Tennis Movies To Watch After You See 'Challengers'

It turns out tennis makes for great drama and absurdist comedy

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Apr 27, 2024

We’re coming to you one day later than usual because we saw Challengers this week. We were buzzing coming out of the theater (podcast review coming next week!), so we decided to recommend a couple of other tennis movies in celebration. There haven’t been that many tennis films, which just makes this type of sports movie less well-trod territory. Go see Challengers and then enjoy our two very different recommendations!

Billy recommends…

Borg vs. McEnroe

There are casting decisions that happen that make way too much sense and Shia LaBeouf as John McEnroe might be the most on the nose. This came out in 2017 pre-LaBeouf accusations of sexual battery and assault, and the opportunity to see Shia freak out on the tennis court was a huge priority of mine.

Bjorn Borg is played by Sverrir Gudnason and is given the more introspective role. It is not necessary to match an off-the-screen presence perfectly with the real-life character they are portraying, but when you’re playing opposite a charismatic, abrasive, and loud wild card like LaBeouf as McEnroe, you gotta bring something powerful in response. And Gudnason is able to match the performance.

Borg is on the main stage, the best tennis player in the world with a reluctance to embrace success. He’s like how Nikola Jokic is now for the NBA. And McEnroe will burn down anyone in the way to top Borg. We get a decent lens into the pressure of stardom and the demons that plague both of these athletes. The structure of this movie is traditional for a biopic and is completely carried by the lead performances.

They are able to successfully transport you back to an era of tennis that is iconic and for that alone the movie is worth it. Borg vs. McEnroe has enough juice to get you through and performances that are stellar compared to most traditional biopics.

Streaming on Tubi

Drew recommends…

7 Days in Hell

Andy Samberg has taken his brand of exuberant absurdist comedy to many different characters, like a pop star, an amateur stuntman, and Jose Canseco, so it makes sense that his style would translate to the stuffy world of English tennis. Although not a production of The Lonely Island or originally an SNL sketch, 7 Days in Hell absolutely has the smart-dumb humor and high-level execution of one. This tennis mockumentary made for HBO, clocking in at 45 minutes, somehow avoids the trappings of sketch comedy stretched past its limit due to Samberg’s brilliance and a rotating cast of familiar funny faces.

Presented as a (fake) HBO Sports documentary, 7 Days in Hell tells the fictitious story of Aaron Williams (Samberg) aka “The Bad Boy of Tennis” and the longest match in history against British tennis prodigy Charles Poole (Kit Harrington). The film hilariously speeds through Willliams’ childhood (adopted by Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena, and forced to play tennis in a “reverse Blind Side”), his meteoric rise in the sport, and downfall (when he kills a line judge with a stray serve), before setting up his match with Poole at the 2001 Wimbledon.

Inspired by the 2010 Wimbledon match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut that spanned 11-plus hours over three days of play, the absurdity of that match is heightened for comedic gold. Alongside Samberg and Harrington, funny people like Will Forte, Fred Armisen, and Mary Steenburgen make appearances, as well as famous faces from the tennis world. But it’s Samberg’s performance and comedic stylings, clashing brash ridiculousness with refined upper class British sport, that makes 7 Days in Hell a brief, hysterical watch.

Streaming on Max

DYLA Podcast

No new podcast episode this week, but last week we did an entire episode breaking down our thoughts on Civil War and writer-director Alex Garland’s career. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and make sure you’re following the pod!

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