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Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Trey Wilson, Robert Wuhl ... see more see more... , Jenny Robertson , Max Patkin , William O'Leary , Greg Avelone , Garland Bunting , Robert Dickman , Danny Gans , Timothy Kirk , Rick Marzan , David Neidorf , Henry Sanders , Tom Silardi , Lloyd Williams , Don S. Davis , George 'Buck' Flower , Sid Aikens , Pete Bock , Craig Brown , Wes Currin , Butch Davis , Paul Devlin , Tobi Eshelman , Antoinette Forsyth , Jeff Greene , Kelly Heath , Mo Johnson , Todd Kopeznski , John Lovingood , Eddie Matthews , Alan Mejia , Alan Paternoster , Shirley Anne Ritter , Dean Robinson , Tom Shultz , Sam Veraldi , Stephen Ware , El Chico Williams , Bonnie Timmermann , Bill Robinson , C.K. Bibby

A blend of comedy, drama and romance, Bull Durham follows the intertwining of three lives brought together by the great American pastime. Crash Davis (Kevin Costner, showcasing his Midwestern charm) i... read more read more...s a perennial Minor Leaguer assigned to the Durham Bulls, a hapless team with a long tradition of mediocrity. There he tutors a young, dim-witted pitching prodigy, Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) in the ways of baseball, life, and love. Each strikes up a romance with Annie (Susan Sarandon), the team's "mascot" who takes it upon herself to sleep with a new player every season. Each has his/her own conflict: Crash struggles to end his career with some measure of dignity; Nuke struggles to make it to the "big show"; and Annie struggles to find something more than a roll in the hay -- and of course, Crash and Nuke come into conflict over Annie's affections to further complicate matters. The film treats the sport of baseball with a sort of casual reverence, highlighting both the drama and the humor inherent in the game, illustrated by Annie's numerous references to baseball as "her religion." ~ Jeremy Beday, Rovi

Flixster Users

77% liked it

48,167 ratings

Critics

98% liked it

49 critics

R, 1 hr. 47 min.

Directed by: Ron Shelton

Release Date: June 15, 1988

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DVD Release Date: October 28, 1998

Stats: 1,956 reviews

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Nuke LaLoosh Crash Davis Crash Davis teaches Nuke LaLoosh a hard lesson Bull Durham Bull Durham
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Flixster Reviews (1,956)

  • jmanard52
    March 29, 2007
    jmanard52
    One of the best baseball movie ever made. Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner are awesome!!!
  • spielberg00
    January 29, 2012
    spielberg00
    I had trouble at first believing that BULL DURHAM was a comedy. The film possessed a comic mood, but there wasn't much worth laughing at. That is not to say that there wasn't anything humorous. Susan Sarandon may have been what brought the film to being so entertaining, with h... read moreer endless wit and personality. In one scene, she tries to read Nuke poetry by Walt Whitman. When he appears to have no knowledge of who Whitman is, she nonchalantly grabs his attention by linking him with baseball. Her narration, too, is quite memorable, and the last lines...well, they make the film.
  • DreamExtractor
    August 24, 2011
    DreamExtractor
    Bull Durham is a genius sports film and one of the greatest sports films ever made. Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins, and Susan Sarandon play three genius performances. The plot is great, I was never bored and it had so many different stories. I loved this movie.
  • jennifxu
    April 30, 2011
    jennifxu
    A sexy romp in the baseball field, refreshing and crisp. It did stagnate a bit but the three leads are pretty darn incredible.
  • ajv2688
    March 3, 2011
    ajv2688
    An amusing and entertaining love triangle story with good actors, and it's a baseball movie at the same time. I liked it.
  • DerekA101
    April 1, 2009
    DerekA101
    "There's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring... which makes it like sex. There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I'd never sleep wi... read moreth a player hitting under .250... not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle."


    Ranked #5 on AFI's top 10 sports movies of all time.


