This Sporting Life

This Sporting Life (1963) is a British drama from director Lindsay Anderson, and you can watch online on iFILM. It's a hard, black-and-white piece of the British New Wave about a coal miner who trades the pit for the rugby pitch. Frank Machin is strong, angry and bullheaded — exactly enough to turn into a club star inside a single season.

Richard Harris makes Frank impossible to look away from: a wrecking ball on the field, mute and clumsy off it. He rents a room from the widow Margaret Hammond (Rachel Roberts), and what grows between them is a raw, halting bond — two people whose pride and grief keep them from ever reaching for each other. The money, the fame and the fans are all there. The tenderness isn't.

Adapted by David Storey from his own novel, the film won Harris the best actor prize at Cannes and earned both him and Roberts Oscar nominations. This isn't an easy night in: slow, physically brutal, honest to the point of cruelty. Stream This Sporting Life (1963) online on iFILM.