The MatchMovies like The Match
- Key Features:
- Football, Small town, Redemption, Internal conflict, Team dynamics, Coach-athlete relationship, Financial desperation, Local community, Personal demons, Coming of age, Underdog story
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Sports enthusiasts, Drama lovers, International cinema fans, Character-driven narratives
- Emotional Arc:
- Anticipation → Tension → Reflection
The Match

One football match on a dirt pitch near Rome becomes a day of reckoning as a young player, his coach and their team's owner wrestle internal demons.
The Match
Inspired by true events from the spring of 1944 when the Nazis organized a football match between a team of camp inmates and an elite Nazi team on Adolf Hitler's birthday. A match the prisoners are determined to win, no matter what happens.

Contemporary Russia. After he flubs a penalty kick, a humiliated national soccer player quits the game. He flees to a small town, where he decides to coach their local team.

Christian is an extremely talented as well as unpredictable football player. After his latest screw-up, the president of his team decides to assign him a personal tutor, to help him in controlling his temper. Valerio is a shy and solitary professor, the exact opposite of the champion. Sparks will fly between the two at first, but soon their relationship will change both for the better.

An ambitious soccer referee ends up handling a crucial match between two small Sardinian teams

In Palmi, a small town in Calabria, Don Vincenzo, a genial retired farmer, has a crazy idea to revive the local soccer team by organizing a bizarre fundraiser hiring the Italian major league Serie A, soccer player Etienne Morville, a bad-tempered guy but among the strongest in the world. Albeit unwillingly, Morville leaves Milan to move to Palmi and try to save his image. In the small town he will come up against a reality of sincerity, which will lead everyone on an unforgettable experience.

An aging soccer fanatic faces down the reality of his past while struggling to give himself and a young follower very different futures.

When a legendary Go master loses his title to a one-time friend and protégé, he sets out to reclaim it in a high-stakes battle of wits and skill.

Two soccer stories: Alvaro Presutti is a referee who seems to be the last to know about his wife having an affair with a German soccer star. Amedeo Amedei has to please both his father, a die hard Roma supporter and his future father in law, who supports Lazio.

Soccer is an alien world for Walter Vismara, an unfamiliar terrain he's always avoided. But when his job hangs in the balance, he's thrust into the role of goalkeeper by his soccer-obsessed boss. Forced into a relentless routine of practice sessions and taunts, Walter finds himself trapped in a nightmare. His troubles escalate when he discovers his beloved in the arms of his archenemy, adding a personal dimension to his challenges. Determined to prove his worth, Walter devises a plan: to play the fool outwardly while secretly honing his skills. As he navigates this comedic yet challenging journey on the soccer field, will Walter emerge victorious and finally earn the respect he deserves?

The "Bulldozer", a former football star, is now working as a fisherman. As a group of street-people arranges a football match against the local Armybase, he is asked to be their trainer. His boat was damaged by a submarine and he currently has no work, so he agrees.

The "Brigatte Veneno" is a fan group from the soccer club "AS Roma". The next match is against "Juventus Turin", the classic prestige duel. Principe, the former leader of the group, has been dismissed from jail a few days before. He has to realize that his best friend Red has not only taken over control of the group, but also has started an affair with his girlfriend. The rivalry between the hot-blooded Principe and the sensible Red causes an anxious mood within the group. When Smilzo, a member of the group, dies during a street fight with another fan group, Red knows that Principe is to be blamed for this catastrophe.

After its football team is disqualified for insulting a referee during a major game, a small country town risks losing its funding along with its field. To avoid this disaster, there is only one solution: creating a new team made up exclusively of women to defend the city’s colors! But in a community where football has always been an activity reserved for men, these women’s new status will be sure to shake up the daily lives of the town’s residents…

Hardened by years in foster care, a teenage girl from Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood decides that wrestling boys is the only way back to her estranged father.

Disgraced ex-England football captain, Danny 'Mean Machine' Meehan, is thrown in jail for assaulting two police officers. He keeps his head down and has the opportunity to forget everything and change the lives of the prisoners. When these prisoners have the chance to put one over the evil guards during a prison football match, Danny takes the lead.

