North Dallas Forty (1979) on Netflix
Phil Elliott, a wide receiver for the North Dallas Bulls, has been benched and relies on painkillers. Coach Strother measures his players by tendencies, and Elliott's attitude draws his wrath.
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- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.9/106,525 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes84%
Trailer
Plot summary
Phil Elliott is an aging wide receiver for the North Dallas Bulls, a professional football team in Dallas, and he relies on painkillers. His teammate Seth Maxwell is the team's popular quarterback. Elliott wants to play the game, then retire to a horse farm with his girlfriend Charlotte Caulder, an aspiring writer with her own money and no interest in football. Coach Strother ignores what the players do off the field and measures them by tendencies, a quantitative measure of performance. The coaches want Elliott to persuade an injured rookie to start taking painkillers, and the coach warns that his attitude could affect his career.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about North Dallas Forty (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The National Football League was suspected of retaliating against the makers of North Dallas Forty: three NFL teams canceled scouting contracts with Hall of Famer Tom Fears, who advised on the film's football action, the Oakland Raiders severed ties with Fred Biletnikoff, who coached Nick Nolte, and Tommy Reamon, who plays Delma, was cut by the 49ers and claimed he had been 'blackballed'.
- The film is based on Peter Gent's semiautobiographical novel; Gent was a Cowboys wide receiver in the late 1960s, and the film's characters closely resemble his teammates, with Seth Maxwell often compared to quarterback Don Meredith, B.A. Strother to Tom Landry and Phil Elliott to Gent.
