The best movies about tennis, now that Desafiantes premiered, with Zendaya

Cinema usually reflects sports phenomena, whether in fiction or documentaries, with real characters or invented for the occasion. Challenging (Challengers), with Zendaya, takes place in the world of tennis, and is the highest-grossing premiere this weekend in Argentina.

The young actress, winner of two Emmys for Euphoriaplays the wife of a tennis player (Mike Faist, from Love without barriers), who is not winning any matches. And Tashi, who is his coach and manager, signs him up to regain his self-esteem, in a challenger tournament… But there, in the main draw, appears a former friend of Art, Patrick (Josh O’Connor, who was Prince Charles in The Crown), and that he was Tashi’s boyfriend.

At the premiere of Challengersby Luca Guadagnino, joins Apples Never Fall, which is now streaming in the United States. Joy (Annete Bening) and Stan (Sam Neill) are a married couple, and her family, seen from the outside, seems happy. They are two former tennis coaches, and parents of four adult children. But unfortunately, Joy disappears and her children are forced to reexamine their parents’ marriage and their family history. It is a miniseries based on the novel by the author of Big Little LiesLiane Moriarty.

Here we are going to remember the best movies and miniseries that have tennis as a narrative support, whether central or for a memorable scene.

It is more reminiscent of Will Smith for the slap he gave Chris Rock at the Oscar ceremony, where he was later going to be awarded best actor for this film. A shame, because it’s a film about what it takes to succeed. Smith plays the father of sisters Venus and Serena Williams, training them since they were practically born. The film captures the sacrifices inherent to tennis in a way that has rarely been seen.

This French film (it is in Netflix) centers on Thomas (Alex Lutz), who was once recognized as a young tennis prodigy, but never had the career he expected. Surviving as best he can, teaching classes, always suffering from that damn knee – which has taken him to the operating room several times – and his castrating mother (Kristin Scott Thomas), at 37 years old, despite his physical decline, he decides to compete in the rounds. of the French Open qualification for one last attempt at glory.

The film shows the backstage of elite sports, and the final duel, lasting about 25 minutes, conveys tension and suspense, in part thanks to the cellos of the music composed by Delphine Malaussena.

The protagonist is a former professional tennis player (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who falls in love with an actress (Scarlett Johansson), who is dating his friend and future brother-in-law.

The moment of the film, yes, is that, the ring thrown by the protagonist into the River Thames, and it hits the railing, bounces… and falls not in the water, but on the sidewalk. Like the tennis ball, which can hit the net and can land on any side of the court. If it passes, it may be a point, but if it remains on the side of the one who threw it, it loses. Allen uses it to talk about “luck” or that sometimes “it is better to be lucky than talented.”

The master of suspense adapted the novel by Patricia Highsmith Strangers on a Train including one memorable scene. Tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) complains to a stranger he meets on a train, Bruno (Robert Walker), about his ex-wife. Well, the wife is dead and Bruno reminds Guy that they had a deal: the murder of his wife in exchange for the murder of Bruno’s father.

There will already be room for a disturbing tennis match, in which all the spectators follow the movements of the ball with their heads. Everyone except Bruno, who smiles eerily at Guy. Later comes another match in which Guy literally plays for his life.

An elite player who has lost his ambition meets a young tennis player who helps him focus on the Wimbledon tournament. And together they improve on and off the courts. It is a romantic comedy, in which what is usually called chemistry works like it rarely does, between Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany.

Wimbledon, 2010. John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played a match in the first round of men’s singles, which went on unusually long and, due to the lack of sunlight and constant ties, set a record. It was 11 hours and 5 minutes, spread over three days!

This HBO film, in just 45 minutes, takes advantage of the facts and, in comedy form, chooses the mockumentary format to portray an endless seven-day battle between the tennis star and adoptive brother of Venus and Serena, Aaron Williams (Andy Sandberg) and British prodigy Charles Poole (Kit Harrington).

The marriage of directors of Little Miss Sunshine They called their friend Steve Carell again to portray the true story of tennis player Billie Jean King, who faces the great tennis player Bobby Riggs (Carell) and, incidentally, also the patriarchy in a match in 1973.

Unjustly forgotten, the film starring Emma Stone – now a two-time Oscar winner – deserves a new viewing.

Tennis player Naomi Osaka, perhaps one of the most notable of her generation, felt misunderstood when Roland Garros officials did not allow her to miss press events in May 2021. The Netflix documentary series, which took two years, also talks about the debate about the mental health of athletes in general. The pressures she suffered are listed.

If many sports documentaries are made simply to glorify the players they portray, Naomi Osaka It focuses on the fact that athletes are, above all, people.

In one of his first great films the director of Rushmore features a tennis prodigy, within a fractured family living in New York. Luke Wilson plays the Tenenbaums’ youngest son, Richie, who, from being a discovery in his youth, ends up wandering the world as a nomad due to pressure. We don’t necessarily see him play a lot of tennis in the movie.

But there are also films that take advantage, use tennis for some fundamental scene in their plots.

The Italian took as inspiration The devil’s slime, a short story by Julio Cortázar. OK, tennis isn’t central, but… Near the end, and after trying to unravel a murder, photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) stumbles upon a group of mimes “playing” a tennis match. And as he interacts with them, the sounds of the park gradually grow to include the slapping of a tennis ball, as Thomas slowly disappears from view.

Blow-Up It is not a tennis movie, but it is one that understands and uses the power of tennis as a resource to tell a story. It won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

No one will know if the witches of the title, played by Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon, who drove Jack Nicholson’s character crazy, were terrible at tennis in real life. But in the film by George Miller (the one from the saga of Mad Max) the match in which they discover their powers is 37 years away, a delight. The visual effects softened the rackets, and the tennis ball itself was an effect.

Noah Baumbach chose to open his film – a drama about a divorce of a New York family, dad (Jeff Daniels), mom (Laura Linney) and their children (Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, Kevin’s son) – a game of family doubles . But it is not a common one: there is a lot of tension on the court. Director of Story of a marriage (and co-writer with his wife Greta Gerwig of Barbie) In just a short minute and a half, the film uses the game as a way to introduce the prickly and fragile family. The look on Linney’s character’s face when Daniels hits her arm with the ball speaks volumes about how their relationship is and how this game reflects her lives off the court.