#Best movie endings match point pro#

The metaphor comes nice and early, with Meyers in voice-over talking about the role that luck can play in a man’s fortunes.

#Best movie endings match point pro#

For such a brief scene, it’s Annie in a nutshell all her heedlessness is why she was never going to gel with neurotic Alvy.įast-forward 28 years to Allen’s Match Point, a sinister drama about a tennis pro (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) looking to swing his way into London high society, and when an American woman (Scarlett Johansson) tempts him into a precarious position, he’s willing to commit murder to retain his standing. The film breezes past the tennis to get to the “la di da” of Annie and Alvy’s verbal volleying, but from what we do see, Annie’s game appears to be as flighty and unfocused as her personality: She’s swinging wildly, she’s not planting her feet, she’s not even watching where her ball goes and is thus unprepared for the return. In Annie Hall, Allen’s Oscar-winning romantic comedy, the big meet-cute between Diane Keaton’s title character and Allen’s Alvy Singer happens after playing mixed doubles with their friends. He has two movies where tennis shows up most prominently and strategically: in one as a drop-shot-delicate character device and in another as a great big overhead smash of a thematic metaphor. Woody Allen’s presence on this list is inevitable. McEnroe (with Shia LaBeouf as tennis’s premier brat John McEnroe), Clueless (where it’s inadvisable to send objects flying at a new nose), Bee Movie (in which animated honeybee Jerry Seinfeld endures a particularly harrowing experience on the court), and The Power of the Dog (featuring Thomasin McKenzie as cinema’s chirpiest chair umpire), here are the 12 best examples of the microgenre. With apologies to runners-up Bachelor Party (featuring Tom Hanks sending balls soaring out of the court like he’s Ted Williams), Borg vs. It’s not crucial, but in ranking the best of the tennis scenes committed to film, the quality comes in helpful for tiebreakers. Occasionally, great tennis scenes give good tennis form, too. Tennis scenes are therefore convenient, relatable, and character-building: screenwriting gold. Plus, unlike sports that require loads of equipment, facilities, or experience, any two people can play tennis at a public park, a recreational center, or someone’s Beverly Hills backyard if they’re so fortunate. Tennis scenes can crop up everywhere from broad comedies to sinister thrillers, and they tell us a lot about the characters involved and their relationships to one another: Are they selfish with a racquet? Reckless? Confident? Is one player letting the other win, hinting at a yet-to-be-fully explored attraction? Or is the competition cutthroat, representative of an otherwise stifled tension felt by one or both sides? The stop-and-start nature of the activity means these characters can still deliver rapid-fire dialogue in between shots, but it’s the body language that speaks volumes. It’s the tennis scene we should be talking about. But to disregard cinematic tennis for this reason would be to underestimate its power as a game particularly well-suited for scenes. Last year’s King Richard - overshadowed as its legacy is post- Slap - is one of the rare examples of a movie that forefronts the game in the same way a baseball movie like The Natural or Field of Dreams or a football movie like Rudy or The Longest Yard revolves around their respective sports. There’s a misperception, however, that tennis isn’t a good movie sport because there haven’t been that many great tennis movies. But at its core, tennis is about individuals, which is why it lends itself surprisingly well to the movies. Granted, there are ways to play tennis in teams, from doubles to Billie Jean King’s long-standing dream of making World Team Tennis one of our major sports. Tennis is a sport of personal intensity and triumph. Pictures/YouTube, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and MGM Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photos by Warner Bros. Hollywood is short on good tennis movies, but that doesn’t mean tennis isn’t a good movie sport.