The cheerleader movie genre is a tough one to pull off. It requires all the cliches of a sports film, with all the cliches of a high school film, plus a bunch of very specific cheerleading cliches. And there’s no room for error. If you miss even one step, it can fall apart pretty quickly.
So what makes a good cheerleading movie? Well, you need to start with a compelling story. And that’s where the Bring It On saga pulls it off perfectly. For one thing, it features an impressive cast of young stars in their breakthrough years. But more importantly, it has a great story about the darker side of competitive high school cheerleading (stealing routines and school spirit clashes, you know?).
A lot of people have no idea how intense this sport can be, but these movies might give you a taste of what it’s like! Our list of movies about cheerleading captures the spirit of competitive cheerleading with characters that are full of life, if not always full of confidence. Here are our picks for all your cheerleader movie needs!
#1 Bring It On
2000 | 1h 38m | Directed by Peyton Reed
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Gabrielle Union, and Eliza Dushku
Bring It On is one of the most popular teen movies of all time. It stars Kirsten Dunst and Gabrielle Union as the leaders of rival cheerleading squads set to compete against each other in a national competition. The movie was so popular that it spawned several sequels, but none came close to the popularity of the original 2000 film.
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53points
#2 Bring It On: All Or Nothing
2006 | 1h 39m | Directed by Steve Rash
Starring Hayden Panettiere, Solange Knowles, and Gus Carr
The third installment in the Bring It On series follows former cheerleader captain Britney Allen as she moves from her affluent neighborhood to Crenshaw Heights, where she must adjust to a new school and new team. Despite some minor differences between this film and the first two, it still has all the charm we’ve come to expect from the series.
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50points
#3 Bring It On: Fight To The Finish
2009 | 1h 42m | Directed by Bille Woodruff
Starring Christina Milian, Vanessa Born, and Gabrielle Dennis
Iconic in every sense of the word, Lina Cruz is a tough, sharp-witted cheerleader from East Los Angeles who transfers to Malibu after her widowed mother remarries a wealthy man. Lina not only finds herself out of her depth at her new high school. She also faces off against Avery, the snobbish and ultra-competitive cheerleading captain who leads her own squad, the Jaguars, after the official high school squad, the Sea Lions, did not vote for her to be captain.
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50points
#4 Fired Up!
2009 | 1h 30m | Directed by Will Gluck
Starring Nicholas D’Agosto, Eric Christian Olsen, and Sarah Roemer
This comedy follows two guys who give up football in exchange for a spot on the cheerleading squad. Shawn and Nick join the team to meet girls but learn that there is more to cheerleading than meets the eye. With their newfound insight into the world of cheerleading, they help their team compete in Nationals while trying to keep their true intentions hidden.
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49points
#5 Bring It On Again
2004 | 1h 30m | Directed by Damon Santostefano
Starring Anne Judson-Yager, Bree Turner, and Faune Chambers Watkins
Friends Whittier and Monica can’t stand the tyrannical cheerleader captain, Tina. They decide to form their own team, pulling together a collection of social misfits: geeks, artists, and bleeding-heart students whose after-school activities were cut for budgetary reasons. Through teamwork, they challenge the official squad’s right to represent the school at the upcoming cheerleading championship.
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48points
#6 Man Of The House
2005 | 1h 40m | Directed by Stephen Herek
Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Cedric The Entertainer, and Christina Milian
The movie stars Tommy Lee Jones as a Texas Ranger whose job is to protect five cheerleaders who witness a murder. Initially, Tommy Lee Jones’ character was to be an FBI agent working in Virginia. Still, upon receiving the script, Jones suggested that Texas would be a great location for the film. After the producers arrived, they decided to shoot the movie there and, as a consequence, made the main character a Texas Ranger.
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46points
#7 She's The Man
2006 | 1h 45m | Directed by Andy Fickman
Starring Amanda Bynes, James Kirk, and Channing Tatum
Nobody puts Viola Hastings in a corner! In Fickman’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Amanda Bynes plays Viola, a teenager with a deep passion for football. When Viola’s football team is dissolved, and she is not allowed to play on the boys’ team either, she disguises herself as her twin brother so she can keep playing. Among cheerleaders, hard training, and romantic troubles, she’ll have to keep her secret at any cost.
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45points
#8 Poms
2019 | 1h 30m | Directed by Zara Hayes
Starring Diane Keaton, Pam Grier, and Charlie Tahan
It’s not every day you see a movie about not-so-young cheerleaders, but that’s exactly what we got with Poms! Diane Keaton stars in this cheer comedy as a woman who joins a senior citizen cheerleading squad in her retirement community. Poms is a fun film with great life lessons: it’s about never giving up on your dreams and going for them even as you get older.
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44points
#9 Sugar & Spice
2001 | 1h 21m | Directed by Francine McDougall
Starring Marla Sokoloff, Marley Shelton, and Melissa George
Sugar & Spice is another 2000s cheerleading comedy that pokes fun at the genre as well as other pop culture phenomena, like teen movies and pregnancy movies. The film follows a cheerleading squad involved in a bank robbery to pay for their captain’s medical bills following an unexpected pregnancy. Get ready to cheer for the bad girls!
