Best Sports Films on KLM (August 2026): Critic-Ranked
Best Sports Films on KLM Flights — August 2026
Sports films earned a permanent slot on inflight.guide in July, and KLM's August catalog confirms it wasn't a one-month experiment — the category holds steady at 15 titles. Marty Supreme and F1: The Movie remain the two names most passengers search for, and both are still here. Rankings below combine Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic into a single percentage.
→ Browse the full KLM catalog with sports film rankings — inflight.guide
Why Sports Films Work at 35,000 Feet
The structural trick of a sports film is that it front-loads its own stakes — you know within ten minutes who's supposed to win and what it'll cost them to get there. That makes it easier to pick back up after a meal service interruption than a slow-burn drama, where you'd lose the thread. Ford v Ferrari's Le Mans sequences and Creed's title fight both reward the moments you can actually give a screen your full attention, which on a long-haul sector isn't every moment.
The Best Sports Films on KLM in August 2026
1. Marty Supreme (2025) — 91%
Runtime: 2 hr 30 min | RT Score: 93% | Metacritic: 89/100
Josh Safdie (Good Time, Uncut Gems) directs Timothée Chalamet as a legendary American table tennis champion from the underground competitive circuit of the 1970s and 80s, opposite Gwyneth Paltrow. The Safdies' close-quarters, anxiety-forward style applied to competitive ping-pong produces something genuinely unexpected. A 91% combined score is the highest of any sports film on KLM in August — and one of the better films in the entire catalog this month, regardless of genre.
2. Creed (2015) — 89%
Runtime: 2 hr 13 min | RT Score: 95% | Metacritic: 82/100
Ryan Coogler's Rocky spinoff — Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed, Sylvester Stallone as an aging Rocky Balboa — turned a dormant franchise into something about legacy and stepping out of a famous name's shadow. A 95% Rotten Tomatoes score is rare for a boxing film this far into a franchise's life. Jordan and Stallone are genuinely affecting together, and the fight choreography holds up nine years on.
3. Ford v Ferrari (2019) — 87%
Runtime: 2 hr 33 min | RT Score: 92% | Metacritic: 81/100
James Mangold's account of Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and Ken Miles (Christian Bale) building the Ford GT40 that beat Ferrari at Le Mans in 1966, with Jon Bernthal in support. The racing sequences are technically excellent, but the Shelby-Miles friendship carries the film. At 2 hr 33 min it fills a solid chunk of a transatlantic sector, and the pacing doesn't sag in the middle third the way some films this length do.
4. King Richard (2021) — 83%
Runtime: 2 hr 25 min | RT Score: 90% | Metacritic: 76/100
Reinaldo Marcus Green's account of Richard Williams — Will Smith, in an Oscar-winning role — coaching daughters Venus and Serena toward tennis greatness from Compton, with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as their mother, Oracene. The film resists the standard sports-drama formula by staying focused on the father rather than the athletes, which makes the eventual wins land harder than the genre usually manages.
5. Battle of the Sexes (2017) — 79%
Runtime: 2 hr 2 min | RT Score: 84% | Metacritic: 73/100
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris's account of the 1973 exhibition match between Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), with Andrea Riseborough in support. It was billed at the time as women's liberation versus male chauvinism, and the film treats that framing seriously without losing its comic instincts. Stone and Carell both avoid caricature in roles that invite it.
6. F1: The Movie (2025) — 75%
Runtime: 2 hr 35 min | RT Score: 82% | Metacritic: 68/100
Brad Pitt as a washed-up Formula 1 driver — "the greatest that never was" — pulled back into the sport by a struggling team, with Damson Idris as his younger teammate. Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick) directs, and actual F1 teams and circuits were used in production. The racing footage is genuinely immersive on a seatback screen. At 75% combined it's a crowd-pleaser rather than a critical darling, and it's the film this article's search traffic is mostly built on.
7. Invictus (2009) — 75%
Runtime: 2 hr 9 min | RT Score: 76% | Metacritic: 74/100
Clint Eastwood's account of Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) enlisting the Springboks rugby captain, François Pienaar (Matt Damon), to help unite South Africa around the 1995 Rugby World Cup. It's a more substantive watch than most entries here — the politics gives the final match genuine weight rather than the usual manufactured stakes.
8. Creed II (2018) — 75%
Runtime: 2 hr 10 min | RT Score: 83% | Metacritic: 66/100
Steven Caple Jr. steps in for Coogler as Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) faces the son of Ivan Drago, the boxer who killed his father — with Stallone's Rocky reluctantly in his corner. It's more conventional than the first film, closer to a straight rematch narrative, but the Stallone-Jordan dynamic still carries it. Watch the original Creed first if you're doing both on the same flight.
9. GOAT (2026) — 72%
Runtime: 1 hr 39 min | RT Score: 83% | Metacritic: 60/100
An animated newcomer this month: a goat with a shot at revolutionising "roarball" — a fictional sport invented for the film — voiced by Caleb McLaughlin and Gabrielle Union. It's not a traditional sports drama by any measure, and readers looking for the genre's usual grit should skip straight to Creed or Ford v Ferrari. But an 83% Rotten Tomatoes score for a family animated comedy is a genuinely strong result, and it's a reasonable pick if you're travelling with kids who want something sports-adjacent without the two-and-a-half-hour runtime of the prestige titles above it.
