Film

Major League

Name: Major League
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1989
Cast: Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen, Margaret Whitton, James Gammon

Comedy
Light-hearted

Major League is the loosest, funniest baseball movie ever made about a team designed to lose. Cleveland's new owner wants a terrible season so she can move the franchise south, so she's stocked the roster with has-beens, headcases and one wild-armed convict. It's raunchy, quotable, and unashamedly silly — a beer-and-nachos comfort watch for anyone who wants their sports movie to make them laugh more than cry.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love ensemble sports comedies built on sharp, scruffy underdog banter and a team of lovable screwups who slowly become something more than their worst habits.

Skip it if you want a tight, gag-a-minute farce, since it spends real stretches on baseball action and on the slow stitching together of its roster rather than constant punchlines.

What it asks of you: It runs about an hour and forty-seven minutes and takes its time warming up, so give it an easy evening and let the ragged team gel before judging the jokes.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Bull Durham1988

Ron Shelton's minor-league classic swaps Major League's gags for something wiser and sexier, but it's the same love letter to baseball's beautiful losers, told with sharper dialogue and more heart.

But It's slower and more romantic than raucous — if you came for a voodoo-worshipping catcher, this one plays it cooler.

Slap Shot1977

Swap bats for sticks and you get the foul-mouthed granddaddy of the misfit-team comedy — Paul Newman leading a minor-league hockey squad through brawls, bribes and one gloriously filthy trio of brothers.

But The humour is cruder and meaner-spirited than Major League's, with less sentiment to soften the edges.

The Bad News Bears1976

Walter Matthau's drunk, foul-mouthed Little League coach turns a team of no-hopers into something resembling a unit — the original blueprint for every underdog sports comedy that followed.

But It's a product of its decade: politically incorrect in ways that will make some viewers wince rather than laugh.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Major League

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball2014

Rachel Phelps wants her team to fail; the Mavericks' real owner built a team the baseball establishment wanted destroyed. Same fight against a hostile league, told as true story instead of farce.

A documentary about the real Portland Mavericks, an independent minor-league team owned by a maverick actor who thumbed his nose at Major League Baseball and somehow won anyway — Major League's plot, but it actually happened.

But It's a documentary, not a comedy — funny in places, but its pleasures are nostalgic and historical rather than laugh-a-minute.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball poster

A League of Their Own1992

Same underdog shape, different diamond — women drafted into pro baseball during WWII face doubters at every turn, with Tom Hanks doing career-best work as a coach who couldn't care less.

But It leans harder into sentiment and history than Major League ever does, so don't expect wall-to-wall gags.

Necessary Roughness1991

College football's answer to Major League: a disgraced program scrapes together a team of oddballs, including a 34-year-old quarterback, to save a season nobody expects them to survive.

But It's broader and goofier, with less of the sharp characterisation that makes Major League's cast so memorable.

The Replacements2000

Keanu Reeves quarterbacks a ragtag crew of strikebreakers into an unlikely playoff push — the same joy of watching nobodies become somebodies, just with more explosions on the soundtrack.

But It's glossier and more Hollywood than Major League's scruffy charm, with less bite in the jokes.

Semi-Pro2008

Will Ferrell as a one-hit-wonder singer turned basketball owner-player brings the same disreputable-league energy, just louder, sillier, and shamelessly committed to the bit.

But The gags are broader and the plot thinner — this is comfort trash, not a well-crafted comedy.

DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story2004

A gym full of misfits with nothing to lose enters a tournament for a shot at redemption — pure underdog-sports-comedy mechanics, cranked up to cartoon levels.

But It trades Major League's grounded characters for pure absurdism; if you wanted realism, this isn't it.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby2006

Different sport, same shameless commitment to a ridiculous premise — Will Ferrell's disgraced NASCAR driver chasing redemption, played with the same go-for-broke silliness.

But It's more character-comedy than team comedy, so the ensemble underdog feeling is thinner here.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby poster

Angels in the Outfield1951

Same premise, forty years earlier: a terrible team, an owner who doesn't believe in them, a season that turns on belief — just with divine intervention instead of foul language.

Decades before Major League, this black-and-white oddity gave a hopeless, cellar-dwelling ball club a reason to believe — literal angels rooting for them — and ran the underdog formula with real sweetness.

But The pace and humour are gentle and old-fashioned; anyone expecting raunch or cynicism will find this almost quaint.

Slings & Arrows2003

Swap the diamond for the stage: a scrappy institution nobody respects, undermined by people who want it gone, held together by people who love it anyway. Same shape, entirely different costume.

A dysfunctional Shakespearean theatre festival, run on no money and less sanity, fights to put on a season despite a board that would rather shut it down — the same ragtag-team-against-the-odds engine, dressed as prestige drama.

But It's Canadian drama-comedy about theatre, not baseball — the laughs are quieter and the tone far more melancholic.