Undefeated, a documentary about high school football, is the real deal. It’s one of those perfect, real life underdog sports stories that are only captured on film once in a long while (ala Hoop Dreams). It follows the hopes and dreams of the Manassas Tigers, an underfunded, underprivileged, innercity high school football team in Memphis, Tennessee. They’re so bad, in fact, that they’ve never won a playoff game in their 110 years of existence. Bill Courtney, their volunteer coach, hopes to turn that record around.

The film has heart, kids you come to care about, and the kind of 4th quarter, nail-biting football moments that only show up in fictionalized Hollywood films. It easily deserved the 2012 Oscar that it won for Best Documentary. 

~ Evan Derrick