Oronzo Canà is called to coach Longobarda, the football team of a small town of Northern Italy, newly promoted to the First Division. His only task is not to be relegated, but Longobarda's owner plots against him, finding the team's current ranking far too expensive, and his top Brazilian striker is affected by a deep saudade.

For the Olympique de Paris soccer team, this away match scheduled against Caplongue was merely supposed to be one last chore before the end of the professional season. Yet no one could ever have imagined that an unknown rabies-like infection was going to spread like wildfire, turning this small town’s inhabitants into ultra-violent and highly contagious creatures.

Benito Fornaciari, a pale, devoutly Catholic, Upper Middleclass Italian inherits a minor-league football club from a long-lost uncle. He decides to visit the club to sell it, but the local population has other ideas: through an almost-armed uprising they "force" him not to sell the club but lead it to other glories on the football field.

A former footballer living in Brittany enlists his old teammates to help the local fisherman to win some games in order to raise money and save jobs.

Sami works in a children's home which is set to be closed. The young man is an enthusiastic stadium usher and has convinced the president of the Olympique de Marseille football club to help them keep it open.

A pair of aging boxing rivals are coaxed out of retirement to fight one final bout -- 30 years after their last match.

All seems well for Amadeo, a shy but talented foosball player who's in love with the free-spirited Laura. Trouble strikes when Grosso, the world's best soccer player, returns home with plans to destroy the village and turn it into a new sports stadium. When Grosso kidnaps Laura, Amadeo receives the ultimate surprise when the figurines from his foosball table spring to life to help him save his beloved and reclaim the town.

Sadoun is France’s best soccer player whose extra-curriculum pleasures are damaging his play and new contract negotiations. Dispatched by his scheming agent to his home village, he ends up reconciling with his father, relating to his fatherless niece, who dotes on him, and training his local children’s team, whom he takes to championship glory.

Bomber is an unemployed boat captain. One day he meets Jerry, a manager of boxers who are struck by the force of his fists. That is when they see the chance to win big money.

Phil Weston has been unathletic his entire life. In college he failed at every sport that he tried out for. It looks like his 10-year old son, Sam, is following in his footsteps. But when Phil's hyper-competitive dad benches Sam, Phil decides to transfer his son to a new team which needs a coach. Phil steps in to be the temporary coach and immediately begins to butt heads with his dad over this new competition in their lives.

A young priest coaches a team of uncoordinated monks in order to win a soccer tournament and save their monastery from being turned into a hotel.

Riko is an honest and hardworking man who can count on a group of real friends and a loving wife. Things change after he loses his job and experiences a midlife crisis.

Luigi has lived with his mother and little brother since their abusive father Franco left when he was 10. Now a young man brimming with rage, he joins a far-right gang in search of belonging, but Franco's return poisons everything.

The night before their debut game, two professional soccer players share a kiss. In a sporting world where image is everything, this surprising ‘pass’ sets the men up for a contrasting decade of fame and failure, full of secrets and denial.

The young priest Father Giulio returns to Rome, his hometown, after a long pilgrimage. Don Giulio hopes to live peacefully with his family and his friends, but discovers that many of them are depressed or frustrated, and some suicidal.

François, a miserable football player, becomes a town hero after bringing victory in an extremely important game. He uses his fame for revenge on the team star for the previous mockeries.

A track coach in a small California town transforms a team of athletes into championship contenders.

A new student at a soccer academy is determined to beat her rival's team in the national tournament.

A few months before the ’92 Barcelona Olympic Games, it looks like the Spanish water polo team will hardly make a splash during their home field Olympics. The national team is a battleground under attack on two fronts: the harsh techniques of their new coach, which threaten to incapacitate more than one player, and the infighting between leaders Manel Estiarte and Pedro Aguado. Can the team stay united and overcome their personal differences? Will reaching sporting glory be possible in the face of such adversity?

This is the story of two completely opposite households: the Pavone are intellectual and bourgeois, the Vismara are proletarian and fascists. They are two tribes sharing the same jungle: Rome. A trivial accident brings these two poles together. The madness of a 25-year old youth will set them on a collision course, discovering the cards to reveal that everyone has a secret. People are never what they seem – but we are all predators in the end.

A group of advocates to end homelessness organize an annual tournament for homeless people to compete in a series of football matches known as The Homeless World Cup.

