6 Weird Sports Movies You Totally Missed or Completely Forgot
There is no shortage of sports movies out there. Usually, though, the stories stick to sports like football, baseball, and basketball. Sometimes, there’s also a hit hockey movie. Think of Remember the Titans (2000) and Hoosiers (1986) or Miracle (2004). There’s also Friday Night Lights (2004), which did so well that it then evolved into one of my favorite TV shows, Friday Night Lights (2006).
Some female-led, niche sports movies have also become cult classics, such as A League of Their Own (1992), Bring It On (2000), and Stick It (2006). While the first isn’t a niche sport, it was far rarer at the time for a sports movie to focus on a women’s team of a male-dominated sport. This brings us to Golden Arm (2020), a film about a woman competing in an arm-wrestling competition. Don’t let the premise fool you; Golden Arm is a fun romp that deserves to be in your watch queue. In writing this list, I actually noticed that Disney Channel Original Movies (DCOMs) often introduced me to both niche sports and women competing in male-dominated sports. You can watch the following movies about niche sports on Apple TV, Disney+, and more. But if you don’t have those streamers, Golden Arm is currently available to stream for free on our very own JustWatch TV in the United States, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Australia, and several other international markets!
Golden Arm is one of the most recent niche sports comedy movies. Its focus is competitive arm wrestling. I don’t know if it’s because I still miss it, but this movie gives me a similar energy to Netflix’s Glow (2017), which is about women in wrestling. Golden Arm hinges on Melanie (Mary Holland) taking her friend Danny’s (Betsy Sodaro) place in th Ladies Arm Wrestling Championship. Danny can’t compete after breaking her femur in a competition.
Eventually, Melanie agrees to compete in the big national tournament because there’s a $15,000 prize. When Danny enlists Big Sexy (Dot-Marie Jones) to help train Melanie, Big Sexy says, “She doesn’t have the fight in her.” Big Sexy becomes much more supportive as Melanie puts in the work and proves that she has a “Golden Arm.” Melanie may believe that “arm wrestling isn’t going to solve” her “problems anymore,” but it certainly gives her confidence as she realizes what she’s capable of and how strong she is, making this film a heartwarming and comedic gem.
I don’t think I even realized I knew who Erik von Detten was before his role as Josh Bryant in The Princess Diaries (2001) because I was young enough to just miss him in So Weird (1999). As it turns out, I had known him from the DCOM, Brink!, which I surely caught as a rerun when I was a kid. In it, he stars as Andy “Brink” Brinker, a teenager with a passion for in-line skating. So much so, the titular characters and his friends call themselves the “Soul Skaters.”
Christina Vidal’s Gabriella is a standout of the friend group. I’m not shocked—she’s also excellent in Freaky Friday (2003). She continuously has to prove herself as the only girl. The overall competitiveness becomes a larger problem with the inclusion of sponsored skating, like Team X-Bladz, who offers Brink a deal that could alleviate some of his family’s financial struggles. Brink! follows the friends as they reconnect with the sport and themselves by proving that money isn’t everything while competing as Team Pups ‘N’ Suds at the national tournament.
Brandon Baker stars in Johnny Tsunami as Johnny Kapahala, whose grandpa (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) is the titular legend who rescued people on his surfboard. Johnny develops a love for surfing, too, which his father (Yuji Okumoto) is against for personal and professional reasons. The movie is really a story about fathers and sons bonded and broken by surfing.
All of these dynamics are tested when Johnny’s dad’s job moves the family to Vermont, where Johnny attends a private school with a snowboarding team. There, he meets Kirsten Storms as Emily—on the heels of Storms starring in Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (1999). With the help of his new friend Sam (Lee Thompson Young), Johnny starts to appreciate and compete in snowboarding. Interestingly, Baker reprises his role in Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board (2007), which turns its focus to the rather niche sport of mountain boarding.
What can I say? I love a Disney Channel Original Movie about a girl participating in a male-dominated sport. Right on Track is based on Courtney and Erica Enders’ real-life story of competing in junior drag racing. Brie Larson stars as Courtney, while Beverly Mitchell stars as Erica. Looking back, Right on Track is the movie that made me a fan of Larson for life. This movie has such good, supportive energy. It’s one of the more underrated DCOMs.
Just like in real life, the movie’s version of the characters win the junior drag racing national title after everyone doubted them. I can’t help but realize that Disney Channel produced the perfect double feature with Motorcrossed (2001), which released a few years prior. It’s a spin on William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Like in She’s the Man (2006) with soccer, Andrea Carson (Alana Austin) disguises herself as her brother to compete in the titular male-dominated sport.
In writing this list, I realized I may have been too young to watch Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story when I watched it for the first time. I’d argue that this movie is one of the most well-known niche sports movies. With a cast like this, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story pulled people in. It has so much fanfare around it that there have been discussions about a sequel since 2023–nearly two decades after its release.
Vince Vaughn stars as Peter LaFleur, a man who wants to save his gym, Average Joe’s. To get out of sizable debt, he signs up to compete in a dodgeball tournament that has a significant cash prize. There, he meets his match in White Goodman (Ben Stiller). I love how absolutely wild Stiller looks in this role—the hair, wardrobe, everything. There’s a happy ending for Average Joe’s, which eventually includes a youth dodgeball program after LaFleur’s newfound appreciation for the sport.
The Dink is the newest, super relevant niche sports movie on Apple TV. I have never played tennis or pickleball, and I still know about the comparisons and rivalry between them. This movie stars Jake Johnson, who I’ve been the biggest fan of since New Girl (2011), as Dusty Boyd. Going by the nickname The Hammer, he was great at tennis until an injury sidelined him. When that same injury causes him new trouble, his rehab comes in the form of pickleball.
With the help of his new partner, Candace (Mary Steenburgen), Dusty starts to enjoy pickleball and confront his past. I love an unlikely partnership that gives the characters a better perspective on a new chapter of life. The Dink somewhat reminds me of another underrated sports project on the same streamer—Stick (2025). While the former is a movie, the latter is set to return for a second season.
