With the new year approaching, let’s reflect and think about the things that made 2022 special.

In sports, it’s not just the amazing games and athletes that provide us daily entertainment and special moments to marvel at and celebrate. We also find exceptional storytelling in movies, both dramatic and documentary.

As we count down to the end of the year, we can think about — and maybe watch — the films and series that added something special and unique to our appreciation of the games we love.

This is by no means a definitive and exhaustive list, but here are one writer’s thoughts about some of the best that 2022 had to offer.

Hustle

Adam Sandler was best known in the sports space for his silly and hilarious offerings of “The Water Boy” and “Happy Gilmore”, but he recently turned heads while showing his dramatic chops as a degenerate gambler betting on NBA games in the 2019 film “Uncut Gems.”

In “Hustle,” he showcases some of his best and most compelling work with his fictional portrayal of Stanley Sugarman, an NBA talent scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, who finds a diamond in the rough in unknown Spanish prodigy Bo Cruz.

The film is both sensitive and funny and it touches your heart in ways that you won’t see coming.

Rise

Rise is a Disney film based on the lives of Nigerian-Greek basketball megastar Giannis Antentokounmpo, aka “The Greek Freak,” and his siblings Thanasis and Kostas, who rise out of obscurity from selling souvenirs and trinkets on the streets of Athens to become the first trio of brothers to become NBA champions.

What it may lack in production value as a truly remarkable film, it more than makes up with the family dynamic that will leave you feeling inspired, with a warmth of belief in the power of talent in pursuit of unlikely dreams.

The Swimmer

This heart-wrenching biographical drama chronicles the triumph of the human spirit through the lens of Syrian sisters Yusra and Sarah Mardini, who fled their homeland during a brutal civil war in 2015.

After arriving in Lebanon and then on to Turkey, they arranged to be smuggled into Greece. But the overcrowded dinghy carrying them and 18 other refugees broke down in the Aegean Sea and the sisters and a couple of other passengers were forced to push it while swimming if they harbored any hope of survival.

The greatest sports films are ones where the underdog, facing overwhelming odds, triumphs in ways that remind us about the sense of a loving humanity, which is often lost in a world of discord and discrimination.

The Redeem Team

This documentary tells the story of the United States Olympic basketball team as they pursue a Gold Medal at the 2008 games in Beijing. Yes, the basketball is great and the squad establishes a new standard for American hoops excellence after a sobering, humiliating and disappointing Bronze Medal finish four years earlier in Athens. But there’s more to it than that.

For leaders interested in organizational excellence, constructing winning cultures and managing elite talent that’s blended for the betterment of the collective of the group, “The Redeem Team” is a necessary companion to books like Phil Jackson’s “Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success” and John Wooden’s “Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization.”

Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty

This selection must be prefaced with this statement: I’m a huge fan of Jeff Pearlman’s sports writing, and this selection is more than likely biased.

“Winning Time,” the HBO miniseries, is based on Pearlman’s book, “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers.” It’s a must-read for anyone who witnessed the majestic brilliance of Magic Johnson in the heyday of the Lakers dynasty in the ’80s, a team that defined how a mere sport can be transformed into physical poetry and elegance. (Sorry, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird fans.)

An awesome mixture of satire, fact and fiction, the series is one with good intentions, even though many of those ’80s Lakers were none too pleased with the warping of history and a creative license in some spots and around the edges that certainly went too far.

Nonetheless, the music is outstanding, the series is plenty of fun, and underappreciated comedic and dramatic acting genius John C. Reilly (full disclosure, I think “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” is among the greatest movies ever made) is at his absolute best with his portrayal of the brash, enigmatic and visionary former Lakers owner, Dr. Jerry Buss.

alejandro.danois@thebaltimorebanner.com