Bend It Like Beckham

Bend It Like Beckham follows Jess Bhamra, an eighteen-year-old living with her traditional Indian family in London. Her parents expect her to study law and accept an arranged marriage, while Jess only wants to play football, inspired by Manchester United's David Beckham. When Jules Paxton spots her playing in a park, she invites Jess to join her semi-professional women's team. Jess hides her matches from her family and finds herself drawn to her coach, Joe. As a championship final approaches, Jess must weigh her family's expectations against the sport she loves.

Gurinder Chadha directed and co-wrote the film with Guljit Bindra and Paul Mayeda Berges, following her 2000 feature What's Cooking? and preceding Bride & Prejudice in 2004. Parminder Nagra plays Jess, with Keira Knightley as Jules, Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Joe, and Anupam Kher, Shaheen Khan and Archie Panjabi as the Bhamra family. Made on a budget of about 4 million dollars, it took roughly 77 million dollars worldwide, a strong return for a modestly priced production. Ratings are mixed in tone: on IMDb it holds 6.7 from over 115,000 votes, on TMDB 6.3 from around 2,000, while the critics' rating stands at 7.2 from 158 reviews, so critical approval runs higher than the audience scores.