that’s a good one.

Obviously, some have had the movies made. “Running Brave” wasn’t a great movie, but I watched it a few times as a teenager. Mills in the 1964 Tokyo 10,000 is one of my favorite stories in the sport, and I’m thankful for resource like YouTube to allow me to call up highlights and some commentary every now and then.

The trouble with the Zamperini movie was just that it was a really bad movie. His life was incredible.

Alie Schneider or Mikey Brannigan.

The Zamperini book was tremendous and too much plot for a 2 hour movie. I would like to see a movie about Marty Glickman. That's a good story.

Umm... They already made it. It's called "Without Limits".

Suzy Favor Hamilton

Personally I think you could do a great film about Wes Santee - his difficult upbringing, phenomenal rise, race for the sub 4:00 mile, and ultimately, his tragic, undeserved downfall due to the onerous restrictions of the AAU.

It’ll be hard to beat Prefontaine. His story is the perfect one to tell. Barkley Marathons comes close (and might be better cinematically).

Jakob will one day have a movie. The drama with his father, winning Tokyo Olympics but then losing multiple championships. We need a bit more of his story to play out first.

Des Linden could be a good choice with a focus on her Boston win.

With all the Foot Locker talk recently, it could be fun to have a movie about the Hall/Webb/Ritz year, but I’m not sure how you’d tell that story when each had entire careers after. Probably a creative way to do it.

Kara Goucher would be another great choice. All the drama with Nike. Learning to navigate dystonia after her professional career. There isn’t really like a “big win” or “gold medal” to point to as a climax for the story, but you’ve got everything from meeting Adam at Foot Locker to now being a mom of a high school runner. Loss of her dad when she was young. Being an announcer at NBC. I think I just convinced myself to go buy her book, which I haven’t read yet.

I’d move more movies about ultras generally. They cheat though because you can be incredibly cinematic.

Molly Seidl?

A movie about Prefontaine would be amazing.

Pheidippides. He inspired the marathon and also a chain of running stores.

Jesse Owens and Wilma Rudolph.

Bill Rodgers.

The best choice would always be of how much you can get out of their non-running life, story wise. Running isn't compelling enough on its own to be movie worthy. And better yet, who's story could be told that could have relevant messaging/themes today? The obvious choice is Suzy Favor Hamilton. My second non-fiction choice would be there to be a running version of the skateboarding documentary Minding the Gap - essentially a more gritty version of the Disney movie Macfarland, if there are any stories out there that would fit (there must be right?). There is a whole lot of luck for documentaries like Minding the Gap or Hoop Dreams to work out like they did, so maybe just a non-fiction story out there of a cross country team that would give the same vibes/grit/personal stories in similar vein to Minding the Gap.

The next great running movie might best be fiction, but only to the extent that the story happens to be about a runner. Like The Holdovers, but the students staying over the winter break were doing so for running/track purposes. Blue Velvet or Red Rocket, but the male protagonists are really into running. A modern remake of Marathon Man could also work. To go back to my earlier comparison, maybe a fictionally version of a high school cross country team that is inspired by movies like Minding the Gap.

Kelvin Kiptum played by Don Cheadle

Same face.

Rudolph Harbig. If you don't know his story check it out. His 800m WR is one of the greatest WR's ever given the era, performance and circumstances.

And this might seem a bit out of left field, but a movie about the Robertson twins from NZ - depending on how accurate they want to make it, would be riveting and wild.

These weren't two kids who went to Kenya to join some structured training camp under a management group. They literally packed bags and left home to move to Kenya with no contacts, no idea what or how they were going to do anything, arrived in Nairobi and basically just bootstrapped the whole thing.

One ended up in Ethiopia, the other sleeping on the floor in Stephen Cheronos (Saif Shaaeed Shaheens) garage. Running from guys with machetes, sticking dish soap up tight places to avoid doping control, all the while have intricate knowledge of everything that goes down in that country with respect to the world of "professional" athletics.

That movie would top anything. Seriously.

I was about to type this. Incredible underdog story, coming from being an unknown, not particularly good runner from a small school in the northeast, to an American record holder ranked number one in the world multiple times. Never lived like a pro and watched Frank Shorter win the Olympics during the period of time after college when he wasn’t even training, then preceded to beat him despite working as a special education teacher and being forced to get his runs in during his lunch break. The best part of a movie about him, though, would be how likable he is. I would describe him as the second most likable runner ever. He lacked pretense enough that he was even known to slow down and run with random people who recognized him on his training runs. Story would also teach the watcher a lot about the political state of the era he competed in, as he was a conscientious objector who described himself as a hippie without the drugs. He was also intertwined with a lot of interesting stuff in the Boston running scene. Him being mentored by Amby Burfoot, being a part of the greater Boston track club along with Alberto Salazar (maybe they should leave that part out), and I guess just the Boston marathon. If it wasn’t obvious I read his book and really enjoyed it.