Seabiscuit

Three broken men come together during the Depression: Charles Howard, a car dealer who has lost his son and his fortune; Tom Smith, an old trainer nobody will hire; and Red Pollard, a jockey blind in one eye whose family left him at a stable. What they have is a short-legged racehorse everyone has written off. Seabiscuit starting to win becomes a national event. Gary Ross wrote and directed. The source is Laura Hillenbrand's 1999 book Seabiscuit: An American Legend. Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Banks and William H. Macy are in the cast. The racing scenes hold up because of a casting decision: Ross used real jockeys. George Woolf is played by Gary Stevens, a Hall of Fame rider. It took 148.3 million dollars against an 87 million budget. At the 76th Academy Awards it was nominated in seven categories including Best Picture and won none; six of them went to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Who it is for: viewers who like sports drama and Depression-era America. Who it is not for: anyone wanting distance. The film is built on American hope and never lets the tone go.