12 Mighty Orphans

12 Mighty Orphans (2021) — watch online on iFILM, a true-story sports drama set during the Great Depression. Directed by Ty Roberts, the film stars Luke Wilson, Martin Sheen, and Treat Williams.

Rusty Russell is a World War I veteran who takes a coaching job at a Texas orphanage with no budget, no equipment, and a roster of scrawny, underfed kids nobody else would draft. Against teams from well-funded schools, his twelve boys start winning. By the mid-1930s their run toward the state championship had made national news — Depression-era America adopted them as proof that starting with nothing wasn't the same as having no shot.

Russell carries his own secret into that orphanage: he was abandoned there as a child. The film is a story about football, yes, but also about what a man does when the place that broke him is the same place he has to fix. Watch 12 Mighty Orphans (2021) online on iFILM.