This Sporting Life

★★★★★

Turkish title: Sporcunun hayatı

“He only believed in strength - love was a word he hadn't the power to say.”

1963 · 2 h 14 min

Directed by Lindsay Anderson

Drama

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Cast

Richard Harris Rachel Roberts Alan Badel

Credits

Written by: David Storey

Plot

A miner turns professional rugby league player and rises to fame, but cannot find love with his widowed landlady.

Sinekatalog’s take

Lindsay Anderson's British New Wave classic follows a miner turned violent rugby star. Richard Harris is ferocious and Rachel Roberts heartbreaking in a bruising, fragmented study of masculinity and class.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 7.5 / 10 (7,765 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.

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