Movie Review: Chariots of Fire
Rate This Article
Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy a two-part made for television miniseries called The First Olympics -- Athens 1896, about the American team entering the first modern Olympics in 1896. While it does not have the resonance and meaning (or the production values) of Chariots of Fire, it is heartwarming, funny, exciting, and a lovely period piece. Not currently available on video, it usually shows up on television around the time of Olympic competitions. An extremely silly movie about the first modern Olympics is It Happened in Athens, with Jayne Mansfield and real-life Olympic athlete Bob Mathias.
Miracle on Ice, another made for television movie, is the true story of the 1980 U.S. hockey team, which astonished the world at the Olympics in Lake Placid. Yet another Olympic made for television movie, The Golden Moment, is the story of a romance between a Soviet gymnast and an American athlete. Its primary charm is the fact that it takes place at an Olympics in which, in real life, the U.S. never competed -- that was the year the U.S. protested the Soviet invasion of Afganistan by boycotting the Moscow Olympics.
See also "Cool Runnings" about the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team, "The Bob Mathias Story," with the real-life decathalon champion playing himself, "The Jesse Owens Story," with Dorian Harewood as the legendary athlete, and "Babe" with Susan Clark as Babe Deidrickson Zaharias.
On the silly side, try "Animalympics," an animated spoof of the Olympics with some comical moments, and the very funny "Million Dollar Legs," with W.C. Fields as the President of Klopstockia, a country entering the Olympics.
And of course Bud Greenspan's documentaries about the Olympics are always worth watching, for the stories and the personalities as much as for the athletic achievements.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
