The Beautiful Game is a 2024 British sports drama film directed by Thea Sharrock and written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce.

Introducing him to his "dream team", the squad he is training for a global annual football tournament in Rome, Vinny is unimpressed.

Vinny realises they are talking about the Homeless World Cup when he stays for a meal afterwards, so insists he does not qualify and leaves.

The troubled Vinny regularly has flashbacks to his brief West Ham United football career and youth team.

England's Jason is smitten by the USA's Rosita, but inadvertently expresses his interest in an excessively sexual way.

Over dinner with the Italian director of the Cup Gabriella, Mal explains he scouted Vinny while in West Ham's youth training.

A previous iteration of the script was set up at Fox Searchlight Pictures, with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson attached.

Producers on the project are Blueprint Pictures' Graham Broadbent and Peter Czernin with Anita Overland.

Ben Knight and Diarmuid McKeown serve as executive producers alongside Ollie Madden and Daniel Battsek of Film4.

[6][7] The film used extras who had participated in real tournaments and are now no longer homeless which Bill Nighy described to the BBC as "a very sweet bit of symmetry.

The website's critics consensus reads, "The Beautiful Game has an undeniable warmth that further elevates an already irresistible true story, helping this inspirational drama score despite a reliance on well-worn clichés.

[11] Guy Lodge for Variety describes Ward's "darting, restless screen energy pleasingly complements Nighy's signature laid-back roguishness", but felt that the script has "more subplots and topical issues than it can meaningfully develop.

"[12] Fionnuala Halligan for Screen Daily said that the discussion of mental health issues "distinguishes it from the rest of the field", and that the film "demonstrates that Micheal Ward is a leading man", but felt that the running time of over two hours was too long.

[13] Brazilian journalist Eric Filardi, from the website Esportelândia, found at least 17 references to real-life football in the work.

References ranging from Pelé, Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, Johan Cruyff and David Beckham to Alex Ferguson, Eric Cantona, Raphinha, Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst.