Reel champions: The Post doles out its all-time Sports Oscars

With the Super Bowl and NBA All-Star Games behind us, and the Academy Awards looming on Sunday, it brings to mind two of the greatest forms of entertainment: sports and cinema.

Though these Oscars will be notably light on sports movies, The Post took a look back at sports movies of the past to pick out the best of the best.

Many like The Natural and Field of Dreams are nostalgic, longing for a bygone era that hasnt existed in years, if it ever existed outside our dreams. Many have clear-cut winners and losers, heroes and villains. But the best ones are often so much more than that.

If sports are a microcosm of life, life isnt fair. Sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win, you really lose. The best sports movies show people in all their flaws the anger of Raging Bull, the self-destruction of The Hustler, the guilt of On the Waterfront. In short, theyre human.

There are plenty of great pictures and performances from which to choose. The Post limited the field to just movies that focused primarily on sports, though some exceptions were made for individuals who played sports figures in what were deemed non-sports movies. Now, the envelopes, please.

Rocky

The ultimate underdog Rocky pulled off the upset against sports movie heavyweights Hoosiers and Raging Bull. Sylvester Stallone got the inspiration for the screenplay after watching the heavyweight title fight between Bayonnes Chuck Wepner and reigning champ Muhammad Ali, and insisted he play the lead. Good call.

Stallone, who trained with Jimmy Gambina every day for about five months before shooting, became a star, and the film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, ranked 57th on the American Film Institutes 100 Years 100 Movies 10th Anniversary Edition.

Stallone got sued by Wepner for a share of the profits and settled in 2006. For the movie that gave us the most-used workout music in history Gonna Fly Now the line Yo, Adrian! and five sequels, its the least he could do.

Nominees: Hoosiers, Raging Bull, Field of Dreams, The Natural, Remember the Titans, The Fighter, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Million Dollar Baby and The Hustler.

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Reel champions: The Post doles out its all-time Sports Oscars