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Every few years, Hollywood cranks out another fictional skiing movie. While the subgenre’s never hatched a bona fide blockbuster, there have been a few good films sandwiched in between the myriad variations of “Animal House on the slopes.” (Snowballing, anyone?)
As with most sports movie subgenres, the catalog is a bit thin: Some of the top ten are simply so bad they’re actually good. Others are truly good. Others are somewhere in between: I know it’s hard to believe, but Hot Dog…The Movie somehow enjoyed a middling review from Janet Maslin when it came out.
1. Downhill Racer (1969):
Roger Ebert called this Robert Redford vehicle “the greatest sports movie ever made.” Co-stars include Gene Hackman (with a head of hair) and Dabney Coleman (without mustache).
2. Hot Dog … The Movie (1984): The Citizen Kane of ski sex comedies.
3. Ski Party (1965): Four words: James Brown on skis.
4. Copper Mountain (1983): This very early Jim Carrey flick falls into the so-bad-it’s-good category, in no small part due to the work of Alan Thicke.
5. Ski School (1991): Some connoisseurs of the dumb ski sex comedy think this is technically superior to Hot Dog … The Movie.
6. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969): The only thing that’s cooler than James Bond on skis is James Brown on skis (see No. 3).
7. Ski-Wolf (2008): Combining the tropes of Teen Wolf and the ski sex comedy results in this unholy masterpiece of the so-bad-it’s-good variety.
8. Better Off Dead … (1985): This cult classic stars a young John Cusack but more importantly a young Curtis “Booger” Armstrong.
9. Out Cold (2001): This snowboarding sex comedy wouldn’t make the list if it weren’t for the comic genius of Zach Galifinakis.
10. The Art of Skiing (1941): Last but certainly not least, a Hollywood legend shows us how it’s done.
