Sport has enormous global power, and this year, the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace is looking to harness that power to build a better future for us all.
The UN’s theme for 2023 is “Scoring for People and the Planet”, a message focused on the impact and influence of sport on empowerment, sustainability, and the promotion of peace.
In celebration of global sport and the work of the UN, here are five great films capturing sport’s power to unite, heal, and affect change.
1. The Endless Summer (1966)
Bruce Brown made five surfing films in five years before he started work on The Endless Summer. Doubling his production time – and massively increasing his budget – he set out to follow Mike Hynson and Robert August in their time-honoured pursuit of the “perfect wave”.
Travelling to Australia, New Zealand, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, Brown captures the stunning scenery and the exhilaration of finding untouched waters. Along the way, Hynson and August find time to recruit new converts to a sport that, for its many participants, is also a way of life.
A true product of the counterculture, The Endless Summer was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for films deemed to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
2. Rocky (1976)
Rocky is more than just a boxing film. Penned by its star, Sylvester Stallone (allegedly in just three days), it’s a classic underdog story that garnered an incredible 10 Oscar nominations and won three, including Best Picture.
Rocky Balboa is a broken-down boxer and part-time debt collector who gets an unlikely shot at the World Heavyweight Championship.
A surprisingly sensitive drama of working-class life and the elusive search for the American Dream, it is also one of the greatest sports films of all time – from its memorable central performances to its iconic theme song, it made Sylvester Stallone a star and has spawned eight sequels.
In 2006, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for films deemed to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
3. Chariots of Fire (1981)
Chariots of Fire is based on the true story of two runners’ journey to the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell is a Scottish Christian missionary while Harold Abrahams is an English Jew (the pair are played respectively by Ian Charleson and Ben Cross).
The two athletes face physical, spiritual, and moral challenges, as well as competitive triumphs and heartache.
From a group of young athletes running along a beach to Vangelis’s iconic synthesiser score to the rivalry between the men, and the Games themselves, Chariots of Fire provides a fascinating glimpse into the lives, values, and class system of Britain between the wars.
The film also boasts a huge supporting cast. Nigel Havers, Ian Holm, and John Gielgud star, while Kenneth Branagh makes his acting debut in a minor role.
The film takes its name from a line in “Jerusalem”, the William Blake poem and hymn.
Nominated for seven Academy Awards, it won four, including Best Picture and Best Original Score.
4. Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Parminder Nagra stars as Jesminder “Jess” Bjamra, a young woman torn between her love of football and the values of her traditional Punjabi family.
Dreaming of playing for England like her hero, David Beckham, Jess joins her local women’s team, the Hounslow Harriers, alongside Jules (played by Keira Knightley) and coach Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).
Jess’s mother isn’t keen for Jess to play such a physical sport (or to run “around with all these men, showing [your] bare legs to 70,000 people”). For her father, meanwhile, Jess’s hopes rekindle the pain of the racism he encountered in cricket years before.
When the Hounslow Harriers head to Germany for a game, the girls’ personal lives begin to clash with the sport they love, as romance threatens to ruin the girls’ friendships.
This comedy-drama about following your dreams captured the nation’s heart on its release and continues to do so 20 years later.
5. Invictus (2009)
Directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, Invictus aims to highlight the uniting influence of sport.
Following the dismantling of apartheid, South Africa forms a democratic government with the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship just a year away. The South African team, the Springboks, aren’t expected to perform well – they gained their place in the championship as the host nation.
Eastwood’s film follows South African president Nelson Mandela’s attempts to use the competition to unite a fractured country, with help from team captain François Pienaar.
As the competition arrives, Mandela and Pienaar remain dedicated to the idea that a South African win will help to mend more than half a century of racial division. Meanwhile, racial tensions are clear even within the president’s own security detail.
The title, translated from Latin as “undefeated” or “unconquered”, is also the name of a poem that Mandela shares with Pienaar.
Both Freeman and Damon were Oscar-nominated for their performances.
