A lot of the best sports movies share the same structure. They tell a story—full of great writing, directing, characters, and epic music—about an athlete or team seeking either glory, redemption, or vindication via competition. Along the way they face obstacles conspiring to prevent them from success, which is not just defined by winning. It’s about trying to prove to both themselves and others they have greatness in them. That quests then culminates in an emotional, intense final game against an imposing opponent. To prevail the hero must draw on all their training, strength, pain, failures, hopes, and dreams to push themselves to a place they’ve never reached before.
That description applies to many of the genre’s most celebrated entries. It’s the premise of Rocky, The Natural, Hoosiers, Major League, Breaking Away, The Bad News Bears, Vision Quest, Breaking Away, A League of Their Own, Rudy, and countless others. Most also feature an underdog for one very obvious, very good reason: it’s more fun to root for them. All of which perfectly describes A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ first season. HBO’s prequel is not just another tale about knights and villains in the Realm. It’s “the great Westeros sports movie.”
A noble, lowborn orphan from Flea Bottom—an unknown entrant who squired for a lowly, forgotten hedge knight—is as perfect a sports movie protagonist as you will ever find. Dunk is the Seven Kingdoms’ Rocky Balboa. Only if Rocky grew up in a literal sewer and trained in a dirty alley rather than a gym. Dunk is also genuinely good and noble. He’s the best of the best in a world where being good can get you killed. He’s not just easy to root for. He’s the only person we want to see win even though we have no reason to think he can. Like all great heroes, he also has the perfect antagonist, a smug, prince of the crown who is everything Dunk is not. Having those two as opponents is everything you’d want from a sports movie.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms didn’t suddenly become a sports movie with the Trial of Seven, though. The entire season has been one in all but name. Dunk’s story began when he decided to pursue greatness at the Tourney of Ashford. It was a chance to show, even for a brief moment, he was among Westeros’ best warriors. In doing so hoped to elevate his lot in life. Because while the Realm might not have professional sports, it still features world class athletes. And they name their “champion” on a tourney field, where highborn and lowborn alike compete under the same rules. Win there and you can “win” at life.
Dunk’s upset stomach showed he knew what awaited him at Ashford, because even honorable jousting is highly dangerous. But he did not enter the lists expecting to die. He expected to compete as best he could against the best. And he did so even though he knew he’d be outclassed. His goal was not to be standing at the end, but to stand period, a goal with as more meaning than any trophy could bestow on an athlete.
Once Dunk arrived at the tourney, in great sports movie fashion, he started to doubt himself. Anxiety got the best of him as he saw firsthand exactly what he was up against. He was going to face knights with formal training, fancy armor, and the backing of the crowd. But competition is just as much about mental fortitude as it is about physical prowess, and Ser Duncan the Tall resolved to rise above self-doubt. He became determined, even though he remained nervous, to show those knights who he was. And he wanted do do that so they would know who Ser Arlan had been.
The late hedge knight, though flawed, believed in something real. He had taught Dunk right and wrong, as well as everything he knew about both about life and combat. And whether boxing, playing baseball, or jousting, even the best athletes need coaches to teach and inspire them. They’re just as important to a great sports movie as the players.
Most non-boxing/combat sports movies don’t lead to actual life and death situations, of course. (Except the original Rollerball, which I beg you to watch.) But that’s also what makes A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ de facto entry in the genre so remarkable. Most sports movies don’t take place in a fantasy realm ruled by former dragonlords where combat is an acceptable system of justice. If you think a championship game brings out the best in a competitor, imagine what they would do if the loser literally died. Few sports movies ever have stakes quite like this.
One more strike from Aerion Brightflame and Ser Duncan might bled out. Instead he achieved a truly improbable victory, one of the most unlikely in the Realm’s history. There hadn’t been a Trial of Seven in a century. One side featured two Targaryen princes hell bent on victory, three members of the Kingsguard, and a seasoned, ambitious knight willing to do anything for glory. The other was headlined by a hedge knight who’d never received formal training from a Master-at-Arms or even competed in a tourney. His teammates included another green boy who’d been knighted five minutes earlier and one with a broken leg. Even with Prince Daeron taking a dive, this was about as big a mismatch as you could see.
But what made that Trial of Seven truly special was not that Dunk got his improbably victory. It was how he won. The very best sports movies, even when you’ve seen them a hundred time, make you think for a brief moment the hero will lose. How can they win against such overwhelming odds? Against everything in life that has conspired against them, that has held them back, that has made themselves doubt they will ever achieve anything? Especially when, even if we hate them personally, a great competitor stands in their way? That doubt, so tangible it puts a knot in your own stomach, is what makes the resulting achievement mean so much more.
And that often only happens when our protagonist digs deeper than they ever have by drawing on a personal strength they always hoped they had without ever knowing if they did. Whether they do so for themselves, an idea, someone the love, someone they lost, or for all the someones who never had this chance, that athlete does the one thing they seems impossible at that exact moment. It’s the one thing they must do when no one thinks they can, when their mind and body are both begging them to give in: “get up.”
If you love sports movies you can watch them a million times and never get tired of those moments. I’ll never tire of hearing Egg plead for Ser Duncan to “get up,” the very same words his mentor Ser Arlan had ever spoke to Dunk, just as I’ll never tire of watching Roy Hobbs tell Bobby to pick him out a winner. Or of seeing Norman Dale tell his team he loves them. Of watching Jake Taylor call his shot before laying down a perfect bunt. Watching Dunk pull himself back from the brink and rising from the mud against his unjust royal accusers, just as he did from the streets of Flea Bottom? Seven bloody hells, it gives me chills just typing it.
“Get up.” I’ve watched a whole lot of sports movies in my life. I love them. And it doesn’t get any better than that. Because Dunk’s story, though still wholly a Westeros story, encapsulates everything I love about this genre. Sports movies are never just about a single competition or event. They’re about people who spend their whole lives building to that one moment. It’s the culmination of a lifetime, an achievement that seemed impossible until the very moment it wasn’t.
When done well, there’s nothing like it. And A Knight of the the Seven Kingdoms, with its underdog hedge knight, has done it perfectly even if Westeros doesn’t know what a sports movie is.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He also really hopes you’ll watch Vision Quest. And Breaking Away. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermikeOpens in a new tabOpens in a new tab. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.