Seabiscuit

Released 2003
Stars Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, Tobey Maguire, William H. Macy, Elizabeth Banks, Gary Stevens
Directed by Gary Ross

Seabiscuit was a small horse with a lazy side. Sleeping and eating were his favorite occupations early in life, and he wasn't particularly well-behaved. That was before he met three men who would shape him into the best-loved sports legend of the 1930s: the owner Charles Howard, who had a knack for spotting potential in outcasts, the trainer Tom Smith, who was called a screwball for thinking he could heal horses other trainers would have shot, and the jockey Red Pollard, who started out as an exercise boy and stable cleaner because in the Depression he would settle for anything.

"Seabiscuit," based on the best-seller by Laura Hillenbrand, tells the stories of these three men and the horse against the backdrop of the times. The Depression had brought America to its knees. The nation needed something to believe in. And in the somewhat simplified calculus of the movie, both Seabiscuit and Roosevelt's New Deal, more or less in that order, were a shot in the American arm. If an underdog like Seabiscuit could win against larger and more famous horses with distinguished pedigrees, then maybe there was a chance for anyone

Summary by Roger Ebert

"Seabiscuit" is the definition of a feel-good movie. It tells a parallel story between depression-era America and a handful of down and out Americans (one of them being a horse). Juxtaposing these stories with the progression of the depression gives the overall movie the weight it needs to make us care about a racehorse, and it succeeded in making me care. I cared about all three of the men and this spunky little horse who leaned on each other to find success when they were all destined for the glue factory. --Bill Alward, February 17, 2004