Marcello, a small and gentle dog groomer, finds himself involved in a dangerous relationship of subjugation with Simone, a former violent boxer who terrorizes the entire neighborhood. In an effort to reaffirm his dignity, Marcello will submit to an unexpected act of vengeance.

The destinies of two families are irrevocably tied together after a cyclist is hit off the road by a jeep in the night before Christmas Eve.

In a secluded house in a small seaside town live four unrelated men and the woman who tends to the house and their needs. All former priests, they have been sent to this quiet exile to purge the sins of their pasts, the separation from their communities the worst form of punishment by the Church. They keep to a strict daily schedule devoid of all temptation and spontaneity, each moment a deliberate effort to atone for their wrongdoings.

Francesco Totti retraces his entire life while watching it on the silver screen together with the audience. Images and emotions flow among key moments of his career, scenes from his personal life and memories he has never shared before.

Like millions of kids around the world, Santiago harbors the dream of being a professional footballer... However, living in the Barrios section of Los Angeles, he thinks it is only that—a dream. Until one day an extraordinary turn of events has him trying out for Premiership club Newcastle United.

In 1944 Tuscany, a group of boxers struggling through World War II stages rigged matches to earn money and travel, accompanied by a missing black American soldier and a girl resisting marriage, as they navigate the challenges of their war-torn world.

In a town in the Northwest of the province of Buenos Aires, a group of neighbors is organized to recover the economy of the area, but when the corralito is implemented in the country and they suffer a fraud, their hopes disappear. Now, they will unite to recover the lost money and give the blow of their lives to their greatest enemy.

Chris, a former tennis pro, takes a job as an instructor and befriends his wealthy young student, Tom. After being introduced to his family, Chris is soon engaged to Tom's sister, Chloe. Despite the professional and financial advantages that this relationship affords him, Chris becomes obsessed with Tom's fiancee, American actress Nola.

A slacker who does his best to avoid confrontation strikes up an unlikely friendship with a dangerous thug who suddenly forces his way into his life.

Two men must struggle to travel to Prague for Champions League Football Final match.

Franck, a former young hopeful at the Nantes soccer club, has stayed on to help the team for ten years after an injury,but becomes especially frustrated when he meets a seductive young woman.

In 1980s Naples, Italy, an awkward Italian teen struggling to find his place experiences heartbreak and liberation after he's inadvertently saved from a freak accident by football legend Diego Maradona.

In Pietrasanta all are excited for the annual party of summer end. Here we find four characters: Merigo, a naive guy passionate of bike; Pierre, son of the mayor; Simone, a pestiferous kid; Mario, lifeguard of "Bagnomaria".

An aimless college graduate jumping from one job interview to another — killing time in between with his wisecracking and deadbeat room-mate — falls in love with an actress.

"The Family," an album with a velvet cover, is meant to touch the extended family of man. Formal portraits, bookends in this 80-year saga, enclose the central story, which opens with the baptism of Carlo, a baby in his grandfather's lap, and ends with Carlo as a grandfather with a baby in his arms. And never once do we get out of the house, whose rooms provide the film's structure. Comfort or passion? Carlo couldn't really decide until it was too late.

With hard work and dedication on lock, a group of homeless men trains to compete in a global tournament — despite a cranky coach.

Rudy grew up in a steel mill town where most people ended up working, but wanted to play football at Notre Dame instead. There were only a couple of problems. His grades were a little low, his athletic skills were poor, and he was only half the size of the other players. But he had the drive and the spirit of 5 people and has set his sights upon joining the team.

Lino lives in Turin with the family of his sister. He doesn't have a good job and never enough money. But in a day his life changes: he wins 1 billion dollars in a lottery and... everyone becomes a friend, the girl who he liked becomes his girlfriend and his sister begins to love him. He leaves Turin with his friend Parola and, in a casino, he loses all money! But luck returns...

Approaching forty, Ferro is unsatisfied with his life as a construction worker and part-time boxing instructor in Los Angeles, CA. After a successful bout with a young pro boxer, Ferro decides to don the gloves one last time. The movie recounts his unlikely quest for Olympic gold.

A priest, after spending years in humanitary missions in Africa, reunites with his family, which is in worse conditions than when he left, and above all meets a young lady who will make him doubt both himself and his faith.

