The Longest Yard (1974)

The Longest Yard is an outstanding action drama, combining the brutish excitement of football competition with the brutalities of contemporary prison life. Burt Reynolds asserts his genuine star power, here as a former football pro forced to field a team under blackmail of warden Eddie Albert.

This Burt Reynolds offering is a look at both prison life and the sport, and offers two hallmarks of classic 70's cinema: gritty, no holds barred action – and Reynolds' chest hair.

Deftly employing split-screen and slow-motion techniques, Aldrich makes the most of Tracy Keenan Wynn's incisive script, aided by fine cinematography and tight Oscar-nominated editing.

For all its bone-crunching collisions, it's almost irresistibly good-natured and funny.

What saves it, aside from good performances by Burt Reynolds and a thundering herd of supporting grotesques, is, of all things, a tough, tiny nut of valid social criticism.