# The 14 Best Horse Racing Movies of All Time

> Underdog stories, Oscar contenders and one Marx Brothers farce, all set at the track. A couple of them only ever had the horse.

*By YPB Team · Published August 20, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-14-best-horse-racing-movies-of-all-time*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Phar Lap** — score 1000/1000
   The 1983 Australian film about the Depression-era champion who died in California.
2. **Sylvester** — score 877/1000
   A 1985 story of a teenage rider and a stubborn horse aiming for the three-day event team.
3. **Secretariat** — score 800/1000
   Disney's 2010 telling of the 1973 Triple Crown, with Diane Lane as owner Penny Chenery.
4. **National Velvet** — score 771/1000
   The 1944 classic that made a twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor a star.
5. **Ride Like a Girl** — score 600/1000
   The 2019 story of Michelle Payne, the first woman to win the Melbourne Cup.
6. **50 to 1** — score 600/1000
   The 2014 account of Mine That Bird, the gelding who won the 2009 Kentucky Derby at long odds.
7. **The Black Stallion** — score 491/1000
   The 1979 shipwreck-and-a-horse film Francis Ford Coppola produced and Carroll Ballard directed.
8. **Seabiscuit** — score 491/1000
   The 2003 Depression-era drama that took seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.
9. **Champions** — score 491/1000
   The 1984 film about Bob Champion winning the Grand National after cancer treatment.
10. **The Rider** — score 491/1000
   Chloe Zhao's 2017 drama about a rodeo rider told he can never ride again.
11. **Dreamer** — score 360/1000
   Kurt Russell and Dakota Fanning nurse an injured filly back to the Breeders' Cup in 2005.
12. **Let It Ride** — score 360/1000
   Richard Dreyfuss has the luckiest day of his life at the track in this 1989 comedy.
13. **A Day at the Races** — score 360/1000
   The Marx Brothers take over a sanatorium and a racehorse in 1937.
14. **Hidalgo** — score 360/1000
   Viggo Mortensen rides a mustang across the Arabian desert in this 2004 adventure.

Tags: movies, sports, horse racing, horses