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Bollywood's 'Lagaan' makes 'Time' list of best sports movies

By JENNIFER HOPFINGER


Lagaan
Bollywood film Lagaan (2001)—about 19th-century Indian villagers who challenge the British to a cricket match in order to free themselves from oppressive taxes—made Time magazine’s list of the 25 best sports movies of all time.


The magazine called Lagaan "surely the longest and most enthralling underdog-sports movie ever."


Lagaan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film—only the third Hindi-language film in history to get an Oscar nod, after Mother India (1957) and Salaam Bombay (1988). The movie introduced many Americans to Bollywood for the first time.


Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan starred in and produced the film. It was the debut release of Aamir Khan Productions, which has since developed a reputation for selectivity, producing such well-regarded films as Peepli Live (2010). Lagaan was helmed by Ashutosh Gowariker, who later directed the award-winning Swades (2004) and Jodhaa Akbar (2008).


Richard Corliss of Time wrote of the selection: "Lagaan has the capability to win over Bollywood newcomers—to turn snickers into smiles, indulgence to rapture. Writer-director Ashutosh Gowariker finds the spice in a masala mix of melodrama and character comedy, and keeps his cinematic rhythms humid and urgent for the full 3¾-hour running time. Even those who know none of cricket's complicated rules will bounce in their seats to A.R. Rahman's irrepressible tunes; here, one can immediately and fully accept the Bollywood trope of music and dance as an expression of life's deepest, most soaring emotions. As sports film, social document or communal ecstasy, Lagaan is the all-time all-rounder."


The list, published in September, includes:


  1. •The Big Lebowski (1998)

  2. •Body and Soul (1947)

  3. •Breaking Away (1979)

  4. •Bull Durham (1988)

  5. •The Damned United (2009)

  6. •Downhill Racer (1969)

  7. •Caddyshack (1980)

  8. •Eight Men Out (1988)

  9. •Field of Dreams (1989)

  10. •The Freshman (1925)

  11. •Hoop Dreams (1994)

  12. •Hoosiers (1986)

  13. •The Hustler (1961)

  14. •Major League (1989)

  15. •Million Dollar Baby (2004)

  16. •Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)

  17. •Olympia (1938)

  18. •Raging Bull (1980)

  19. •Rocky (1976)

  20. •Shaolin Soccer (2001)

  21. •Slap Shot (1977)

  22. •Speed Racer (2008)

  23. •Tokyo Olympiad (1965)

  24. •When We Were Kings (1996).




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October 6, 2011