SummaryAn aging, drunk, ex-minor leaguer (Matthau) reluctantly agrees to coach a team of misfit kids in an ultra-competitive California little league.
Directed By:Michael Ritchie
Written By:Bill Lancaster
The Bad News Bears
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
84
User score
Universal Acclaim
8.2
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Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
93% Positive
14 Reviews
14 Reviews
7% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100
Surprisingly, improbably, The Bad News Bears is the year's funniest movie. It is very much like the team itself: no serious threat at first, but, finally, tough to beat.
100
The Bad News Bears is about kids, but they're real kids, not bland, cutesy, lovable Hollywood moppets. These pre-teens are unwashed, obnoxious, cynical, fractious, gleefully profane, unrepentantly juvenile, and deeply untrusting of any sort of authority — in other words, just like the kids you probably played team sports with.
User score
Universal Acclaim
90% Positive
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
10% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
Jan 17, 2021
10
An absolutely perfect film! Characters, script, story, originality.. all flawless. This is a must-see. Do NOT watch the horrendous Linklater remake.
Jul 10, 2017
10
One of my 3 favorite sports movies of all time, along with Hoosiers and Breaking Away. I love the politically incorrect feel of the whole thing. Matthau is pitch perfect, and Timmy Lupus represents the vast majority of us out on an island in center field. A must-see.
90
Matthau should get points for allowing himself to be filmed as such an unlikable cuss, and Vic Morrow, as usual, is just short of psychotic.
90
Michael Ritchie keeps his dead-end cynicism in check and produces a genuinely funny comedy about a Little League team managed by a lovably drunken Walter Matthau. Sometimes Ritchie goes too far in avoiding the family-movie cliches the subject invites and indulges in some pointless vulgarity, but all in all, it's one of his best films.
89
This seminal kids movie broke new ground in terms of its realistic portrait of young people and their use of foul language.
75
The Bad News Bears is, in a way, [Ritchie's] most harrowing portrait of how we'd sometimes rather win than keep our self-respect. He directs scenes for comedy even in the face of his disturbing material and that makes the movie all the more effective; sometimes we laugh, and sometimes we can't, and the movie's working best when we're silent.
60
Has a number of other virtues that make it a surprisingly painless adventure. Among these are the screenplay by Bill Lancaster, Burt's son, who has the talent and discipline to tell the story of The Bad News Bears almost completely in terms of what happens on the baseball diamond or in the dugout.
Mar 3, 2025
8
A classically templated sports movie with great performances. Its funny that even when Buttermaker realizes he needs to be a better coach for the players, he continues to drink and smoke in the dugout while doing so.
Sep 30, 2024
7
Looking to get his son involved in a prestigious little league system that's already over capacity, a well-connected father greases a few palms, recruits his own team of misfits and hires a miserable ex-pro to show them the ropes. I'm not really sure what the dad's plan is here, as he quickly fades out of the picture while the team, predictably, plummets straight to the bottom of the standings. Did he expect them to fail and merge with an established club? Maybe he just needed to get that kid out of his hair? Either way, his methods are as strange as his paternal instincts are suspect. Morris Buttermaker, the down-and-out former ace who's tasked with supervising the kids, is a hopeless drunk who alternately neglects his players and torments them. He's barely present to start the season, passing out at practice and slamming brews during games, but something about the team's fighting spirit pierces the fog and draws him out of his private slump. When that switch flips, he shifts from a ghost to a tyrant. No longer apathetic to more than the source of his next drink, he overworks his best players and berates the others for small mistakes. This puts the kids in a weird place: they admire his experience and appreciate his advice, but hate the way he makes them feel. They want to win, but they want to have fun, too, and as their record improves, the pressure to triumph supersedes love of the game. Buttermaker isn't the only coach to fall into this trap; he's just the first to realize it. It takes him long enough, right up to the championship game, but he does come around and the moment he realizes that he's being a toxic old jerk is powerful. Mostly a screwball comedy that delights in the shocking vulgarity of its young cast, there's also something heartier, something meaningful, churning beneath the surface.
Aug 21, 2021
7
It sports a predictable start, but we become acquainted with these characters and learn the importance of hard-earned participation and fun camaraderie instead of trying to be brutally best at a game. Walter Matthau's character is a great anchor to the comedy and drama which unfolds around him.
