Rookie of the Year

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Rookie of the Year

PG

Released Jul 7, 1993

1h 43m

Kids & Family

Comedy

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

41%

Tomatometer

22 Reviews

52%

Popcornmeter

50,000+ Ratings

A freak accident causes 12-year-old Little League player Henry (Thomas Ian Nicholas) to become such a powerful and accurate pitcher that the Chicago Cubs sign the junior high student to a contract. Unprepared for such a high-pressure environment, Henry falters until aging fastballer Chet Steadman (Gary Busey) takes him under his wing and teaches him how to play in the big leagues. Meanwhile, his mother's venal boyfriend (Bruce Altman) tries to sell Henry's contract to a hated opposing team.

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Critics Consensus

Rookie of the Year gets some laughs from its novel premise, but a high strikeout rate on jokes and sentimental fouls keeps this comedy firmly in the minor leagues.

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Hollis Chacona

Austin Chronicle

Rated: 3/5

Jan 1, 2000

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

This movie is not likely to make my list of the year's best, but I can remember those miserable Little League games and so in a modest way I'm grateful for this film. It is pure wish-fulfillment, 40 years after I needed it.

Rated: 3/4

Jan 1, 2000

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Danielle Solzman

Solzy at the Movies

Rookie of the Year may feature a preposterous premise but it still remains an entertaining baseball comedy three decades later.

Rated: 4/5

Jul 23, 2023

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Preston Barta

Fresh Fiction

‘Rookie of the Year’ doesn’t deserve the critical bench after 30 years. It’s an ace family sports movie!

Mar 7, 2023

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Malcolm Johnson

Hartford Courant

Inning after inning, Rookie of the Year goes down swinging, ignominiously. It's strictly bush league stuff.

Jun 4, 2018

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Quentin Curtis

Independent on Sunday

If you don't know baseball, you won't understand the climax. If you do, you'll find it preposterous.

Dec 6, 2017

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Audience Member

Fun family movie and a timeless classic. It's been three decades since I first watched it and it's every bit as enjoyable to me now as it was when I was a kid.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/25/25

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Jacob B

Very much a film meant to appeal to young audiences with some of the overacting from Daniel Stern and some of the minor characters and its funky, buttlovin' dialogue as well as its premise but the acting is sincere, some of the jokes work and it isn't without its moments of charm. True, at the end of the day, Rookie of the Year is just a standard baseball film released back during that trend's early '90s heyday that's notable nowadays for having its star be one of the main characters from American Pie but it's still a more compelling watch than Angels in the Outfield.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/08/25

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Audience Member

Don’t y’all hate the “Main-character-gets-superpowers-but-loses-them-at-the-end-of-the-movie” trope? Because I most certainly do. Not only is the plot of this movie so insanely generic, but the movie itself is just so boring, especially when you factor in the fact that I myself am not a baseball fan. What’s worse is that Dreamworks Animation, almost exactly 2 decades later, decided to make a film that follows this exact same story structure, and that movie is Turbo. Which, by the way, is just as bad as this one. I highly recommend you don’t watch this film and instead watch something with more wit put into it than this mess.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

03/28/25

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Ed R

Classic nostalgia! Fun plot! Cheesy humor and a great movie for the family!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

10/05/24

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Jeff K

I can't believe this movie has such a low score. It is one of my all time favorite childhood movies.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/16/24

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Kanale K

One of the best baseball movie that I've ever seen

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

09/12/23

Full Review

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Daniel Stern

Director

Thomas Ian Nicholas

Henry Rowengartner

Gary Busey

Chet Steadman

Albert Hall

Sal Martinella

Amy Morton

Mary Rowengartner

Dan Hedaya

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Synopsis

A freak accident causes 12-year-old Little League player Henry (Thomas Ian Nicholas) to become such a powerful and accurate pitcher that the Chicago Cubs sign the junior high student to a contract. Unprepared for such a high-pressure environment, Henry falters until aging fastballer Chet Steadman (Gary Busey) takes him under his wing and teaches him how to play in the big leagues. Meanwhile, his mother's venal boyfriend (Bruce Altman) tries to sell Henry's contract to a hated opposing team.

Director: Daniel Stern
Producer: Robert Harper
Screenwriter: Sam Harper
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Production Co: 20th Century Fox
Rating: PG
Genre: Kids & Family, Comedy
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jul 7, 1993, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Dec 25, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA): $53.1M
Runtime: 1h 43m

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