McFarland, USA

This is a poignant, uplifting tale, even though there's a certain predictability in movies about sports underdogs. (You're not going to expect them to lose if someone has bothered to make a movie about them.) Some may quibble that this is another "white savior" movie, but it's firmly not. Coach White had never even coached cross country before creating the team at McFarland; he's winging it just as much as the boys, who really only know how to run fast at first -- with no notion of pacing or hill and speed work. The team changes and challenges the coach just as much as he guides and pushes them to look beyond the stereotypes of "pickers" and see what gifts hard work and discipline are -- not only in running, but in life. Costner is in fine form as a grumpy older coach unsure of what to make of his unfamiliar surroundings and his team full of boys who've been working fields since they were 10 or 11.

And the boys -- it's hard not to fall in love with the lot of them, especially Pratts' broody Thomas (who naturally falls for Coach White's daughter) and eternal optimist Danny Diaz, who never gives up, despite being easily 30 pounds heavier than his brothers and teammates. You just know that Danny is going to save the day -- why else would the filmmakers bother to show him huffing and puffing over "hills" (McFarland has no natural hills, so they run over covered mounds of almond husks)? But that doesn't mean you don't tear up when it finally happens. The best part of the movie, though, isn't just the sports: it's that the filmmakers don't portray the community as in need of the White family's generosity. To the contrary, it's the abuelitas and mamas who come to the rescue when Coach White flakes on his daughter's 15th birthday. The community puts on a touching quinceañera for her, making it clear that White -- whom the kids affectionately call Blanco -- is one of them. Yes, this is a familiar story -- most sports movies are -- but see for yourself what it means to be American in the Fruit Bowl of California, where running together and running fast lead a bunch of boys to a sense of accomplishment and a coach to a sense of home.