When the Oscars and the BNP Paribas Open collide, it's time to talk tennis movies

I'm a huge movie buff and this is the first time I can remember the Oscars being held at the same time as the BNP Paribas Open. So I was kind of bummed about not being able to sit at home and watch the show and check my ballot and see how my Oscar predictions are going.

But it did get me thinking, what are my five favorite tennis-related moments in movie history? Here we go:

King Richard

We don't have to go back too far to find a legitimate movie based on tennis with Will Smith playing Richard Williams as he shepherds Serena and Venus into their historic careers. This was a great movie and I was impressed by the "tennis acting" of the two young stars. Of course, some of the tennis action was not them, but when it was them, I thought Saniyya Sidney (Venus) and Demi Singleton (Serena) showed good form. As long as Will Smith doesn't do anything stupid, he should garner goodwill for this performance for a long time.

Battle of the Sexes

When I heard Emma Stone was going to play Billie Jean King in this 2017 film about the origins of the WTA and the famous match against Bobby Riggs, I couldn't picture it, but darned if she didn't kind of nail it. The climactic match between Stone and Steve Carell playing Riggs was suitably realistic and the whole movie was a success.

Bridesmaids

There are almost too many classic scenes in this movie to count, but the tennis battle between Helen (Rose Byrne) and Annie (Kristen Wiig) was right up there. The faces, the ferocity, the carnage, the slo-mo. Well done.

7 Days in Hell

This spoof loosely based on the epic match by John Isner and Nicolas Mahut that lasted three days and ended with Isner winning 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68, was shot partly in the desert. Andy Samberg, with a look that was part Andre Agassi and part Bjorn Borg, and Kit Harrington are hilarious as they play a match that just won't end. It was harmless, goofy fun.

Match point

This Woody Allen psychological thriller from 2005 is a bit underrated in my book. It's a cool, tense movie and while there is not a lot of tennis action in it, Jonathan Rhys Meyers is a tennis instructor who falls in love with Scarlett Johansson and then ... well, bad things happen.

Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com. Do you have any favorite movie tennis moments? Let Shad know.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: BNP Paribas Open: My five favorite moments where movies and tennis collide