Synopsis
The Bad News Bears (1976) is a classic American sports comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Walter Matthau and eleven-year-old Tatum O'Neal. A washed-up ex-ballplayer — thrown out of the minor leagues years ago for attacking an umpire — gets hired to coach the worst little-league team in California.
The Bears are a collection of misfits the other teams don't want to face, and not because they're dangerous. Morris Buttermaker, Matthau's magnificently dishevelled coach, drinks beer in the dugout and recruits Amanda Whurlitzer, his ex-girlfriend's daughter, because she throws harder than anyone else on the roster. She's twelve and she knows it.
Ritchie doesn't smooth any of this out into feel-good lessons. The kids cheat, the adults are flawed, and winning is never the point. That's what put The Bad News Bears on the shortlist of the sharpest sports comedies of the decade. Stream it online on iFILM.
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