Professor Lipari teaches in a public school and is in a full-on existential crisis. He has no faith in himself and in the possibility of changing the world for the better. At school, a former student of his who is also a teacher will change his attitude.

Thomas was once renowned as a young tennis prodigy, but never had the career he hoped for. At 37, despite his declining physical fitness and shattered knee he decides to compete in the intense qualifying rounds of the French Open at Roland-Garros for one last attempt at glory. Although his wife Eve and mother Judith advise him to give up, Thomas obsessively pushes forward. He will have to fight his own demons and will ultimately face a determined young player who reminds him of his younger self.

A losing coach with an underdog football team faces their giants of fear and failure on and off the field to surprising results.

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.

From campy lies to sexy surprises, this collection of vignettes captures the follies of several men as they fumble with fidelity and relationships.

When Danny O'Shea's daughter is cut from the Peewee football team just for being a girl, he decides to form his own team, composed of other ragtag players who were also cut. Can his team really learn enough to beat the elite team, coached by his brother, a former pro player?

To avoid jail, a tax-dodging businessman is sentenced to a year of community service in a homeless shelter.

A comedy centered on a has-been coach who is given a shot at redemption when he's asked to run his local high school's girls basketball team

Tennis player turned coach Tashi has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him into a world-famous Major champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she signs him up for a "Challenger" event — close to the lowest level of pro tournament — where he finds himself standing across the net from his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend.

In the barracks of the "Settecamini" fire brigade in Rome, the shabby Squadra 17 tackles missions with resounding failures, waiting in vain for a chance for redemption.

Fifteen years after the card game on Christmas Eve in which he lost 550 million lire, Franco Mattioli returns to Bologna because he learned that his friend Lele - a film critic by profession, present at the fateful game (he managed to win 500 thousand lire) - has an incurable disease. In all these years Franco has continually thought about the match and now he knows that the time for revenge has arrived. For this reason he decides to convince the people present in 1986 (in addition to Lele, Ugo Cavara, Stefano Bertoni and Antonio Santelia) to play again.

Momo has one dream buried for years: become a petanque champion. When an international tournament is announced, he drops his ordinary life to win the first prize and fulfill his dreams.

A childless couple struggle in the aftermath of a sexual assault leaves the woman pregnant.

The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth century Italy, as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.

A disgraced basketball coach is given the chance to coach Los Amigos, a team of players who are intellectually disabled, and soon realizes they just might have what it takes to make it to the national championships.

A former narcotics smuggler, now living peaceably in the Calabrian hills, is drawn back into his family’s drug-trade dynasty by his impetuous teenage son.

The youngest son of an alcoholic former boxer returns home, where he's trained by his father for competition in a mixed martial arts tournament – a path that puts the fighter on a collision course with his estranged, older brother.

Victor is a legal advisor who finds himself abandoned by his wife and fired the same day. He tries to seek comfort from different friends and family members, but everyone he meets is concerned with their own problems. His morale begins to falter when he realizes that no one cares about him.

A grumpy boxing coach takes on a young, rebellious woman under his wings and starts training her for the world championship. But their biggest battle has to be fought outside the ring.

Aging small-time conman Augusto works with two younger men: Roberto, who desires to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Carlo, nicknamed Picasso. Through a series of mishaps and personal entanglements, things go badly for Augusto.

Out-of-luck coach Lambeau Fields takes a rag-tag bunch of college misfits and drives them towards the football championships. In the process, this life-long loser discovers that he is a winner after all by redeeming himself, saving his relationship with his family and friends, and finding that there is indeed, no "I" in "team"!

Giulia De Martino is a pilot. At seventeen she participates in the GT Championship, under the guidance of her father Mario. But one day everything changes and Giulia has to face alone both the track and her own life.

Matteo is a young successful businessman, audacious, charming and energetic. Ettore instead, is a calm, righteous, second grade teacher always living in the shadows, still in the small town from where both come from. They’re brothers but with two very different personalities. A dramatic event will force them to live together in Rome for a few months, bringing up the opportunity to face their differences with sympathy and tenderness, in a climax of fear and euphoria.

A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

A down-on-his-luck coach is hired to prepare a team of the best American dancers for an international tournament that attracts all the best crews from around the world, but the Americans haven't won in fifteen years.

