All the Right Moves Poster

All the Right Moves (1983)

Drama | Sport 
Rayting:   5.9/10 15.8K votes
Country: USA
Language: English
Release date: 21 October 1983

A high school football player desperate for a scholarship and his headstrong coach clash in a dying Pennsylvania steel town.

Movie Trailer

Where to Watch

  • Buy

User Reviews

hall895 27 June 2005

Nothing here you haven't already seen many times before. All the Right Moves is one big cliché from beginning to end. The small mill town where nobody ever amounts to anything. The high school football team that the townspeople take much too seriously. The kid who sees football as his only way out. The girlfriend who is not appreciated because, well, she doesn't play football and nobody in this town cares about anything besides football. The big game that the team just has to win. The setbacks before that big game that will make it much harder for them to do so. The conflict between players and their coach. Secondary characters (but not our hero heaven forbid) making terrible decisions which will destroy their future. The problem our hero faces and the inevitable way that problem will be dealt with. If you can't see very early on how all this is going to turn out, well you obviously haven't seen too many movies. This is about as predictable as movies get.

About the only thing which makes this film even remotely noteworthy are the actors playing the key roles. Tom Cruise is the young football star, Craig T. Nelson his coach and Lea Thompson his girlfriend. Cruise, Nelson and Thompson were obviously destined for bigger and better things. Here, their performances are all fine, with the more seasoned Nelson unsurprisingly being the most convincing. Cruise and Thompson have a rather awkward romance (capped by a rather awkward love scene) but as they're playing young, naive high school kids the awkwardness actually seems to fit. Unfortunately though in the grand scheme of things the actors really don't have much to work with. The characters are unoriginal and clichéd. The story is one we've seen in various incarnations many times before. There's really nothing of note to keep your attention. And the whole thing comes with a sense of inevitability to it that lessens the sense of drama one might otherwise feel. This one will not live long in the memory.

MarieGabrielle 10 September 2006

Fmovies: I will also add that that is not the case now....

Be things as they are, when this film was made it showed a good side of Tom Cruise; neighborhood kid trying to get ahead- no guidance from his father; no trust fund or relatives to give him a hand.

It is somewhat sad to watch this film, or "Born on the Fourth of July" (an excellent film, also) and be misguided by PR trash magazines and gossip. When he was younger, Tom Cruise deserved credit as an actor. I myself would like to write purely about film, but it is sad that, in the U.S. the rumor mills spread gossip and hatred to all areas; suffice it to say, this film has a good story, and Cruise was not as famous at the time, so it is well worth watching. 10/10.

bob the moo 23 November 2001

Stef Djordjevic is one of a team of football players in Pennsylvania that is relying on a scholarship to leave the dying steel town and go to college. The only options open to them in the town are to work in the steel mill which is currently laying off workers. The film shows the many barriers that trap the youngsters in the town.

This is one of Cruise's first films and it is a lot less glossy than many of his star-driven projects now, it's a lot more rough and ready than he would let it be if he made it now. It is a very simple story and a very short film - it basically shows a group of friends trapped in the town who have dreams of more but must overcome obstacles to get to college. Cruise must overcome the team coach's dislike for him to get a recommendation, Penn finds himself with a pregnant girlfriend who he must marry, Paul Carafotes finds himself drawn into crime to make ends meet. The lesson of the film is that it's difficult to break a cycle where you're in an industrial town and are expected to go into the same type of work as your father etc.

The most interesting thing about this is how young all the actors are! We've all got used to their faces now and it's weird seeing how young Cruise, Penn and Lea Thompson once were. The story is OK but is a little clichéd and is all a bit tidy towards the end. The football action is not exciting but I suppose is a muddily realistic representation of small town school sports. The performances are good considering the young cast and Chris Penn and Craig T. Nelson provide the two best roles. Cruise is a little too overplayed and brings a bit too much teenage anger and angst to the role.

Overall it's an interesting film, a little clichéd but OK. Personally I found it a little boring and didn't really care what happened to Cruise but it's not too bad.

dek1158 21 July 2001

All the Right Moves fmovies. A few years ago, I bought the video version of All The Right Moves without having seen it before. I loved it! The characters kept my eyes glued to the screen for the whole 90 minutes.

I emphasized with Stef's internal struggle to rise above his surroundings. Stef, played by one of my fave actors Tom Cruise, is similar to his character Joel from Risky Business. Both Stef and Joel have high hopes for their futures and almost jeopardize them.

As with his character Hayden Fox on the TV series Coach, Craig T. Nelson plays a football coach who is rough around the edges but has the capacity to redeem himself later.

Lea Thompson's Lisa has more value to the movie than just another girlfriend figure. She too has hopes for the future and feels cheated by the athlete-favored scholarship programs. When Stef verbally pushes her away, she doesn't immediately forgive him; she pulls him into her world first.

Nobody (so far) has mentioned the sound track; it's my favorite part of the movie. The songs do a superb job of setting the tone for the given scene. For example, when Stef is rounding second base with Lisa in the car, the bus ride to the big football game, the party, and the end credits. Sometimes, I watch ATRM just to hear "Blue Skies Forever," sung by Frankie Miller.

