Bull Durham

"Romance is a lot like baseball. It's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game."

1988 1h 48m EN

👍

6.6

SOLID

🔥

97%

CERTIFIED FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

IMDB

★6.6TMDB · 707🍅97%Rotten Tomatoes●73Metacritic★7IMDB · 62,612

ComedyRomance

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Veteran catcher Crash Davis is brought to the minor league Durham Bulls to help their up and coming pitching prospect, "Nuke" Laloosh. Their relationship gets off to a rocky start and is further complicated when baseball groupie Annie Savoy sets her sights on the two men.

“Romance is a lot like baseball. It's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game.”

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Cast

Kevin Costner
Crash Davis
Susan Sarandon
Annie Savoy
Tim Robbins
Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh
Trey Wilson
Skip
Robert Wuhl
Larry
William O'Leary
Jimmy
David Neidorf
Bobby
Danny Gans
Deke

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Ron Shelton
Writers: Ron Shelton
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 7.3× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

38 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Ron Shelton, shot by Bobby Byrne. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Michael Convertino. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Robert Leighton shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Romance is a lot like baseball. It's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0094812 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Ron Shelton directs. Bobby Byrne behind the camera. Michael Convertino scores. Robert Leighton cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Made its money back 7.3× over at the box office.
238 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3Directed by Ron Shelton, shot by Bobby Byrne. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Michael Convertino. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Robert Leighton shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins carry the top of the cast.
7Marketing tagline: "Romance is a lot like baseball. It's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game.".
8IMDB entry: tt0094812 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Classified under 12 themes, including "jealousy", "love triangle", "sports", "stadium".

The technical file

Cinematography: Bobby Byrne
Original score: Michael Convertino
Editing: Robert Leighton
Production design: Armin Ganz
Costume design: Louise Frogley
Makeup / hair: Cynthia Barr
Sound: Bob Minkler
Stunt coordinator: Webster Whinery
Runtime: 108 min · 1h 48m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $7,000,000
Box office: $50,888,000
Return: 727% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Bull Durham (1988)
Rotten Tomatoes: 97% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 73/100
IMDB rating: 7/10 · 62,612 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

Nominated for 1 Oscar. 7 wins & 6 nominations total

Also by

Ron Shelton

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2026-08-08
★ 6/10
I did rather like "Annie" (Susan Sarandon) taking a distinctly more actively benevolent view of supporting her local baseball team. Each season, she selects one of the lads from the team to be her friend-with-benefits for the season - all in the hope that this will help stop them languishing at the bottom of the league tables. She has some provenance with this process as usually the lucky player goes on to play unexpectedly well so success might loom for either new boy "Ebby" (Tim Robbins) who has great speed with his pitching but his aim leaves a lot to be desired or for "Crash" (Kevin Costner) who is much older, wiser, and purposed with getting "Ebby" to actually direct his skills more accurately. Now the hormonally active lad has no problems being her choice for extra-curricular entertainment but the older gent feels that wouldn't be appropriate and that sex ought not to be integrated in quite this way to motivate the players. As the season progresses, all three have to come to terms with maturity, success and failure as we roll along rather too predictably but still quite amiably to it's conclusion. The enthusiastic Sarandon steals the scenes here for me, and likewise Robbins delivers engagingly well as the lad juggling balls a-plenty as his priorities vacillate between his on and off-pitch activities, but for me Costner rather coasted through this drama putting in very little effort and relying on a sort of handsome laissez-faire approach that didn't quite work. In some ways his characterisation exemplified the mediocrity of so many who make a decent living from baseball, or football, or cricket, without really having any great skill at all save for spotting greater abilities in others. On that score, he does deliver but for me but I've always found him just a little too charm free. There is some wit from the dialogue and I did enjoy the absurd match commentaries from "Teddy" (Garland Bunting) who reminded me of the almost zealous way in which many fans - especially parents - follow the antics of their teams and players, but as it advances to the latter stages the humour becomes a little subsumed into something disappointingly sentimental. It's a watchable enough sporting drama with flashes that stand out, but I'm not soo sure I'd bother again.

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