Top 25 Outdoor Movie: The Sandlot
Up next on our Top 25 Outdoor Movies of All Time list: The Sandlot. This film is a really great pick for your next outdoor movie or backyard cinema for a number of reasons.
The Sandlot follows Scotty Smalls, a teenage boy who moves into a new neighborhood near Los Angeles, California. He is desperately trying to fit in and make new friends, and is doing all the wrong things. However, he is befriended by Benny Rodriguez, the leader of a neighborhood crew of kids who love doing nothing else but playing baseball.
Smalls is nervous about his lack of baseball skills, but quickly learns to loosen up and is included in the group and their games. He also learns of the one thing that should be avoided when playing in their neighborhood park: DO NOT hit a homerun ball over a specific backyard, or "The Beast" will devour the ball, and you won't be getting it back! One day Benny devours a ball by splitting it to shreds because he hit it so hard.
The boys can't afford another ball, so Smalls gets his stepfathers ball in his study that is signed by a nobody, "Babe Ruth". The ball is quickly hit over the fence, and when Smalls realizes who the nobody was who signed the ball, the group sets out to recover it. The resulting scenes will keep your audience on the edges of their seats, as the boys come in near contact with "The Beast"! The Sandlot is a fun paced movie for the entire family, that tells the story of long summer days and the friends that are made over the years. It is a perfect choice for your next outdoor movie event if you're looking for something that will appeal to families young and old.
The Sandlot also presents some awesome opportunities for creative screenings. You could host the movie at your local ball park, creating the perfect stage that will enhance the overall experience for your audience members. You could focus the night around a "block party" theme, with hot dogs and popsicles for concessions, and baseball hitting or tossing competitions for pre-movie events, with prizes given to the winners from local businesses and sponsors.
The ideas you could come up with for creating a unique outdoor movie experience with The Sandlot are infinite! This movie is a really great pick, and for the reasons above, deserves to be in the Top 25 Outdoor Movies of All Time. Have you screened The Sandlot as an outdoor movie, or do you have an experience or favorite outdoor movie to share with us? Send us your story to community@openaircinema.us - we'd love to hear how outdoor movies are changing your community and bringing everyone together.