The trailer for “The Smashing Machine” — the Dwayne Johnson vehicle about MMA fighter Mark Kerr — dropped Tuesday, and while these are designed to show the fillet of a movie, it’s easy to see why Johnson is generating some early Oscar buzz. Come Christmas, we will also have “Marty Supreme,” starring Timothée Chalamet, loosely based on table tennis icon Marty Reisman.
It is a reminder that not all sports movies have to revolve around the usual mainstream sports. Every time you see a list of best sports movies, the usual suspects appear — “Hoosiers,” “Bull Durham,” “Any Given Sunday,” “Slap Shot,” “Rocky” — but we do have a rich tapestry of the genre that exists outside the classic subjects (for the purpose of this list: no baseball, football, hockey, basketball, boxing, track and field or horse racing).
Here’s one man’s Top 20 such movies (with helping hands from the Post’s Ministers of Pop Culture, Peter Botte and Mark Hale). Alternate selections are welcome!
1. “Rounders” (poker): We can (pardon the pun) go round and round on whether Texas Hold ’em is a sport, but it says here it is, and since it’s already on the short list of best films of the past 30 years, it’s also a fine candidate for the top of this list. And so it is.
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