Excellent movie about female competition and the Olympics.

Besides the notions it portrays and explores whether in sport or tolerance, there is nothing much in the plot to be offered. Essentially it's just another sport drama with the same predictable series of events. Personal Best is however redeemed by its ending.

Give it your personal best Mariel Hemingway, Scott Glenn, and Patrice Donnelly The Olympic Trials take place in 1976 Sprinter Chris Cahill is making it to the big leagues as a professional runner Her competition is Tory Skinner They both start to form a friendship but it becomes romantic which both of them didn't count on Add that to Chris' new coach Terry which also puts a strain on things; she has to choose whether to beat her at the running competition or let it slide Hemingway and Donnelly are a dime a dozen together The movie feels a tad stretched out and there's way too much emphasis on the human drama If the sport itself was more influenced I wouldn't mind so much But the movie is to be commended for its portrayal of LGBTQ athletes and how a woman's body should be viewed taking the sport seriously

When the movie Personal Best first came out at the theater I had went to see it right away and that I have always adored Merle Hemmingway's, first class acting and that part in Personal Best too where she had gotten food poising from that fast Greek food cart. That was the bomb! acting; Yea Love it! M.J.Q.

Captivating and realistic look at athletes in training for the Olympics track and field events. Excellent performances from all 4 of the leads. One of the best sports movies ever, IMHO.

Its great and Mariel Hemingway is fantastic, the rewritten ending is really effective as well.

The best sports movie ever made!

Mariel Hemingway gives a really good performance, it's a real shame her career wasn't bigger than it was. Good film.

No, but I'm Gonna! There are probably people who think it is hypocritical to simultaneously condemn the mass media for pretending that bisexuality doesn't exist and for ending every story about a lesbian relationship (or as near to every story as to make no difference!) with one of the women arm-in-arm with a man. (Yes, this is a spoiler, but it's a spoiler that I saw coming before I turned on the movie and certainly before we got to the end.) The issue is that these movies play lesbianism as a phase that some girls go through, not the way they are and the kind of life they're always going to lead. I don't dispute that I've known women--or, more accurately, teenaged girls--who did the "bi because it's fashionable" thing for a couple of years in high school or college. However, I have known a lot more who are still not attracted to men, ten or twenty years later. This gets into the whole weird straight-men-watching-lesbian-porn thing, which most women don't understand, either. Chris Cahill (Mariel Hemingway) is a hurdler. She catches the eye of Tory Skinner (Patrice Donnelly), who is pretty sure that, with the right coaching, Chris could make the 1980 Olympic track team. Oh, also, she starts sleeping with Chris. But she and Chris convince the Cahill family, including her father (Larry Pennell) and coach, but Tory's coach, Terry Tingloff (Scott Glenn), is a harder sell. However, when he finally deigns to give Chris a chance, he discovers that she really is that good. He sees her dedication to Tory as being a bad thing--not because Tory is a woman but because Tory is a distraction. Both women put their focus and drive into the sport and each other. Then, Terry decides that Chris needs to be a pentathlete, like Tory, and things get even more complicated. They are already in the process of breaking up when Chris takes some training advice from Tory--and dislocates her knee. And while she's recovering, she meets Denny Stites (Kenny Moore). Almost all the actors in this movie were actually athletes. Jodi Anderson, who played Nadia "Pooch" Anderson in the film, actually won the event in the real world that is the climax of this film. (And, of course, had to deal with the disappointment that the characters experienced; the film had to be rewritten when the US boycotted the 1980 Olympics!) The only three I'm sure were professional actors were Hemingway, Glenn, and Jim Moody, who played assistant coach Roscoe Travis and who was also in [i]Fame![/i] as the drama teacher. It was actually kind of surprising, because I thought they were better actors than athletes usually are. Then again, all a lot of them really had to do was what they did anyway--run, jump, and so forth. It's a lot easier to get away with using athletes in a sports film than in any other kind of film, I guess. After all, they don't even really have to act, for the most part. Anderson gets maybe a dozen lines. I was disturbed, however, by a lot of the casual prejudice in the film. It isn't just that a coach tells an athlete whom he knows was in a long-term homosexual relationship a crude joke about a gay stereotype, though that's certainly part of it. There's also a fairly awful dirty joke that is also extremely racist. I don't feel I know enough to specify exactly where all this comes from, though. Is it the fact that the film was released in 1982? I don't have a lot of memories of prejudices in that era (I turned six that year), but I've consumed a lot of culture from that era and believe that it was considerably more prejudiced that would be acceptable now. It is possible, too, that it's the hazard of being in a small, insular group. I don't want to claim that "all jocks" believe any one thing any more than I want to claim that, well, all Chinese people have "slant eyes and buck teeth," but it is well established that the more you connect with your friends, the easier it is to look down on people outside the group. I understand why this movie is a Classic of Gay Cinema (TM). Literally no one in the movie judges Chris for having been in a relationship with Tory. Terry does judge her for how she's letting it control the rest of her life--he believes that it's detrimental to her athletics, which he considers more important. However, I get the impression that he'd act the same way if Denny were the one causing problems. What's pleasing is that Denny doesn't seem to care, either. It's hard to keep track of time in this movie, but it starts with the trials for the 1976 Olympic team and ends with trials for what is, let's face it, an honourary position on an Olympic team four years later that wasn't going anywhere. Chris and Tory were together for most of the time between those two. Denny doesn't care, because what matters to him is that Chris is faithful to him now. I like that attitude, even if I dislike the fact that she ends up with Denny in the first place.