    There are a ton of movies based on America's Greatest Pastime - baseball - but few are as authentic as Bull Durham. This film is about a woman who is a die-hard fan of the minor league team the Durham Bulls. Every season she sleeps with one player, and they go on to have the best season of their career. This season a disgruntled 12 year veteran (Crash, played by Kevin Costner) is called down to mentor a young wild pitching prospect with a million dollar arm, but no brains (Nuke, played by Tim Robbins).


    "From what I hear, you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a fucking boat."


    Writer and Director Ron Shelton played minor league baseball for 5 years, and he used a lot of his personal experience as a basis for this story. Shelton delivers one of the most accurate portrayals of minor league baseball - both on and off the field. There was a scene where Costner caught a routine pop up foul as a catcher. Shelton said he added scenes like this because movies tend to ignore the every day plays in baseball. Shelton received an Oscar nomination for Screenplay, and he won numerous other smaller Screenplay Awards.


    "Well, he fucks like he pitches - sorta all over the place."


    Young Kevin Costner (33 years old) was great in this film. He delivered a strong performance that really catches the essence of disgruntled minor league vets. Tim Robbins was good as well in a bit of an unusual role for him. Susan Sarandon was brilliant as the temptress. She actually won a few Best Actress awards for this role.


    Fun fact: Bull Durham is the movie where Robbins and Sarandon met, and our now married. They both have stated that of all the films they have made during their respective careers, this remains their personal favorite.


    A wonderful timeless baseball classic that uses the diamond as merely a stage... the real story here is the reality of what takes place off the field. Both a sports movie and a romantic comedy, Bull Durham is a well-balanced, original tale that perfectly avoids typical sports cliches.


    "Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.... Goodnight."
  • DrZeek
    October 6, 2008
    DrZeek
    Crash Davis: Did you hit me with your right hand or did you hit me with your left? Huh? Did you hit me with your right hand or did you hit me with your LEFT?
    Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: My left.
    Crash Davis: Good! That's good; when you get in a fight with a drunk you don't hit him with ... read moreyour pitching hand. God, I can't keep giving you these free lessons so quit screwin' around and help me up.

    A very funny sports/romantic comedy about a woman so devoted to a minor league team that she hooks up with one player a year to help out. Within this, two players get caught in the mix, one a older pro and the other an up-and-coming pitcher.

    Annie Savoy: There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I'd never sleep with a player hitting under .250... not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle. You see, there's a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds.

    Susan Surandon plays Annie, the women who involves herself in these player's lives. I think this is her best role. She is absolutely wonderful as a manipulator who finds herself both wanting to help the team and falling for a certain player.

    Annie Savoy: Right, honey, let's get down to it. How was Ebby Calvin LaLoosh?
    Millie: Well, he fucks like he pitches - sorta all over the place.

    Tim Robbins is Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh, the strong armed pitcher with controlled issues. He is also a bit dim but still enjoys playing the games, as well as getting devoted lovin' from Annie.

    [hands crash a bat]
    Ballboy: Get a hit Crash.
    Crash Davis: Shut up.

    Kevin Costner is Crash Davis, a long time minor league player who once played a bit of major league ball, but didn't last. Crash is recruited by the Durham Bulls to play as catcher and help "Nuke" be a better pitcher. During this time he becomes involved with Annie to an extent and begins facing his status as a great but older minor league player.

    Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

    The movie was written and directed by Ron Shelton, who based this story on some of his own experience in the minor leagues. It works very well in terms of its handling of the plot and the very quotable dialog.

    The main thing I enjoy was how this didn't follow many sport movie cliches. Most apparent being the fact that there is no big game that this movie leads up to. Its about the characters. Its not hard to see where the romance aspect of this film goes, but that is also very well handled. The movie is so good that I didn't even mind Costner.

    This is a funny and well performed movie that achieves great balance between its sport and its romance.

