Movies About Shoes, Ranked

After directing movies about the Iran hostage crisis, Boston crooks and whatever it was Live by Night was about, Ben Affleck is back in the director’s chair for Air, which, in case you weren’t aware, is a full-length feature film all about a fucking shoe.

Should Affleck’s chronicle about the creation of the Air Jordan prove successful, we’ll no doubt soon get an Oscar-baiting drama about the invention of the Reebok Pump, or maybe a $200 million blockbuster about those sneakers with wheels and lights — you know, the kind you see kids zipping around the mall in, while their parents seem to be slowly dying inside.

Well, it turns out that Air isn’t the first example of a movie focused primarily on footwear. We’ve collected and ranked some of the most notable examples, shockingly none of which were directed by Quentin Tarantino.

5 The Christmas Shoes

The Rob Lowe-starring TV movie The Christmas Shoes has more sap than a maple tree farm run by Hallmark. It will make you hate concepts of both Christmas and shoes.

Really, you’re far better off listening to Patton Oswalt’s routine about the NewSong tune of the same name.

4 The Cobbler

Adam Sandler starred in a comedy where he plays the emo son of Lucifer, but somehow his strangest project is still 2014’s The Cobbler, in which he stars as a shoe repair guy who gains the ability to magically transform into anyone whose shoes he’s wearing. So naturally, he uses this amazing superpower to creep on naked women and date his elderly mother while wearing his dad’s old loafers?

3 Like Mike

Before Affleck saw the box office potential in a story focusing on Michael Jordan’s sneakers, there was Like Mike, all about a small boy who becomes an NBA player thanks to MJ’s old shoes, which are magic for some reason. This is only slightly more ridiculous than becoming a major league pitcher because you broke your goddamn arm.

2 The Red Shoes

Are we really putting the 1948 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger classic on the same list as a movie that stars Lil’ Bow Wow and Jonathan Lipnicki? Yes. Yes, we are.

1 The Wizard of Oz

When it comes right down to it, The Wizard of Oz is really just a story about a pair of shoes — in this case, bejeweled shoes stolen off of a dead body following an accidental killing. Set anywhere other than the wonderful world of Oz, and that would be creepy as hell.