Credit: Netflix

Let’s settle this little argument right now; Moneyball isn’t the greatest baseball film ever made, you know, because if we’re being honest, it barely gives a toss about baseball. Peel away the shirts, and what you are left with is a story about giving an old system a proper kick-up.

And that’s exactly why Bennett Miller’s 2011 film still feels boss all these years later. The game might be baseball, but the ideas? Ah, they belong in every office, every startup.

Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), the general manager of the skint Oakland Athletics, has got a problem that money can’t fix, mainly because he’s got none of it. While the big clubs are throwing millions around like it’s confetti, Oakland is left rummaging through the bargain bucket. So instead of chasing everyone else’s game, Beane decides to change the rules. His unlikely partner in crime is Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a quiet little Yale economics lad who reckons numbers can spot talent better than reputations ever could.

Now, the crazy part is, Peter Brand isn’t even a real fellow. The character is mostly based on former Athletics executive Paul DePodesta, who apparently didn’t fancy having his own name in the film. Funny enough, that actually works in Moneyball’s favour.

Brad Pitt, meanwhile? Ahh, he is absolutely different gravy here. Forget the smooth operator from Ocean’s Eleven or the swaggering nutter from Fight Club. Billy Beane is as snappy and stubborn as they come, and is carrying the weight of impossible expectations on his back. Pitt doesn’t play him like some all-knowing genius who has got every answer. Nah. He plays him like a bloke who has shoved every chip he’s got onto one risky bet, knowing full well it could all go spectacularly wrong.

Did you know Steven Soderbergh was originally meant to direct a completely different version before the whole thing got binned literally days before filming, leaving Bennett Miller to step in and build the version everyone knows now? Sounds crazy, but we’re grateful.

Watching Moneyball back now comes with a couple of nice little surprises and all. Chris Pratt turns up as Scott Hatteberg years before Marvel made him Star-Lord, and honestly, you can’t help but do a double take. Then there’s Philip Seymour Hoffman as Oakland manager Art Howe, nicking scenes with nothing more than a look or a well-timed pause. That’s some talent, that.

What’s spooky about Moneyball, though, is just how spot-on it turned out to be. Analytics runs modern sport now. Football clubs are signing players because the data says so. Businesses are obsessed with metrics. Algorithms decide everything from who gets hired to what pops up on your streaming service next. Billy Beane’s way of thinking sounded bonkers back then; nowadays, it’s practically common sense. That’s not just a film ageing well… That’s a film sitting there, watching the real world slowly catch up with it.

And maybe that’s why Moneyball still hits just as hard all these years later. It isn’t asking you to fall in love with baseball. It’s asking you to think again about how we measure success. We see who gets overlooked and why the loudest voice in the room always gets mistaken for the smartest. Mad when you think about it, innit? Turns out, a film about baseball was never really about baseball in the first place.