Which movies have the most and least accurate portrayal of track and field?

And by track and field, I mean XC/track and field since the good movie is an XC one. The question stands for both cross-country and track movies.

The stars of Gallipoli were elite sprinters (about 9.5 100y for their time) and competed at some regional meet with gambling. Mel Gibson was one of them, and used a crouch start and got schooled by the other.

Then they joined the army and both were assigned to run messages, and sent to the battle of Gallipoli. The faster runner's unit was forced into a suicide charge by stupid officers. Other officers called it off, but Mel Gibson had to deliver their orders and was too late, so the charge happened and they all got killed, the end.

Across the tracks

Excellent.

Juno. Michael Cera totally convincing as a track star.

I am curious what was said internally post-Great War, M&M commissioned officer meetings? I find the entire Great War stupid overall. A money maker for weapon manufactures. That's at the prime minister and royalty level. I wonder what commissioned officers said post-Great War in regard to their decisions? Did Brits and Australians brag about a draw in regard to the body count, post-war? Specifically Battle of Gallipoli? [We see a lot of that today in media, bragging about winning the body count.]

Well, the worst has to be Billie starring Patty Duke.

Apocalypse Now

Least accurate: Chariots of Fire. Dude is a sprinter, but trains like a distance runner. All of his running seems to be between easy run and tempo pace. Never seems to spend a second in the weight room. What 100m guy trains by jogging on the beach and tempoing around the college quad?

Gallipoli . Great film. Loved the coach .

Most realistic . Personal Best . Came out in the late 70's early 80's, Actually used real track stars as actors.

4 Minute Mile with Richard Jenkins was a pretty ridiculous one.

First off, why did the coach make the kid go straight from the 400 to the mile without at least trying the 800? Then when *SPOILER ALERT* he misses qualifying for the state meet (you know, by getting SECOND at districts) the coach freaks out and acts like that's his last ever track meet. Then he breaks 4 running some weird loop on a marina instead of just doing it on the track or in a race. This is all after he trains to break 4 by running to carry rocks back and forth out of a river.

Nothing in this movie made sense or was realistic. In fact, it feels like it would be a challenge to come up with a movie this stupid.

I watched Tyson's Run on a plane, which is about a kid with autism who runs a marathon. He comes under the guidance of Aklilu, an East African who ends up coaching him. They show a picture of Aklilu in his competition days, and he's wearing a West Side Runners singlet, which is indeed the running club that a fast immigrant like him would be a part of if he lived in NYC. So at that point I thought that the filmmakers actually knew something about running. Then the race happens, and Tyson runs the last two miles of his marathon in under eight minutes to win after training for like three months.

The privilege of the inbred Euro aristocracy is to settle their family feuds with the lives of their peasants

This has to be one of the least accurate... a sprinter wins a maraton.

imdb.com

My Way (1972) ⭐ 7.2 | Drama, Family, Sport

1h 35m | PG

Open link

You do realize that the movie is set in 1924, right? I doubt too many sprinters were hitting the weight room back then.

Besides, that wasn't the point of the movie, anyway. It wasn't supposed to be a "how to train" instructional piece.

McFarland. I enjoyed it, can't really remember how accurate the running/racing scenes were.

what was that comedy, not to long ago. Dude runs London marathon. Obviously not great running scenes. I just remember the main character as an out of shape chump and his antagonist being very close to if not on the front of the starting line at London.

And the one with the kid running sub four at the marina, wasn't he running drugs, literally running the drugs, across town, nightly?

The Jericho Mile - 1979. Larry "Rain" Murphy (Peter Strauss) is stuck in Folsom Prison for life on a first-degree murder charge. An inmate who prefers to be alone, Murphy spends much of his time running around the facility's track. When he begins reaching a mile in under four minutes, Murphy gains the attention of the jail's officials, who contemplate entering him in the Olympics. While Murphy is initially resistant to the idea, eventually he starts training to be an Olympic competitor.

Not realistic but a good movie.

This was my first thought too. He’s supposed to have set the district 800m record with zero muscle definition whatsoever.

“Saint Ralph” was ridiculous too. 9th grade kid wins the Boston Marathon. I was 12 or 13 when I saw it and the premise pissed me off.

Not really a portrayal of track & field, but in the movie Marathon Man there’s a lengthy scene with Dustin Hoffman’s character (who’s training for a marathon and has a poster of Abebe Bikila on his wall) being chased by a bad guy, and this bad guy maintains what’s obviously an all out sprint, with his hands karate chopping through the air, in dress shoes, for like 5 minutes, all while wearing this “I’m gonna get you!” sneer.