The Bad News Bears (1976) on Netflix
A Southern California youth league gets a new team of castoffs, the Bears, and Morris Buttermaker is paid to coach them. Their new coach has a drinking problem.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.3/1027,879 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes97%
Trailer
Plot summary
Morris Buttermaker, a former minor-league pitcher who cleans pools, takes a secret cash payment from lawyer and city councilman Bob Whitewood to coach the Bears, the youth team of Whitewood's son Toby, in a Southern California league. The Bears were assembled as a settlement to a lawsuit over excluding unskilled players, and the league's competitive teams and parents treat them as outsiders. Buttermaker does little to help them until they are humiliated in their opening game and want to quit; then he teaches them hitting, fielding and sliding. He also brings in two recruits: Amanda Whurlizer, eleven years old, whose mother once dated Buttermaker and who learned to pitch from him when she was small, and Kelly Leak, a cigarette-smoking motorcycle rider who is the best athlete in the area.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Bad News Bears (1976)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Walter Matthau was paid $750,000 plus over 10% of the theatrical rentals for The Bad News Bears, while Tatum O'Neal got $350,000 plus a percentage of the profits, later estimated at $1.9 million.
- The Bears' sponsor in the film, "Chico's Bail Bonds", was an actual local company rather than a name invented for the script.
