I know that every other woman and she/they who was born in the early-to-mid-’90s is as obsessed with Bend It Like Beckham as I am (but did they devote a significant part of their debut memoir to a study of Keira Knightley’s hipbones in her German-nightclub going-out ’fit? Did they?), yet now that we’re officially getting a sequel to the iconic 2002 film about soccer—excuse me, “football”—friendship and on-the-field flirtation, I can’t help myself: I’m feeling greedy.
Yes, I’m extremely excited to catch up with Jules and Jess (and, to a lesser degree, Joe the soccer coach, of “Jess, I’m Irish” fame, whom I always saw as getting in the way of Jules and Jess’s totally real and not at all imaginary romantic arc), but it’s not just director Gurinder Chadha’s voice that I’m hungry for more of. I miss all of my early aughts sports-obsessed film besties, and now I don’t think it’s too crazy to wish for each and every one of them to be revived. Below, a roundup of five cult female-athletics films from the 2000s that I need to see brought back to life.
