Undefeated

PG-13

Released Feb 17, 2012

1h 53m

Documentary

List

96%

101 Reviews

Tomatometer

89%

5,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Since its founding in 1899, Manassas High School in North Memphis has never had a football team win a playoff game. In 2004, former high-school coach Bill Courtney offers to help turn the Manassas Tigers around. Nurturing his players' physical and emotional strengths, Courtney's efforts pay off in 2009, when the Tigers, led by their star player O.C., seem to have a chance to break their school's 110-year losing streak and finally win a playoff game.

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Critics Consensus

It covers familiar sports documentary territory, but Undefeated proves there are still powerful stories to be told on the high school gridiron.

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Kyle M

Touched down like a spiritual successor to "Hoop Dreams" on the football field whereas it reinforces the genre's source of formulaically struggling inspiration stemmed from another powerful story with seen developments. But while the documentary doesn't add anything new besides finding a worthwhile occurring realism, what signifies this picture is according to its tagline that acts to inspire focus towards the character within not the physical front. (B+)

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

05/09/23

Full Review

Andrew A

This isn't Friday Night Lights. This is what high school football looks like for a lot of schools around the country. Low funding and a lot of immature guys that come from poverty and sub-optimal home-lives. And a rare coach who cares a ton about teaching these young men invaluable lessons of life. I'm a little biased because I was a lost kid on a bad path and I found football and it changed me. It's the reason I learned what it really means to commit to something, what it means to work, what it means to persevere, and what it means to really try at something. It's a hard-ass game and teaches hard-ass lessons. It's the reason I went to college and ultimately the only reason I was able to leave my hometown and get a doctorate degree and make something of myself. It's the greatest game ever invented. I share all of that to disclose that I have a bias here. But this movie isn't really about football. It's about a coach who gives countless hours of his life to try and help under-privileged young men who need him and don't always appreciate him. And the value of high school sports. It's not a movie. There's no fairy-tale, generic Walt Disney ending for the majority of the kids here. But the point of this documentary is how we learn more about ourselves in our failures than our successes. It's a great watch for anyone, not just football fans.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

11/25/20

Full Review

Audience Member

powerful doc, highly recommended

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/07/23

Full Review

Audience Member

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: A documentary about an inner-city Memphis football team, head coach Bill Courtney attempts to turn a struggling program around to win a playoff game for the first time in school history. With a team full of minority, low-income, low-opportunity players, Coach Courtney is forced to make seemingly endless sacrifices in order to constantly supervise his team both on and off the field. Super charismatic and entertaining coach on camera with clear values that reflect what's important about the game of football. Undefeated is raw, uncensored, and an inspirational lesson on patience, compassion, and understanding. This doc is a reminder that it's more important to be "undefeated" in life rather than on the football field.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/07/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Very great doc on a HS football team and its true life characters, familiar in my own experiences.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/17/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Don't know how I missed this when it came out because I love HS football movies. This was the most inspirational I've ever seen. It belongs up there with Rudy. To know that there are still people out there like Coach Bill Courtney, restores my faith in humanity. Many many life lessons in this film: (1) All kids are redeemable; (2) To err is human, to forgive devine; (3) No matter what crap life hands you, never feel sorry for yourself. The only thing I disagree with Coach Courtney..., is that adult leaders like him do build character. What a man.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/23/23

Full Review

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Dan Lindsay

Director

T.J. Martin

Director

Bill Courtney

Actor

Ralph Zipper

Executive Producer

Nigel Sinclair

Executive Producer

Guy East

Executive Producer

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Henry Barnes

Guardian

All eyes are on the ball, while the future screams from the sidelines.

Rated: 3/5

Aug 2, 2012

Full Review

Tim Robey

Daily Telegraph (UK)

Undefeated works the whole macho-sentimental template so vigorously and well it's practically a reflexive response to cry foul, but you'd have to find heroic reserves of cynicism not to care at all about the precarious fortunes of these unformed bruisers.

Rated: 4/5

Aug 2, 2012

Full Review

Nigel Andrews

Financial Times

A watchable movie, no question. But perhaps best filed under guilty pleasures.

Rated: 3/5

Aug 2, 2012

Full Review

Richard Propes

TheIndependentCritic.com

Has just about everything you could possibly want from a feature documentary.

Rated: 3.5/4.0

Sep 26, 2020

Full Review

Patrick Gamble

CineVue

The epitome of what a good sports documentary should be.

Rated: 4/5

Jan 31, 2019

Full Review

Pat Padua

DCist

There can be power and comfort in cliché, and let's get this one out of the way: it's not about winning or losing, but how you play the game.

Aug 30, 2018

Full Review

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Synopsis

Since its founding in 1899, Manassas High School in North Memphis has never had a football team win a playoff game. In 2004, former high-school coach Bill Courtney offers to help turn the Manassas Tigers around. Nurturing his players' physical and emotional strengths, Courtney's efforts pay off in 2009, when the Tigers, led by their star player O.C., seem to have a chance to break their school's 110-year losing streak and finally win a playoff game.

Director: Dan Lindsay, T.J. Martin
Producer: Ralph Zipper, Nigel Sinclair, Guy East, Chris Miller, Neeraj Kohli, Paolo Coppola, Jillian Longnecker, Michele Farinola
Distributor: Weinstein Co.
Rating: PG-13 (Some Language)
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Feb 17, 2012, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Dec 5, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $561.1K
Runtime: 1h 53m

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