The Natural (film)

The Natural is a 1984 film about an unknown who comes out of seemingly nowhere to become a legendary baseball player with almost divine talent.
 * Directed by Barry Levinson. Written by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry, based on the novel by Bernard Malamud.

The best there was! (taglines)

Roy Hobbs

 * Some mistakes I guess we never stop paying for.


 * [after his hand-made bat breaks] Pick me out a winner Bobby.

Pop Fisher

 * People don't start playing ball at your age, they retire!


 * I wanted to win that pennant worse than I wanted any goddamned thing in my life. You'd think I could just this once, wouldn't you? I didn't care nothing about the Series. Win or lose, I would have been satisfied.

Ed Hobbs

 * You've got a gift Roy... but it's not enough - you've got to develop yourself. If you rely too much on your own gift... then... you'll fail.

Dialogue

 * Pop Fisher: My ma urged me to get out of this game. When I was a kid, she pleaded with me. And I meant to, you know what I mean? But she died.
 * Red Blow: Tough.
 * Pop Fisher: Now look at me. I'm wet nurse to a last-place, dead-to-the-neck-up ball club, and I'm choking to death!


 * Roy Hobbs: Red, it took me sixteen years to get here. You play me, and I'll give ya the best I got.
 * Red Blow: I believe ya.


 * Pop Fisher: Hobbs. I'm sending you down Hobbs, Class B ball. Tomorrow you go to the Great Lakes Association.
 * Roy Hobbs: All right. You make the rules.
 * Pop Fisher: That's right, that's right and you ain't been playing by 'em. Don't you remember signing a contract!
 * Roy Hobbs: I remember signing a contract, to play ball not to be put to sleep by some two bit carney hypnotist! I won't do that Pop! I can't.


 * Pop Fisher: Batting practice tomorrow, be there!
 * Roy Hobbs: I have been. Every day.


 * Pop Fisher: I'd have walked away from baseball and I'd have bought a farm.
 * Roy Hobbs: Nothing like a farm. Nothing like being around animals, fixing things. There's nothing like being in the field with the corn and the winter wheat. The greenest stuff you ever saw.
 * Pop Fisher: You know my mama wanted me to be a farmer.
 * Roy Hobbs: My dad wanted me to be a baseball player.
 * Pop Fisher: Well you're better than any player I ever had. And you're the best God damn hitter I ever saw. Suit up.


 * Max Mercy: You read my mind.
 * Roy Hobbs: That takes all of three seconds.


 * Gus Sands: [trying to pay off Hobbs to tank] If it isn't enough, tell us what you had in mind.
 * Roy Hobbs: To hit away.


 * The Judge: I thought I could rely on your honor, Hobbs?
 * Roy Hobbs: You're about to.


 * Roy Hobbs: I coulda been better. I coulda broke every record in the book.
 * Iris Gaines: And then?
 * Roy Hobbs: And then? And then when I walked down the street people would've looked and they would've said there goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game.


 * Iris Gaines: You know, I believe we have two lives.
 * Roy Hobbs: How... what do you mean?
 * Iris Gaines: The life we learn with and the life we live with after that.

Taglines

 * The best there was!
 * Boyhood dreams, a bat made from a tree struck by lightning and most importantly, a never-ending passion for the game.
 * He lived for a dream that wouldn't die.
 * From an age of innocence comes a hero for today.

Cast

 * Robert Redford - Roy Hobbs
 * Glenn Close - Iris Gaines
 * Michael Madsen - Bartholomew 'Bump' Bailey
 * Kim Basinger - Memo Paris
 * Wilford Brimley - Pop Fisher
 * Barbara Hershey - Harriet Bird
 * Robert Prosky - The Judge
 * Richard Farnsworth - Red Blow
 * Joe Don Baker - The Whammer
 * Robert Duvall - Max Mercy
 * Darren McGavin - Gus Sands
 * Alan Fudge - Ed Hobbs