Basketball is Cinema, Obviously

I get it now.

In his essay “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” French film critic André Bazin argued that the “objective nature of photography confers on it a quality of credibility absent from all over picture-making.” That was 1945. In the midst of AI discourse, it registers as an antiquated observation on par with ancient astrology, with one critical exception: Live, televised sports continue to capture the monoculture, in large part because they enable a mass audience to agree that everything in front of their eyes is real.

I get it now. The drama that draws people in, the real-time effects of euphoria, a documentary aesthetic that transforms each game into a movie produced before our eyes. The decision to have Josh Safdie direct an NBA game last season may have been a marketing stunt, but it makes perfect sense, too: Basketball is cinema. (His recent Nike ad is, too.)

And the 2026 triumph of the Knicks, who boast one of America’s greatest living filmmakers as its most prominent fan, brings this obvious truth into sharp relief. The best of Spike Lee’s movies have a sustained, thrilling momentum that can turn impulsively from comedy to drama, tragedy to uplift, with a singular operatic style. This same propulsive energy coursed through the Knicks’ performance in this year’s finals, particularly throughout that bracing final stretch. To anyone who ever invited me to a Knicks game over the years and didn’t receive immediate confirmation: I’m sorry. This was the must-see movie franchise of the year.

As if the cinema-sports connections needed further elaboration, the NBA finals dovetailed so neatly into the World Cup that we may as well be living through a giant sports film festival. The group watch parties are an extension of the joy that exhibition provides in an ideal theatrical setting.

Unfolding in the midst of a major movie summer that includes Christopher Nolan adapting the most famous epic of all time, a very satisfying sequel to a major family-friendly franchise, and one of the greatest superheroes getting a sequel, it’s not hyperbole to argue that the energy of summer sports and summer movies have found the measure of synergy for the weeks ahead: Collaboration, not competition. Everyone should see all the things and go home happy.