The big entertainment story this weekend is the release of the remake , Bad News Bears with Billy Bob Thornton taking the role of Morris Buttermaker, played to perfection in 1976 by Walter Matthau.

Reviews have been mixed on the remake. But it offers a great opportunity to think about the best baseball movies ever - plucked from a sea of awful, awful baseball movies produced over the years by Hollywood. Here are, without question, the best baseball movies ever. In reverse order:

10. Major League. "Juuu-uuust a bit outside." This movie could have easily been Number 2 or Number 3 on the list. It's probably the most realistic movie ever made about Major League Baseball, and is an automatic channel-surfing stopper whenever it's on cable.

9. Eight Men Out. Well-done movie, with a truly tragic plot. John Cusack was memorable but, in all honesty, the movie made a team full of Pete Roses look just a little too sympathetic.

8. Bull Durham. Even though it was pretty over-the-top, the movie was great because its true star wasn't Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins or Susan Sarandon. The star of the movie was the game itself. Quotes like this also helped it out: "Yeah, I was in the show. I was in the show for 21 days once - the 21 greatest days of my life. You know, you never handle your luggage in the show, somebody else carries your bags."

7. Field of Dreams. Yes, it was hokie. Very hokie. But it was still very good. Best line of the movie: "Ty Cobb wanted to come, too. But we told him to stick it."

6. Damn Yankees Ray Walston as the devil. 'Nuff said.

5. 61*. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was made for HBO, not the cinema. But Billy Crystal did a very good job at re-creating a modern-day drama and portraying true-to-life heroes who are still alive. The scene with Roger Maris' hair falling out was truly chilling.

4. Fear Strikes out. Seeing Anthony Perkins as Jimmy Piersall, climbing the backstop, was absolutely frightening.

3. Cobb. How could one of the greatest players in the history of the greatest sport be such a despicable person? Watch Tommy Lee Jones as an aging, retired Ty Cobb and you'll find out.

2. Pride of the Yankees. Any feature movie with credits that include, "Babe Ruth as Himself," has to be considered for the Top 10. But Gary Cooper pulled off the chore of playing Lou Gehrig from his Columbia University days until his last days as a Yankee as only Gary Cooper could. Sure, the movie left out the great Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig feud, but that's a minor point.

1. The Bad News Bears. "Don't jump in the pool, Englebert. You'll flood the valley." No number of bad sequels, TV series attempts or remakes can stain the greatness of the original. If the original "The Bad News Bears" was released today - with its complete shock value - both liberal political-correctness types and conservative family values groups would lock arms in brotherhood and protest it together. That's saying something. To this day, it has no equal.

MORE: Roy in the comments below makes a good point about "Bang The Drum Slowly." However, the baseball movie that was missed from the list, that really should be on it, is "The Rookie" with Dennis Quaid. It's a great movie that ties the father-son bond to the multi-generational sharing of such a great sport. Consider it "1A" on the list, just below the Bears.