Friday Night Lights (2004)

Based on H.G. Bissinger's book, which profiled the economically depressed town of Odessa, Texas and their heroic high school football team, The Permian High Panthers. - Anonymous

Odessa, Texas, is a small, town in Texas. Racially divided and economically dying, there is one night that gives the town something to live for: Friday Night. The Permian Panthers have a big winning tradition in Texas high school football, led by QB Mike Winchell and superstar tailback Boobie Miles, but all is not well, as Boobie suffers a career-ending injury in the first game of the season. Hope is lost among citizens in Odessa, and for the team, but Coach Gary Gaines, who believes that "Perfection is being able to look your friends in the eye and know you did everything you could not to let them down", is somehow able to help the team rise up from the ashes and make a huge season comeback. Now on their way to state, the Panthers must go out and be perfect, because they may never matter this much for the rest of their lives. - Zac Abrams

A straight arrow coach leads his team to the 1988 Texas state semifinals in the west Texas city of Odessa, where high school football is king. Expectations of classmates, coaches, family, and community members exact a toll on the athletes central to the story. Economic and racial undertones pervade this adaptation of H.G. Bissinger's book by the same name. - David S. Johnson {davidsjohnson@bigfoot.com}

Expectations are high for the 1988 football team at Permian "MOJO" High School in the blue-collar, football-crazy town of Odessa, Texas. MOJO is a traditional powerhouse in Texas high school football, and the community lets coach Gaines know in many not-so-subtle ways that nothing short of a state championship is a failure. But when the team loses its star tailback in the first game of the season, hopes seem dashed, and MOJO goes into an early tailspin. Everyone is ready to hang coach Gaines in effigy, and the team is left for dead. But miraculously, coach Gaines pulls the team together, and MOJO makes a now-unlikely run into the state playoffs. - jgp3553@yahoo.com