Tennis on Film: Rating Match Point (2005), another tennis drama snubbed by The Academy

One of the biggest surprises of the 2025 film awards season was seeing the way Challengers (2024)—a film starring Zendaya set on the lowest rungs of the professional tennis tour—was completely panned by the Academy of Motion Pictures.

Despite all the buzz around its Golden Globes-winning techno soundtrack created by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the Luca Guadagnino film didn’t receive a nomination in any category—triggering waves of online discourse among movie fans.

Read More: ‘Challengers’ star Josh O’Connor reacts to film’s Academy Awards snub

For tennis fans, though, that’s just par for the course: Even the most highly acclaimed films where tennis plays a significant role seem to get regularly overlooked by awards committees. The biggest one in recent years, King Richard (2021), finally broke the joyless streak when Will Smith won an Oscar for his performance as Serena and Venus Williams’ father and coach.

In this Baseline series, our editors break down what makes a ‘good’ tennis movie by dissecting some of the sport’s cult classics through the lens of a fan—starting with Woody Allen’s 2005 hit Match Point:

Match Point (2005)

• Directed by Woody Allen
• Starring Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Synopsis: Tired from the grind of Tour life, Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a recently retired high-ranked pro, takes a job as a tennis instructor at a ritzy tennis club in London. The connections he makes there help propel him into elite circles, and into tangled webs: Chris friends one of his students, wealthy Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode), and begins dating his sister, Chloe Hewett (Emily Mortimer), who snags him a job at her father’s company. Along the way Chris falls for Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), a struggling American actress who was engaged to Tom. Chris has to decide between his passion for Nola and the high-end lifestyle he’s become accustomed to, and finds himself taking extreme measures to keep up appearances.

Rating the tennis: 2/5

• Dramatic umpire confrontation? No

The film clocks in at two hours and four minutes of runtime, which is just two minutes longer than the 2025 Australian Open women’s final, a completely different type of ‘tennis drama’. Match Point fittingly opens on a tennis court mid-rally, with an analogy about luck illustrated by a match-point letcord.

Meyers plays a retired tennis pro who once competed alongside the likes of Tim Henman, Greg Rusedski and Andre Agassi. It’s a believable enough performance, especially as Chris’ job as an instructor mostly involves feeding tennis balls to flailing beginners. As Chris starts to move up in the world we see fewer tennis scenes, although his racquet bag later plays a key role during one of the most pivotal scenes in the film.

Rating the on-court fashion: 3/5

• Are the outfits believable? Yes

The tennis outfits are on point and feature staple brands like Fred Perry and Lacoste, as well as a lot of crisp white outfits. The latter is a bit less accurate: While the All England Club is known for its strict dress code during Wimbledon, most modern tennis clubs—including the Queens Club in London—don’t adhere to an all-white rule.

Rating the soundtrack & score: 4/5

• Exaggerated tennis grunts? No

If tennis serves as the biggest visual motif and metaphor in the film, then Italian opera comes in second. The main characters bond over their shared love of opera, and the music perfectly sets the mood as things begin to unravel.

Critical Reception & Box Office Performance:

• Rotten Tomatoes score: 77/100 (critics), 81/100 (audience)

According to Rotten Tomatoes, most critics enjoyed the depictions of London, from charming Notting Hill to the upscale circles the characters move in, as well as Johannson's standout performance. But in the UK, audiences also spotted flaws and Americanisms in director Allen’s writing that made for awkward British dialogue.

According to IMDb, the film grossed over $84 million worldwide—about $24 million coming from its US and Canada run alone—with an estimated budget of about $15,000,000. Director Allen called it “arguably… the best film that I've made.”

Accolades, Awards & Nominations:

Match Point earned Allen an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and racked up four Golden Globe nominations for Best Motion Picture (Drama), Best Screenplay, Best Director and a Best Supporting Actress nod for Johansson. But it didn’t take home any awards, beat out by films like Crash and Brokeback Mountain in its categories.

Verdict:

Does it pass the tennis fan test? No

While the movie’s title is indeed a tennis reference, for a film named Match Point there’s just too much metaphorical tennis and not enough of the actual game. Plus, a major strike as one of the film’s promotional posters features Meyers holding a table tennis paddle—not a tennis racquet—standing alongside Johansson. Sure, it’s a reference to a key scene in the movie, but I would have preferred to see a Wilson Pro Staff there myself.

Want more tennis drama? Watch Zizou Bergs collide with Cristian Garin in controversial Davis Cup scene