Bad News Bears

Bad News Bears is a 2005 comedy about Morris Buttermaker, a former minor league baseball player whose career ended in disgrace and who now spends his days drinking. His lawyer arranges a coaching job for him with the Bears, a struggling Little League team made up of uncoordinated and unmotivated kids. Buttermaker takes the position for the money rather than any love of the game, but his relationship with the players gradually changes both the team and his own outlook, and the Bears set their sights on the rival Yankees and their arrogant coach. The film is a remake of the 1976 movie of the same name.

Richard Linklater directed, and the screenplay is credited to Bill Lancaster with Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. It was the ninth film in Linklater's directing career in chronological order, coming between Before Sunset and A Scanner Darkly. Billy Bob Thornton plays Buttermaker, with Greg Kinnear as Roy Bullock, Marcia Gay Harden as Liz Whitewood, Sammi Kane Kraft as Amanda Whurlitzer, Ridge Canipe as Toby Whitewood and Brandon Craggs as Mike Engelberg. The credited cast runs to 62 names.

Made for a budget of 30 million dollars, the film took in about 34 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 5.8 from roughly 24,000 votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 5.8 from around 303 votes. A film critics' rating of 5.7 from 164 reviews places it close to both audience scores.