All the Right Moves is a good film to watch if you like high school football; are expecting an athletic scholarship; or if you don't like your coach. This movie paved the way for other football flicks like Varsity Blues. Look for it on The Family Channel or at used-movie stores.

leczorn 3 July 2011

It took me 28 years to finally get around to seeing this high school football drama, but it was well worth the wait and probably for the best, since I appreciate it far more now at 40 than I could've at 12.

I remember when it came out in late 1983, a few months after Tom Cruise became a star through "Risky Business." Despite a solid publicity campaign, "All the Wrong Moves" failed to reap a huge benefit from Cruise's presence. The movie grossed a modest $17,233,166 at the American box office and quickly faded into obscurity.

Then I saw it in the $3 bin at Big Lots and decided to give it a chance. I'm glad I did, because it's a diamond in the rough; definitely the best high school sports movie I've ever seen. Rather than the usual sports movie clichés, such as the focus on "the big game," this is a heavyweight drama that's about football on the surface but life at the core.

Stefen "Stef" Djordjevic (played by Cruise) resides in the blue collar town of Ampipe, Pennsylvania, where he plays cornerback for the local high school football team. He resides with his older brother, Rick (Gary Graham), and their father (Charles Cioffi), both of whom work in the local steel mill, as does seemingly every man in town. Stef's and Rick's mother is dead and the three Djordjevic men seem to all have a pretty good relationship with each other. And at a couple of points in the latter half of the movie, the father shows great support in the midst of his son's hardships.

Now a senior, Stef is a moderate college prospect and has realistic expectations. Being a mere 5'10" (178 cm) and white, he has no illusions of making the NFL, and being a B student, he has no illusions of getting an academic scholarship. But he hopes to attain a college football scholarship and earn a degree in engineering. Still, he's uncomfortable with the possibility of being far away from his beautiful cheerleader girlfriend, Lisa (Lea Thompson), a junior who adores him, even though she's not a football fan.

Ampipe's next game is at Walnut Heights, who is undefeated and ranked #3 in the state, as well as located in a much wealthier area. Stef and some of his teammates view the game as an opportunity to impress college scouts and break away from what they see as a dead end town. Ampipe is economically struggling and the steel mill is laying off many workers. And the team's tough, no-nonsense head coach, Nickerson (Craig T. Nelson), is also looking beyond the town, pursing college assistant coaching jobs.

Late in the game, with Ampipe trailing 10-7, Stef intercepts a pass and returns it for a touchdown. But shortly afterward, while disobeying Nickerson's order to go after the ball instead of the receiver, Stef commits a crucial pass interference penalty that contributes to his team losing. In the locker room right after the game, he and Nickerson have an argument that results in Stef's dismissal from the team. Nickerson won't even Stef ride home on the team bus and tells him to ride with the cheerleaders.

Instead, he hitches a ride home with some Ampipe fans, who stop at Nickerson's house and vandalize it. Not realizing what they were going to do, Stef unsuccessfully tries to stop it. Nickerson's daughter hears the vandalizing and tells her father, who goes outside and sees the vandals fleeing. It's initially uncertain whether he got a close enough look at Stef.

But the next week, Stef visits

blanche-2 2 August 2005

A younger, different looking Tom Cruise (old jaw/nose?) stars in this movie about a high school student aching to leave his dying steel mill town and study to be an engineer on a football scholarship. He watches his best friend, also on the team, marry his pregnant girlfriend; another member of the football team is arrested for armed robbery; his brother gets laid off from the mill; and his girlfriend (a young, fresh Lea Thompson) complains that no one gives music scholarships, just football ones, and she's going to be stuck in the town. After turning down initial scholarship offers to middle of the road schools, Cruise finds himself blackballed after an incident at his coach's house with which he was only peripherally involved. Off the team, and with the word out that he has an "attitude problem," he sees his dreams turning to dust.

Craig T. Nelson plays the coach and does his usual fine job, and Lea Thompson is a vibrant, passionate Lisa. Cruise here gives a truer performance than usual - I usually find him a very external and not terribly believable actor. In "All The Right Moves," he's sympathetic and heartfelt. I much prefer this to the perfectly handsome, glossy figure he is today. Time to get back to basics, Tom, and get some of those right moves back.

Similar Movies

7.3
Hustle

Hustle 2022

7.4
Jhund

Jhund 2022

8.4
Kaun Pravin Tambe?

Kaun Pravin Tambe? 2022

7.3
Jersey

Jersey 2022

7.0
Rise

Rise 2022

7.4
Jungle Cry

Jungle Cry 2022

5.9
Shabaash Mithu

Shabaash Mithu 2022

7.2
American Underdog

American Underdog 2021


Share Post

Direct Link

Markdown Link (reddit comments)

HTML (website / blogs)

BBCode (message boards & forums)

Watch Movies Online | Privacy Policy
Fmovies.guru provides links to other sites on the internet and doesn't host any files itself.