General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Perfect Game

The Perfect Game is a 2009 American family sports drama directed by William Dear and written by W. William Winokur, adapted from the true story of the 1957 Monterrey Industrials, boys from Monterrey, Mexico, who in 1957 made history as the first team from outside the United States to claim the Little League World Series championship, doing so behind the only perfect game ever pitched in the final.¹^•² The film stars Clifton Collins Jr. as coach Cesar, Cheech Marin as the priest Padre Esteban, and Jake T. Austin as Angel Macias, the boy who persuades the aspiring major-league coach to train the team.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Director / writer	William Dear; screenplay by W. William Winokur, based on his book³
Historical subject	The 1957 Monterrey Industrials, first foreign team to win the Little League World Series, in the only perfect game in championship history²
Release	Premiered March 21, 2009, at the Guadalajara International Film Festival; Mexico April 1, 2010; United States April 16, 2010 (limited)⁵
Box office	$3,878,993 worldwide: $1,037,071 domestic and $2,841,922 in Mexico, against a reported $12.5 million budget⁶^•⁷
Reception	60% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (42 reviews); Metascore 42 from 19 reviews¹^•⁸
Runtime / rating	1 hour 58 minutes; rated PG for some thematic elements¹

Spoilers

Story and cast

Set in 1957 Monterrey, the film follows a ragtag group of poor boys who take up sandlot baseball under Cesar (Clifton Collins Jr.), a coach who had once hoped to make the major leagues. With the support of the parish priest Padre Esteban (Cheech Marin), they train, overcome poverty, disapproving parents, and prejudice, and win their way across the border to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.¹^•⁹

The young cast includes Jake T. Austin as Angel Macias, Jansen Panettiere as Enrique Suarez, Moises Arias as Mario Ontiveros, Ryan Ochoa as Norberto Villarreal, Gabriel Morales as Ricardo Treviño, Carlos Padilla as Baltazar Charles, and Alfredo Rodríguez as Jose "Pepe" Maiz; Tony Revolori and Mario Revolori, then credited as Anthony and Mario Quinonez, appear as Fidel Ruiz and Gerardo Gonzalez. Supporting roles are filled by Emilie de Ravin, Louis Gossett Jr., Bruce McGill, Patricia Manterola, David Koechner, and Frances Fisher.³^•⁹

Production troubles and release

The film's path to theaters nearly matched its underdog subject. It was shot twice, producers rotated frequently, and the budget suffered; at one point the young actors' parents held green screens and director William Dear shot elements in his driveway with a handheld Panasonic P2 camera.⁴ Jake T. Austin said the shoot ran a year and a half to two years, with another two and a half to three years before release, about four years in all.⁴ Principal photography on the finished version ran from June 2 to July 15, 2007, in Monterrey, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino, California.¹⁰

Lionsgate originally scheduled the film for July 2008 but pulled it after the original backers could not deliver the marketing money they had promised. The film then spent about 18 months in financial and legal disputes that ended in receivership. Producers Christian Tureaud and David Salzberg of High Road Entertainment revived it through a $5-million prints-and-advertising deal that the trustee struck with a New York-based investment group, leading to the April 16, 2010 release in roughly 500 U.S. theaters.¹¹ Salzberg reported that the Monterrey premiere drew about 20,000 attendees, and that the film opened on about 360 screens in Mexico, about 100 in Canada, and 450 in the United States.¹²

Reception

Critics were divided. The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus calls the film bogged down by an unfocused script and sports-movie clichés while noting its unabashed sweetness and stirring final act; the Tomatometer settled at 60 percent from 42 reviews, and the audience score at 70 percent.¹ Metacritic assigned a Metascore of 42, in the mixed-or-average band, from 19 reviews.⁸ Roger Ebert gave it 75 in the Chicago Sun-Times, while the Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips called it "perfectly mediocre" at 38, and L.A. Weekly criticized the film for barely dramatizing visa problems and the racism the boys encountered.⁸ The Los Angeles Times review judged it an imperfect film whose heart smooths over its deficiencies.¹³

Commercially the film earned $511,698 on its domestic opening weekend and finished with $1,037,071 in the United States and $2,841,922 in Mexico, for a worldwide total of $3,878,993 against a reported production budget of $12.5 million.⁶^•⁷ It later streamed on Prime Video, with a streaming release date of April 6, 2015 listed by Rotten Tomatoes.¹^•¹⁴

Other films of the same name

The title has been used elsewhere. A 2000 direct-to-video Disney release, Perfect Game, produced by Up to Bat Productions and directed by Dan Guntzelman, stars Ed Asner, Patrick Duffy, Cameron Finley, Tracy Nelson, and Drake Bell in a story about a boy who fires his Little League coach.¹⁵ A separate South Korean film, Perfect Game (퍼펙트게임, 2011), written and directed by Park Hee-gon, dramatizes the rivalry between KBO pitchers Sun Dong-yeol of the Haitai Tigers and Choi Dong-won of the Lotte Giants, culminating in their 15-inning duel in 1987; it stars Cho Seung-woo and Yang Dong-keun and runs 127 minutes.¹⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2000s › Sports and music drama films 2000s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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