Been to the movies lately? If so, the odds are that you have seen something that has a sports theme, or at least is sports-related.

For increasingly sport is the buzzword for the blockbusters of the silver screen, as the number of recent or upcoming releases testify.

Perhaps it is the pure drama, intrigue, occasional beauty laced with violence and a whiff of corruption and scandal that makes sport such an attractive genre for Hollywood - or Pinewood.

You could argue that it has been so since the nine-minute chariot race in Ben Hur, as portrayed by Charlton Heston in 1959, became one of cinema's most famous sequences

The number of sporting flicks runs into hundreds. Readily springing to mind are Chariots of Fire, Field of Dreams, Seabiscuit, Slap Shot, Cool Runnings and numerous boxing epics ranging from The Harder They Fall to Rocky 1-5 via Somebody Up There Likes Me, Body and Soul, Champ, Miliion Dollar Baby, Cinderella Man, Raging Bull, and Grudge Match.

Over the past two years almost a dozen films featuring sports from boxing and running to motor racing and wrestling have been big box office here and in the United States.

These include Unbroken, a chronicle of the life of Louis Zamperini an Olympic wrestler who was taken prisoner by Japanese forces during World War 1; Foxcatcher, a taut biographical drama based on the real life murder in 1996 of Olympic gold medal winning wrestler Dave Schultz by coach John du Pont, and Rush, which depicts the 1970's Formula 1 rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda.

Sport related movies have become huge box office hits with the likes of Rocky Balboa stealing the limelight on numerous occasions ©Getty Images



There is hardly a sport, or a famous sporting incident, that has not been dramatised for the big screen.

Which is why we should not be surprised to discover there is to be a re-make of The Eagle Has Landed.

The original, made in 1976 starred Michael Caine and was based on the Jack Higgins novel  about a wartime German plot to kidnap Winston Churchill.

However this Eagle is not Churchill, but one Eddie Edwards, the tail-end-Charlie of ski jumping who became a global superstar for finishing last in the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Producer Matthew Vaughn says the idea is to make a film about not-so-Fast Eddie in the context of the musical Billy Elliot and Cool Runnings, the true but unlikely story of the Jamaican bobsled team.

Several actors are said to be in talks to play the Cheltenham plaster who much to the discomfort of the British Olympic Association, remains the most unlikely sporting icon of our time.

Among those who might portray the Eagle who dared to dream is Daniel Kaluuya - who, oddly, is black. Ah well, that's showbiz for you.

Edwards' personal choice is said to be Rupert Grint, who, after starring in the Harry Potter epics, appeared in the 2012 anti-war film Into The White, which seems rather appropriate.

Filming is due to begin in Germany and Austria in March and Garry Barlow  is in negotiations about writing a theme song. Maybe he could revive Take That's Jump, or alternatively We All Fall Down.

A movie is soon to be made on British Olympic hero Eddie the Eagle who won the hearts of the British public after coming last at the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary ©Getty Images



We also hear that Sylvester Stallone is to bring Rocky out of retirement in another new movie. He won't back in the ring but training the grandson of Apollo Creed, his first foe.

One of the opponents of young Adonis Creed will be played by the British cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew, from Liverpool, and another by current World Boxing Association (WBA) super middleweight champion Andre Ward, the last American to win an Olympic boxing gold medal in 2004.

Rocky is not for real of course, But Muhammad Ali certainly is,which brings me to the best boxing movie I have seen in years.

It is not the first film about Ali, and surely won't be the last, but it is by far the best.

Called I Am Ali, it paints a wonderfully informative portrait of the life and times of the standout sporting showman of all time..

Ali is now in the dreadfully restrictive grip of Parkinson's, so the film relies on personal video clips and recordings of his very voluble past, providing a magnificent insight into the world's greatest-ever sports personality and what made him the man he was-and still is.

It revealed many things that even those of us fortunate enough to have followed him around the world never knew. The private side of a very public persona.

It is not so much Ali the ringmaster but what went on behind the circus

This is a man who lit up so many lives but led such a complicated and controversial one himself. We all knew of his philandering yet somehow he still managed to be a loving family man despite serial bouts of infidelity.

I Am Ali, a movie depicting the life of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, brings in depth interviews from Ali's daughters Maryum (left) and Hana (right) ©Getty Images



The film shows touching moments with his daughters when they were tots and interviews with them now, as well as his only son Muhammad jnr. They talk movingly of their father's tenderness and how he is coping with the greatest fight of his life.

"My father has a lot of sides," confides daughter Maryum. "You hear about the fights but you don't hear that much about family or what they mean to him."

His daughters say Ali, now 72 and living in Phoenix Arizona where the air is clean, the weather balmy and visitors are few, laughs at reports that he is on his deathbed.  "He enjoys his llfe and is clear-minded," says Maryum. "He still loves being talked about. "He doesn't have dementia, is not bedridden and is not in physical pain. He is exactly the same person inside as he has always been.

"He is up every day watching westerns or Elvis movies or those about himself. He just loves to watch himself."

For those of us who loved watching him, I Am Ali, which is also available on Blu-Ray, DFD and Digital Download, brings back so many delightful memories of following that circus as he shook up the world.

One of my favourite moments came in Dublin when we flew to interview him before a fight only to be met at the hotel by his trainer, the late Angelo Dundee, who apologetically informed us that Ali was flu stricken and had retired to his room where he was being treated by a doctor. "Hell, Angie," we said. " We only needed to talk with him for a few minutes.

"No chance," replied Dundee. "He never talks to anyone for less than an hour!"

He called Ali's room and grinned." The champ says to go on up."

We did, and emerged some hour and a half later, notebooks bulging.

What a star - and one that will always outshine any movie ever made about him.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.