    [Larry jogs out to the mound to break up a players' conference]
    Larry: Excuse me, but what the hell's going on out here?
    Crash Davis: Well, Nuke's scared because his eyelids are jammed and his old man's here. We need a live... is it a live rooster?
    [Jose nods]
    Crash Davis: . We need a live rooster to take the curse off Jose's glove and nobody seems to know what to get Millie or Jimmy for their wedding present.
    [to the players]
    Crash Davis: Is that about right?
    [the players nod]
    Crash Davis: We're dealing with a lot of shit.
    Larry: Okay, well, uh... candlesticks always make a nice gift, and uh, maybe you could find out where she's registered and maybe a place-setting or maybe a silverware pattern. Okay, let's get two! Go get 'em.
  • kenstachnik
    September 6, 2008
    kenstachnik
    Best Base Ball movie ever
  • rayman0071
    May 1, 2008
    rayman0071
    The 20th anniversary of one of the greatest sports movies ever made and this was the movie that cemented Kevin Costner as one of the top boxoffice stars of the 1980's.
    Filmed on location at the historic Durham Athletic Park and other locations in North Carolina.
  • mwilliams078
    March 24, 2008
    mwilliams078
    Susan Surandon and Kevin Kostner are such a good team in this baseball comedy; Bull Durham.

    Sarandon plays a muse for many a baseball player. Every season a bright player who needs a little direction is chosen to share time with Sarandon. Costner a very good seasoned player is... read more then attracted to this off the wall lady...what a funny film.

View All Bull Durham Reviews

Critic Reviews

Richard Corliss
March 16, 2011
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

Shelton locates the tension and the humor between pitches, between ball games, between the sheets. It helps too that he has written the wittiest, busiest screenplay since Moonstruck, and that his thre... Full Review

March 14, 2007
Variety

Costner is a natural as the dyed-in-the-wool ballplayer. His best lines are when he's philosophizing, like on being an All-American male who hates anything by Susan Sontag. Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum
March 14, 2007
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

There's a lot of laughter and enjoyment on the way to the lockers. Full Review

Janet Maslin
May 20, 2003
Janet Maslin, New York Times

Bull Durham is a film with spring fever, a giddy, playful look at life in baseball's minor leagues. Full Review

Hal Hinson
January 1, 2000
Hal Hinson, Washington Post

Bull Durham, the new baseball movie starring Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon, eases up on you, lazy as a cloud, and carries you off in a mood of exquisite delight. Full Review

Desson Thomson
January 1, 2000
Desson Thomson, Washington Post

Writer/director Ron Shelton lobs juicy lines to players Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, and they all hit home. Full Review

Roger Ebert
January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Bull Durham is a treasure of a movie because it knows so much about baseball and so little about love. Full Review

James Berardinelli
June 15, 1988
James Berardinelli, ReelViews

If one was to make a list of the best baseball-themed movies of all time, Bull Durham would have to be in consideration. Full Review

Emanuel Levy
April 10, 2012
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

This witty, sharply observed tale belnds sports, comedy and romance and benefits immensely from the appealing performances by Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins. Full Review

Common Sense Media Editors
June 21, 2011
Common Sense Media Editors, Common Sense Media

A winning, mature comedy about sex and baseball. Full Review

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

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Facts

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    • Joe "Skip" Riggins: What's our record, Larry?
    • Larry Hockett: Eight and sixteen.
    • Joe "Skip" Riggins: Eight... and sixteen. How'd we ever win eight?
    • Larry Hockett: It's a miracle.
    • Joe "Skip" Riggins: It's a miracle. This... is a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball.
    • Crash Davis: Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you'll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob.
    • Crash Davis: ...I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.
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Bull Durham Trivia

  • In Bull Durham, Kevin Costner has Susan Sarandon tied up to the bed post, but what is he doing that is causing her so much pleasure?  Answer »
  • In movie Bull Durham what cardboard animal did the baseball player have to hit to win a steak?  Answer »
  • In the movie "Bull Durham", what did Kevin Costner do to Susan Serandon in bed?  Answer »
  • From the quote, "Christ! You don't need a quadraphonic Blaupunkt - what you need is a curve ball. In the Show, everybody can hit a fastball." Name that movie...  Answer »
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