Champions

Some movies don't really get noticed until they land on streaming. Champions is a perfect example. The Woody Harrelson basketball comedy opened in theaters in March 2023, made a modest showing at the box office and mostly faded from view. Then it arrived on Netflix in the U.S. on October 28, 2026, and three days later it was the No. 3 movie on the platform.

As Men's Journal put it: "Woody Harrelson's 'Champions' didn't do much in theaters in 2023. On Netflix, it's a hit." Here's what the film is about, how critics reacted and why it seems to be connecting with viewers now.

A coach who needs a lesson

Harrelson plays Marcus Marakovich, a minor-league basketball assistant coach with a short fuse and big dreams of making it to the NBA. After a bad night ends with a drunk-driving arrest, a judge sentences him to 90 days of community service.

His assignment is coaching the Friends, a team of players with intellectual disabilities who are preparing for the Special Olympics. Marcus doesn't want to be there. At first, he treats the job like a punishment to get through as fast as possible.

You can probably guess the general direction from there. This is a feel-good sports comedy, and it follows that path openly. The fun is in the team and the jokes along the way, not in surprises.

The team at the center

The film's most talked-about choice is its casting. The ten players on the Friends are played by actors with intellectual disabilities, and director Bobby Farrelly was clear about why. "These are all very real people," he told the AP. According to Men's Journal, the producers auditioned hundreds of people for those roles.

The team includes Kevin Iannucci as Johnny, Madison Tevlin as Cosentino, Joshua Felder as Darius and Ashton Gunning as Cody. Matthew Von Der Ahe, James Day Keith, Alex Hintz, Casey Metcalfe, Bradley Edens and Tom Sinclair round out the roster. Tevlin is the only woman on the team, and she gets some of the film's sharpest comic moments.

Harrelson spoke warmly about working with them. "They taught me that they can nail the lines, no problem," he said.

Familiar faces on the sidelines

Kaitlin Olson, best known from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, plays Alex, Johnny's sister, who becomes an important part of Marcus's story. Cheech Marin is Julio, the manager of the community center where the team practices. Ernie Hudson plays Phil Perretti, Marcus's boss in the minor leagues. ESPN's Scott Van Pelt and former NBA player Jalen Rose make cameo appearances as themselves.

A remake of a Spanish hit

Champions is an English-language remake of the 2018 Spanish film Campeones, directed by Javier Fesser. According to Men's Journal, the original was Spain's biggest box-office hit of 2018. Mark Rizzo wrote the American version.

It's also a reunion of sorts. Farrelly, who made There's Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber with his brother Peter, hadn't worked with Harrelson since Kingpin in 1996. Champions was his first film as a solo director.

The movie was filmed in Winnipeg and Selkirk, in Manitoba, Canada, in late 2021, with some scenes shot in Albany, New York. Local extras were found through St. Amant, a Manitoba nonprofit that works with people with developmental disabilities and autism.

How critics reacted

Reviews in 2023 were mixed. Rotten Tomatoes lists the film at 59% from 128 critics, and Metacritic gives it a 50. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus sums up the main debate: "Although its apparent attempts to be uplifting can often come across as patronizing, Champions is an amiable enough comedy with some seriously talented stars."

That word, patronizing, comes up a lot. The review on RogerEbert.com was especially critical, arguing the film follows "the basic plot of every other inspirational sports movie about a hangdog coach in need of redemption." It went further, saying the filmmakers see the players "solely as teaching tools for Marcus and the audience, not complex human beings worth spending real time with."

It's a fair concern, and one many viewers will weigh for themselves. A movie built around a coach learning from his players can easily treat those players as a lesson rather than as people with their own stories.

Audiences tell a different story

Theatergoers were far warmer than critics. Opening-weekend audiences gave Champions an "A" CinemaScore, which is about as good as it gets. PostTrak found 83% positive reactions.

That gap helps explain the Netflix success. Critics judged the film against a long line of sports movies and questioned how it handled disability. Regular viewers seem to have responded to the humor and the warmth, and especially to the players themselves.

The box office never matched that enthusiasm. The film earned $16.4 million in the U.S. and Canada and $21.9 million worldwide. It opened in seventh place, the same weekend as Scream VI and 65. Streaming gives a movie like this a second chance to find the audience that missed it the first time.

The humor

This is a Farrelly movie, so the jokes aren't always gentle. Expect crude humor and some language. The players get plenty of the punchlines, and much of the comedy comes from them puncturing Marcus's ego rather than the other way around.

Harrelson is well suited to this kind of role. He's played charming screwups for decades, and Marcus fits right into that tradition. The film runs about two hours and is rated PG-13.

Should you watch it?

If you want a light, feel-good sports comedy for a family night with older kids, Champions is an easy pick. It's predictable, but it's predictable in the comforting way that sports movies often are.

If you're sensitive to how films portray people with disabilities, read a few reviews first. Some critics felt the movie leans on old habits, even while giving its players real screen time.

If you've already seen Campeones, you'll know the story beat for beat. It may still be worth watching to compare the two.

I think the casting is what makes this film worth remembering. Giving those roles to actors with disabilities was the right call, and it's why so many viewers come away talking about the team rather than the star.

I would say that's the best reason to press play. Harrelson gets top billing, but the Friends are the real champions here.