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43points
#10 Not Another Teen Movie
2001 | 1h 29m | Directed by Joel Gallen
Starring Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, and Jaime Pressly
Not Another Teen Movie is a silly, satirical take on the teen genre. While it isn’t a cheerleading movie per se, it does feature a very memorable spoof of one of the best cheerleading movies ever: Bring It On! The film was received well by critics and audiences alike and is often considered one of the most popular comedies of the early 2000s.
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42points
#11 The Secret Lives Of Cheerleaders
2019 | 1h 27m | Directed by Peter Sullivan
Starring Denise Richards, Savannah Lee May, and Alexandria DeBerry
Ava, a pretty and naturally gifted cheerleader, finds herself embroiled in a rivalry with the manipulative and ruthless head cheerleader who only wants Ava out of the way. When Ava finds herself the victim of Katrina’s maligned machinations, she’ll have to join forces with some new allies if she hopes to end her tyrannical reign. Get your favorite snacks and enjoy all the drama of this cheerleader movie!
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40points
#12 Buffy The Vampire Slayer
1992 | 1h 26m | Directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui
Starring Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, and Donald Sutherland
There’s no way we can make a list of cheerleading movies without mentioning the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer film with Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, and Donald Sutherland in his role as Merrick. The plot is pretty simple: Buffy is your average cheerleader who happens to be the slayer that was prophesied to come along and help save humans from vampires.
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39points
#13 Going For Gold
2018 | 1h 33m | Directed by Clay Glen
Starring Kelli Berglund, Emily Morris, and Terry Rogers
Emma, a 17-year-old American girl, moves to a new town in Australia with her father, a member of the Air Force. Together with her new friend Hannah, she decides to teach the art of cheerleading to a bunch of total beginners and form a good cheer squad to take on their biggest rivals in competition. This is the second time Kelli Berglund and Emily Morris have co-starred in a movie. They previously appeared in the film Raising The Bar, released in 2016.
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38points
#14 Death Of A Cheerleader
2019 | 1h 27m | Directed by Paul Shapiro
Starring Aubrey Peeples, Morgan Taylor Campbell, and Sarah Dugdale
Death Of A Cheerleader stars Aubrey Peeples as Bridget, a shy teenager obsessed with fitting in and being popular. After both failing to join the cheerleader squad and get a yearbook staff position, she tries to befriend the rich and pretty Kelly Locke. When Kelly also rejects her, Bridget can’t take it anymore. As you might expect from the title, things don’t end well for these girls. Inspired by the true story of the murder of Kirsten Costas in 1984.
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37points
#15 The Cheerleaders
1973 | 1h 24m | Directed by Paul Glickler
Starring Denise Dillaway, Raoul Hoffnung, and Richard Meatwhistle
When Jeannie, a reluctant virgin, gets involved with the Amoroso High cheerleaders, she finds herself getting a crash course in teenage temptation. But now the fix is in on the football season’s big game, and the cheerleader squad has a plan to make their own school team win the match: sleeping with the opponents the night before the game and tiring them out to the point they won’t be able to play. Can this crazy plan work?
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36points
#16 Bring It On: Worldwide #Cheersmack
2017 | 1h 35m | Directed by Robert Adetuyi
Starring Vivica A. Fox, Cristine Prosperi, and Sophie Vavasseur
Vivica A. Fox makes her Bring It On debut as Cheer Goddess, a “Cheer-lebrity” whose fame originates from her internet persona. When the reigning three-time national champions, “The Rebels,” are challenged to a global cheer showdown by an edgy new team, “The Truth,” the Cheer Goddess organizes a virtual battle for squads from all around the globe.
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35points
#17 American Beauty
1999 | 2h 2m | Directed by Sam Mendes
Starring Kevin Spacey, Thora Birch, and Mena Suvari
American Beauty is not your typical cheerleading movie, but it does feature Kevin Spacey’s character getting infatuated by his daughter’s friend Angela Hayes, a member of her school’s cheerleading squad. This 1999 drama about an American family with serious issues won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Kevin Spacey, and Best Director for Sam Mendes.
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34points
#18 The Replacements
2000 | 1h 58m | Directed by Howard Deutch
Starring Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, and Brooke Langton
When the NFL’s Washington Sentinels go on strike, the team’s owner calls former NFL coach Jimmy out of retirement to coach a rag-tag group of replacement players to finish the season’s games. This sounds like a perfect opportunity for Shane Falco to find a second chance at his long-lost football career (and also love, with Annabelle, the beautiful head cheerleader). The Replacements isn’t so much a cheerleading movie as it is a sports movie. Well, okay, it’s a Keanu Reeves movie. And it also happens to be a pretty underrated film.
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33points
#19 All Cheerleaders Die
2001 | 1h 20m | Directed by Chris Sivertson and Lucky McKee
Starring Julia Carpenter, Jesse Hlubik, and Jennifer Grant
A low-budget horror movie about a bunch of cheerleaders-turned-zombies who rise from the dead to exact their revenge on their football player ex-boyfriends who murdered them. If you’re a fan of B movies, you can just watch this one, or you could also opt to watch the 2013 remake made by the same directors and declare your favorite one!
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33points
