Friday Night Lights (DCP)

(Peter Berg, US 2004, 118 min., DCP)

Football is everything to the town of Dillon, Texas. At the center of this is the high school football team and its coach, Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton). The entire town shows up for games on Friday nights, with expectations that the team will make it to the state championship, providing pride for the town and long-lasting memories for the players. After a devastating injury, the team struggles to regroup for the long season, and animosity spills out from the field, into the town and back home. A dramatization of the 1988 season documented in H.G. Bissinger’s non-fiction book, the film examines the increased role sports has claimed as a part of American society.