It's well-written and directed, and avoids being labeled as an outright "family comedy."

| May 9, 2023

Still one of the scrappiest underdog movies...

| Original Score: B+ | May 2, 2023

A sublime, unique film that finds a way to serve its agitation with superbly scripted dry humor and richly defined characters.

| Original Score: A | Sep 6, 2021

Rather than put people from all races in a pressure cooker and supply them with crap dialogue intended to tread on liberal, white guilt, The Bad News Bears flips a refreshing bird to propriety.

| Aug 5, 2020

Tatum's Paper Moon was no fluke. She's a born actress.

| Nov 15, 2019

A terrifically easygoing film, and the best kind of crowdpleaser.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 26, 2019

A film was released that got everything beautifully, hilariously and even painfully right.

| May 30, 2018

At a time when sports movies can't be just sports movies anymore, it's both startling and soothing to take a second look at Michael Ritchie's Little League comedy The Bad News Bears.

| May 30, 2018

The emotional complexity of this subtext gives the film a gravity and resonance that belies the simplicity of the story

| Aug 24, 2017

A small winner.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 6, 2014

[VIDEO ESSAY] Rife with every non-politically-correct social tic that '70s America had to offer, "The Bad News Bears" (1976) is a sports comedy that serves as a cultural benchmark.

| Original Score: A+ | Sep 8, 2012

Surprisingly, improbably, The Bad News Bears is the year's funniest movie.

| Aug 3, 2008

If all kids' movies were like this, you wouldn't need to drag parents to the multiplexes.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 3, 2008

Michael Ritchie keeps his dead-end cynicism in check and produces a genuinely funny comedy about a Little League team managed by a lovably drunken Walter Matthau.

| Mar 14, 2007

This charming, funny film takes a gentle poke at Little League baseball and the American obsession with winning.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 14, 2007

An extremely funny adult-child comedy film.

| Mar 14, 2007

Matthau's perfectly restrained, brilliantly comic performance holds it together.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 26, 2006

Amiably engrossing satire on the 'win ethic' that offers a take-it-or-leave-it approach to its serious points about enforcing precociousness on kids, but consistently delights with its panoramic comic invention.

| Jan 26, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 4, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 11, 2005