If you’re a Pittsburgh football fan and your adrenal glands haven’t had a workout recently, you need to check out “The Football Town,” currently rocking out the Rangos Giant Cinema at the Kamin Science Center.
The 52-minute film is the first-ever immersive feature documentary produced by NFL Films, being shown on the largest movie screen in the city, as part of Pittsburgh’s hosting of the much-anticipated NFL 2026 Draft, which will take place April 23-25.
It’s an ambitious project, as big as the massive screen on which it is projected. The film lyrically opens with closeups of fall leaves in picturesque local streams. The expanding montage that follows reveals the mighty three rivers that gave birth to Pittsburgh back in 1758. The rivers are a metaphor for the surging spirit that courses through veins of Pittsburgh football fans.
The story isn’t limited to professional sports. “The Football Town” covers local football at the youth football level, the high school level and college level (at Pitt), tracing the long-standing love of the sport from cradle to grave. Humorously, the film shows newborn babies in a hospital nursery wrapped in Terrible Towels, as well as shots of local tombstones with the Steelers logo eternally etched in granite.
If there was ever a town deserving of the title “The Football Town,” Pittsburgh is it.
Pittsburgh has also been known as a steel town over the years. The film features classic footage of steel production including showering sparks and the glowing rivers of molten steel. Not surprisingly, U.S. Steel partially financed “The Football Town” along with the Pittsburgh Steelers and VisitPITTSBURGH. It’s a movie designed to honor the sport and showcase the city and its multigenerational fanbase. It succeeds in doing both.
There’s a lot to talk about, ranging from the naming of the team — originally known as the Pirates — to the creation of the team logo and Myron Cope’s wildly popular Terrible Towel.
Not surprisingly, the preservation of Franco Harris’ size 12 game shoes in a glass display case at the Heinz History Center is treated with the kind of reverence typically reserved for historic artifacts like the original Declaration of Independence or the Shroud of Turin. Steelers fans would have no problem with that.
The movie, of course, includes Harris’ historic Immaculate Reception. Arguably the most famous play in professional football, it will forever be an epic moment that fans never tire of re-experiencing. Interestingly, the cameras never actually captured the controversial catch, which happens just out of frame. No one dared to challenge the call, as it surely would have incited the rioting of 59,000 adrenaline-fueled fans at Three Rivers Stadium.
Also immaculate is the legendary camera work by NFL Films, which elevated football coverage to soaring new heights over the years thanks to the combined talent of the best camera operators in the business. The movie features one of its many signature shots — of a pass being furiously unleashed, and the perfectly focused image of the ball gracefully spiraling in slow motion before being grabbed out of the air and hauled into the end zone. That kind of gridiron poetry in motion became NFL Films’ stock in trade.
I have the highest respect for the NFL Films camera crews, having hired and directed them several times, once in the production of an award-winning Penguins documentary, “A Hockey Night in Pittsburgh,” and once for an Emmy Award-winning documentary about thoroughbred racing, “Thistledown: A Day at the Races.” Both were career highlights for me.
“The Football Town” opens with a conversation between former Steelers coach Bill Cowher and Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerome “The Bus” Bettis sitting on the shore across from Acrisure Stadium. Oddly, their conversation plays out as though they were meeting each other for the first time and had never gone to the Super Bowl together back in 2006. It’s a bit clunky, but it’s perhaps the only misstep in an otherwise well-scripted movie.
Other football legends mentioned in the film include Mike Ditka, “Broadway Joe” Namath, Joe Montana and Dan Marino. Like the Zambelli fireworks displays featured in the film, they add glittering sparkle to the story.
Despite perhaps a little too much emphasis on nature photography and steelmaking, “The Football Town” more than delivers on the history and heritage of football that fans everywhere will enjoy. It is an engaging, high-profile promotional film that nicely sets the stage for all the fan frenzy excitement in store when the NFL Draft comes to town.
Not just any town, but THE Football Town.
“The Football Town” will be showing at the Rangos Giant Cinema at the Kamin Science Center now through the start of the NFL Draft.
“The Football Town” marks NFL Films’ first foray into the world of immersive, big-screen sports documentaries, kicking off the upcoming NFL Draft taking place here in Pittsburgh April 23-25. It is a splashy, promotional project — a tribute to the sport and the city that all football fans will enjoy.
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