Young Woman and the Sea

Both emotionally and visually stirring, this film hits many of the biopic notes viewers might expect, yet it's so skillfully done that the story soars, carrying us with it. Triumph over adversity is, of course, the essence of sports movies; there would be no Rocky without Apollo Creed, no A League of Their Own without crushing systemic sexism. Young Woman and the Sea also takes on sexism, 1920s-style, presenting a society that views Trudy Ederle as little more than an amusing curiosity: a girl who swims like a champion at a time when there were no female champion swimmers. Indeed, the powers that be at the Coney Island pool where the male swimmers practice refuse to allow women entrance; Trudy's dad even says it's "indecent" for girls to swim when her iron-willed mother decrees that both of her daughters should learn.

Many of these quibbles faded away when Trudy began breaking swimming speed records one after another. She even got a chance to compete at the 1924 Olympics, when the idea of women participating was still controversial. She passes hurdle after hurdle, and viewers feel every one, as well as the warmth of the largely supportive family that sustains her, particularly her sister, Meg (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), Trudy's rock and BFF. By the time Trudy is slathering herself with lanolin and porpoise fat on the beach in France, ready to dive into the water and take her shot at immortality, we feel both her pain and her grit. We already know how this story will turn out (Gertrude Ederle doesn't have a Wikipedia entry for nothing), but watching a strong woman take on the world and succeed is both thrilling and inspirational, making this an instant sports movie classic.