Jackie Justice is a mixed martial arts fighter who leaves the sport in disgrace. Down on her luck and simmering with rage and regret years after the fight, she's coaxed into a brutal underground fight by her manager and boyfriend Desi and grabs the attention of a fight league promoter who promises Jackie a life back in the Octagon. But the road to redemption becomes unexpectedly personal when Manny - the son she gave up as an infant - shows up at her doorstep. A triumphant story of a fighter who reclaims her power, in and out of the ring, when everyone has counted her out

Naples, early 1980s. The strained marriage between Aldo and Vanda is fractured one evening when Aldo admits, unprompted, his infidelity. Equally hurt and bewildered, Vanda attempts to hide her pain from the couple's two school-age kids, lest they discover that their cramped apartment is not a home of trust and love. 30 years later, Aldo and Vanda are still tied together, but their relationship with each other and their children continues to be defined by what happened all those years ago.

In search of a lifeline for his struggling off road racing team, a man takes on a young car thief looking for a second chance, but as their worlds collide, they must struggle to forge a successful alliance.

During the 1950 World Cup, the hastily assembled U.S. soccer team enters as heavy underdogs when matched up against the highest-ranked team in competition — England.

A Seattle couple travel to New York to interview colorful former dancer Tobi for research on a dissertation about dance. But soon, common niceties and social graces erode when the questions turn personal and the true nature of the interview is called into question.

In a depressed Texas town, British foreign exchange teacher Anna attempts to inject some life into her hopeless kids by introducing them to soccer. They're terrible at first, but Anna and her football-hero assistant whip them into shape. As they work overtime, the pair help kids build their self-esteem and also get involved in solving family squabbles.

An obscure Italian magistrate suspects that a well-known industrialist commited murder, and decides to investigate him, and bring him to court, whatever it takes. But - will the magistrate have it in him to go against impossible odds, in the name of the Italian people he represents?

Two years after a Super Bowl win when NFL head coach Sean Payton is suspended, he goes back to his hometown and finds himself reconnecting with his 12-year-old son by coaching his Pop Warner football team.

A devoted father working in film shares a magical bond with his daughter, but as she enters adolescence and falls into addiction, he takes her to Paris in a final effort to save her and their fading connection.

Steve Landry, an aging boxer with more losses than wins, accepts to become a sparring partner for an emerging champion in a last-ditch attempt to stay relevant.

Demetrio Perez is a tough prosecutor torn between the corruption inherent in his job and the desire to do right by his family. But when opportunity presents itself and his daughter Thea falls in love with a Mafioso’s son, Perez has to cut through the morality of his law-abiding roots and become as dirty as the dangerous criminals he represents.

Geremia, an aging tailor/money lender, is a repulsive, mean, stingy man who lives alone in his shabby house with his scornful, bedridden mother. He has a morbid, obsessive relationship with money and he uses it to insinuate himself into other people's affairs, pretending to be the "family friend". One day he is asked by a man to lend him money for the wedding of Rosalba, his daughter. Geremia falls in love at first sight with the bewitching creature and and soon indulges in a "beauty and the beast" relationship...

The ageing wrestler Sultan Ali Khan decides to try his luck on the mat again; to do this, he wants to represent his country at the Olympic Games, but first has to overcome personal issues.

In 1990s Palermo, Pino Puglisi is a priest from the neglected Brancaccio neighborhood dedicated in helping kids to get off the streets and creating an embracing place of hope and solidarity in his church, which means trouble for the local Mafia. He continues his solitary fight until the bitter end.

A former sports star who's fallen on hard times starts coaching his son's soccer team in an attempt to get his life together.

Inside Bar Sport, a bar on the outskirts of Bologna managed by the histrionic Onassis, the adventures of regulars and casual patrons unfold. Searching for a pinball machine or a payphone, they encounter the omnipresent "technician," so called for his passion for soccer and always ready to chat or moderate other people's discussions. Thus, the ordeals of the handyman Bovinelli as he deals with the disasters at Muzzi's house, the diary of a provincial playboy's conquests, the sex life of the fiery prostitute Elvira, the search for a good restaurant during a dazed motorcycle trip with Cocosecco, or a trip to see Bologna play with the lawyer Della Lana become epic tales of tragicomic exploits.