10. 42 (2013) — 72%
Runtime: 2 hr 8 min | RT Score: 81% | Metacritic: 62/100
Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson breaking Major League Baseball's colour barrier in 1947, with Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey, the Dodgers executive who signed him. The story is one of the most important in American sport history, told here accessibly rather than reverently. Not a masterpiece at 72% combined, but a worthwhile 128 minutes.
New to KLM's Sports Library This Month
August brings no major new sports arrivals — the anchors carry over unchanged from July. Two lighter additions round out the shelf, though. Tag (2018, 56%), with Ed Helms and Jeremy Renner, follows five childhood friends who've kept a decades-long game of tag running into adulthood — a comedic, sports-adjacent pick rather than a traditional sports film. GOAT (2026, 72%) is the animated roarball comedy above. Neither is essential the way Marty Supreme or Creed are, but both give the category some range beyond boxing rings and racetracks.
Sports Film Rankings — August 2026
| Rank | Title | Year | Runtime | RT | Metacritic | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marty Supreme | 2025 | 2h 30m | 93% | 89 | 91% |
| 2 | Creed | 2015 | 2h 13m | 95% | 82 | 89% |
| 3 | Ford v Ferrari | 2019 | 2h 33m | 92% | 81 | 87% |
| 4 | King Richard | 2021 | 2h 25m | 90% | 76 | 83% |
| 5 | Battle of the Sexes | 2017 | 2h 02m | 84% | 73 | 79% |
| 6 | F1: The Movie | 2025 | 2h 35m | 82% | 68 | 75% |
| 7 | Invictus | 2009 | 2h 09m | 76% | 74 | 75% |
| 8 | Creed II | 2018 | 2h 10m | 83% | 66 | 75% |
| 9 | GOAT | 2026 | 1h 39m | 83% | 60 | 72% |
| 10 | 42 | 2013 | 2h 08m | 81% | 62 | 72% |
| 11 | Eddie the Eagle | 2016 | 1h 46m | 82% | 54 | 68% |
| 12 | Cool Runnings | 1993 | 1h 38m | 75% | 60 | 68% |
| 13 | Tag | 2018 | 1h 41m | 55% | 56 | 56% |
| 14 | Trouble with the Curve | 2012 | 1h 51m | 51% | 58 | 55% |
| 15 | Next Goal Wins | 2023 | 1h 44m | 46% | 44 | 45% |
Scores reflect critical consensus only. Ranked by raw combined score before rounding, which is why F1: The Movie, Invictus, and Creed II each display 75% but rank in that order. Audience scores and KLM availability verified as of 21 July 2026.
→ Filter all KLM films by genre on inflight.guide
Sports Film Viewing Tip
The best entries here have a genuine final-act payoff — Ford v Ferrari's Le Mans finish, Creed's title fight, Marty Supreme's tournament run — and those sequences are mixed louder and lower than the surrounding dialogue scenes. Keep the volume at a comfortable level through the setup, and expect to nudge it up for the last twenty minutes. It's a small habit, but it's the difference between catching the crowd noise properly and just seeing it.
If You Liked Marty Supreme, Also Try...
- Creed (89%) — a different sport and a different decade, but the same commitment to making the emotional stakes outweigh the sport itself.
- Ford v Ferrari (87%) — technical filmmaking of a similar calibre, with a friendship at its centre instead of a single obsessive figure.
- F1: The Movie (75%) — a lighter, glossier racing watch if Marty Supreme's anxious energy isn't what you're after.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does KLM have sports movies on all flights? The full 15-title sports catalog is available on long-haul widebody flights (Boeing 787 and 777) with individual seatback screens. Short-haul European A321neo flights carry a smaller personal-device library, and full genre filtering isn't guaranteed on those routes.
Is Marty Supreme still on KLM in August 2026? Yes — Marty Supreme (2025), directed by Josh Safdie and starring Timothée Chalamet, carries over from July with a combined critic score of 91% (RT: 93%, Metacritic: 89), making it the highest-rated sports film on KLM this month.
Is F1: The Movie still on KLM in August 2026? Yes — F1: The Movie (2025, Brad Pitt, directed by Joseph Kosinski) remains available with a combined critic score of 75% (RT: 82%, Metacritic: 68), unchanged from July.
What's new in KLM's sports lineup for August 2026? No major new sports arrivals this month. Two lighter additions join the shelf: Tag (2018, 56%), an ensemble comedy about a lifelong game of tag, and GOAT (2026, 72%), an animated comedy built around a fictional sport called roarball.
How often does KLM's sports movie selection change? Monthly. Sports launched as a dedicated category on inflight.guide in July 2026 and is now a permanent fixture alongside the site's other genre rankings. Visit inflight.guide for current availability.