Sports movies are not always good. A lot can go wrong, especially when the story or direction tries to be more creative than necessary. Sometimes, however, things do work out, and we get something that is not just exciting to watch but can also motivate us to some extent.

Here are five such sports movies that have done enough to stay memorable and inspiring and are actually good.

We Are Marshall

We Are Marshall is based on the real-life Marshall University air disaster that killed the football team's students and coaches. The film shows how interconnected the people of Huntington were with the university football team, and follows a young, charismatic coach, Jack Lengyel, portrayed by Matthew McConaughey, who tries to rebuild the squad and mend relationships.

The movie shows how much sports mean to people. It also shows how they try to cope with grief through sports.

Moneyball

Moneyball is about the backroom staff of a baseball team who tried to revolutionise the sport by using sabermetrics for analysing and buying players.

The story follows Oakland manager Billy Beane and his protégé Peter Brand as they use maths and statistics to build a squad with their limited budget. Moneyball does a remarkable job in making people more interested in baseball administration. Also, you don't have to know how baseball works to enjoy the film.

Field of Dreams

Field of Dreams combines sports with fantasy, and the result is breath-taking.

Here, a farmer hears a voice telling him to build a baseball diamond in his field and baseball legends will come and play in it if he makes it. The movie combines mysticism with the love of baseball.

Despite having a plot revolving around baseball legends, the stars of this movie are clearly the commoners. The film does a brilliant job at portraying people's love for sports and combines that with a healthy dose of fantasy.

Goal!

The ultimate football movie or the only decent football movie for the masses, Goal!, tells the story of Santiago Muñez, a young Mexican football player, who never gives up on his dreams and ends up playing for Newcastle United.

Despite having almost every single cliché of the sports movie genre, Goal! manages to be an excellent watch. The atmosphere paired with a fantastic soundtrack and cinematography does a good job emulating the environment surrounding a Premier League club.

The Rocky Series

There are nine movies in the Rocky series if you include the Creed movies. Some of them are great, some of them not so much. However, the tale of Rocky Balboa as he goes from an underdog facing Apollo Creed to becoming a world class boxer to training Apollo's son is worth experiencing.

The story of Rocky Balboa is inspiring, moving and unforgettable. The Rocky series has its flaws, but at the end of the day, the movies do more than enough to cement their place in history as one of the best movie franchises out there.

Syed Tamjid Tazwar likes Spiderman. Contact him at syedtazwartamjid@gmail.com