A League of Their Own
A League of Their Own
PG | 01 July 1992 (USA)
A League of Their Own Trailers

As America's stock of athletic young men is depleted during World War II, a professional all-female baseball league springs up in the Midwest, funded by publicity-hungry candy maker Walter Harvey. Competitive sisters Dottie Hinson and Kit Keller spar with each other, scout Ernie Capadino and grumpy has-been coach Jimmy Dugan on their way to fame.

Reviews
Mjeteconer Just perfect...
Manthast Absolutely amazing
Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
Hitchcoc This is a feel good movie about a period during the war where women's baseball became popular. It served the purpose of giving entertainment during a very hard time in our history. It also showed the wonderful relationships that developed. Tom Hanks plays the enigmatic coach who has always dealt with men. The subplot involves sisters, where the tall pretty one has seemingly always held sway in the family. This is about growing. This is an opportunity for a new start for one of them. Madonna plays a fun character, full of life and sass. Of course, we are in for a lead up to a significant game where things will get sorted out. It's also an education in a particular sports phenomenon that was short lived but quite interesting. The movie sparkles and Hanks does a great job of suffering through something he is totally unequipped for. Quite delightful.
gavin6942 Two sisters join the first female professional baseball league and struggle to help it succeed amidst their own growing rivalry.This is Geena Davis in her prime. I mean, not to sell her short, but 1985-1995 was the golden age of Geena, with one hit after another. This is one of those, maybe second only to "The Fly". And alongside Lori Petty and Tom Hanks? Priceless.Some may ask, how factual is this? Well, strictly speaking, not very. These are made up characters. But the Rockford Peaches really existed, and there really was a women's baseball league for about a decade. If not for this film, they might be completely forgotten. So, thank you movie!
kols Finally, after 20+ years, I recorded and watched what I thought was going to be a middling Tom Hanks comedy. Reason for that was the trailers I'd seen hundreds of times: "Crying. There's no crying in baseball!"What I saw was a movie that should have been allowed to give Unforgiven serious competition for Best Picture and Geena Davis an Oscar for Best Actress in a leading role. Apparently I wasn't the only one fooled by those trailers.Penny Marshall's movie is a brilliant, beautifully crafted homage to a little remembered period when, just as Rosie became a riveter, numbers of talented women filled in for their men as ball players. Proving, like Rosie, they were every bit as capable as the absent males.More than that, of course, is the broader theme of the individual refusing to buckle under to social conventions. A very common American theme with Marshall's contribution ranking with the best of its expositions. Pretty good as a Baseball pic, too.It is a long movie, over 2 hours, but, despite the simplicity of the story, it doesn't play like two hours. From the first scene you (or at least I) fall in love with the screen and time becomes meaningless.Two people, supported by a strong supporting cast, are responsible: Peggy Marshall and Geena Davis. Marshall and her editor crafted a truly remarkable piece of cinematography that may be perfect; not a clang or misstep anywhere.Such movies need glue to make it all hang together and that's where Davis comes in: though brilliantly supported, without Davis the whole house would have failed. League is very much Geena Davis' movie, she's the one who puts flesh to the bones of Penny Marshall's vision.As Americans we love and should love movies like this, these celebrations of the best of our values, of how hundreds of women kept a league of their own alive for ten years.That achievement was quickly forgotten, buried in the reactionary conservatism of the '50s, which should anger us, but that anger can easily be tempered by Marshall's rediscovery and loving treatment of their story.For all of that seriousness, League is a successful comedy and fun to watch while, also successfully, demonstrating both how far we've come and how far yet to go.A large part of that 'yet to go' are those trailers that made me think that League was a Tom Hanks movie. It isn't; Hanks is almost a tertiary figure. Davis and the supporting cast, all women, are the Stars. Hanks character, Jimmy Dugan, is important and, especially at the last, honored but, as the movie unfolds, more comic relief than mover. Very much a second fiddle; to his credit, Hanks plays that fiddle masterfully.However, the fact that the distributors felt the need to exaggerate his presence to the point of ridiculousness speaks volumes about how, even in 1992, we weren't ready to embrace a movie by women about women. The Oscar's Nominating Committee's failure to recognize League as the masterpiece it is stamps paid to that point.As a movie, judged by objective cinematic standards, League should rank with the best of the best.
tns1 I'd like to vote 10, but I feel its doing the film an injustice. I wasn't a great Madonna fan, yet I love the theme song (and have gelled to her in later years) and being a Brit Baseball, I have played. Yet this film bring out an emotion of a time when a generation was hard done in a world war, the ups and downs of this film leave you with a feeling of I would watch it again. It's hard not to quote from the movie, but to think my mother was once living with all the emotions that every generation has to deal with. I love the whole idea of this type of film. We look back at great times and people who still have a passion. I think all too often we overlook things in the present and make films that are there as money cows, with special effects or some boring theme that all the studios copy until its died a death. My only regret is reading that the soundtrack hasn't got the Madonna song on it and that only a limited version was produced in a shorter time. Madonna should release it as a bonus track, even you-tube do not have the song listed now. But back to the film, I miss my parents and as I get older then I think that I should record things for my kids to read, maybe make a film script themselves. For every generation has a story to tell and I think todays generation will have the hardest yet. But if you want to look back on days of simple pleasure then watch this film.