Man is this weird. I feel like they were trying to make some odd soft core porn. Good ending though.

exhilarating ending, an all-through a gripping watch. there was love, friendship, sportsmanship, betrayal ... and then there were all those ridiculously toned bods. the best sports movie ever on my list.

A truly unique film, both of its time and today as well. I know I've never seen a film quite like it. The filmmaking is a bit rough and choppy in spots, but it is the story, characters, and performances win the day.

This film is beautifully constructed in nearly every way. Competitive behavior has rarely been so intelligently dissected in film. It often seems like a documentary and has some dreamlike images. Almost makes me wish I could go back to the late '70s. The simplicity and directness of the presentation is very appealing and the performances are very natural.

I'm dying for the bluray of this.

OK, ish. Had the potential to make a great social statement, but falls back on simply being a sports movie. Story is OK, but sluggish in pace and not overly engaging.

I liked some parts but I have to say it moves pretty slowly at times. The lesbian subtext was pretty interesting between the two main leads. The storyline overall was mixed up and hard to understand at times. It's still worth seeing, though!

This is an interesting little film. Robert Towne produces some interesting direction. It's nice to see the female body treated as that of an athlete as opposed to being fetishized as it usually is when the female body is on display. Here there are a great deal of shots focusing on their muscles and the moving, working body which is fantastic. Towne doesn't throw anything in the viewers face. Even though the initial central relationship of the film is a lesbian one, he always treats it as nothing more than it is. It's not sensational or overly dramatic, it's matter of fact and real, the exploration of a relationship that just happens to be between two women. This is Personal Best's strength, placing it far before its time as even now this kind of straight forward and normalizing of same sex relationships is still not particularly common in the media.

Realistic approach athletic film.

Loved it! I enjoy really good sports movies, which means that I don't get to enjoy many sports movies because there are not that many good ones out there. Similarly, I am finding the same with lesbian romances - there just aren't that many really good ones; that, or I'm picking the wrong ones to watch. But this hit the mark on both counts - a beautifully made film, no melodrama, not especially romantic, but sensitive, touching and left me feeling for both main characters. Wonderfully acted. I will definitely watch this again.

If this is Robert Towne's "Personal Best," I'd hate to see the guy's personal worst! He is an overrated writer and proves herein to be a connect-the-dots director. Murial Hemingway can play naïve and pretty just fine, but the picture's only real redemption lies in Michael Chapman's textured photography.