It’s a well-known fact that none of us actually know how a Major League Baseball season will play out, but that doesn’t keep us from previewing it. And if no one’s predictions are going to be right, then why not use a months-old BlueSky trend to do it?

For those who can’t or won’t follow the link: Longtime baseball writer Harry Pavlidis asserted that the #1 movie when you turned 10 years old is how your 2026 is going to go, and shared a gif from the 1981 movie Stripes.

In a way, cinema is a decent metaphor for the current era of baseball. Each year, high-budget, star-studded major studio productions compete for entertainment dollars, but sometimes they all are outperformed by movies like 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, which reportedly cost $60,000 to make and went on to be one of the year’s highest grossing films. The Milwaukee Brewers can relate: In 2025 they were outspent by roughly 75% of MLB teams but still finished the regular season with the sport’s best record.

It’s worth noting, of course, that some films (and types of films) have a greater opportunity to be and stay #1 than others. Approximately 1.2 million people were born in the U.S. alone during Titanic’s 16 weeks (across two stints) as the nation’s #1 film, for example, but if you’re waiting for someone who was born during Milwaukee Record favorite UHF’s time at the top of the mountain you get nothing. Absolutely nothing.

With that said, what follows is a look at the #1 movies on the 10th birthdays of some prominent members of the 2026 Brewers. Do I need to explicitly say this? Maybe I need to explicitly say this: This list contains spoilers for highly popular films released between a decade and six decades ago, so if you’re extremely far behind on cinema and looking to avoid spoilers you may want to avert your eyes.

Brandon Woodruff: How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days (2003)

Who doesn’t love a love story? The Brewers and Woodruff have been together for ages through playoff runs, All Star seasons, shoulder surgery, and more. Now, however, they’re on the shortest of baseball arrangements: Woodruff accepted a one-year offer to return for another season but could become a free agent following the year or, in a worse scenario, be a trade candidate if the Brewers fall out of contention.

In How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, meanwhile, Matthew McConaughey (Ben) and Kate Hudson (Andie) also have a short timetable and face opposing incentives: Ben has bet colleagues he can make Andie fall in love with him in 10 days, while Andie is writing a story on her ability to get Ben to break up with her in the same timeframe. In the end (spoilers) love does prevail—and perhaps it will here, but if Woodruff or Brewers management gift each other a “love fern” before Opening Day it’s probably not a great sign.

https://youtube.com/shorts/1-oK5XDNWGQ?si=mBEFBGv2yAk337b5

Brandon Sproat: The Town (2010)

For years Freddy Peralta has featured prominently in previews like this, but after he was traded to New York this winter one of the new top storylines around the organization is the potential contributions of the players the Brewers got in return. Sproat is likely to be the most prominent among them in the short term as he’s been penciled into the Opening Day starting rotation.

The Town, meanwhile, is a Ben Affleck movie about a bank robbery and its aftermath, complicated by a developing love interest between one of the thieves and the bank manager they took hostage during the heist. The Brewers certainly hope Sproat’s first season in Milwaukee will feature lots of action and dramatic moments, but a psychological thriller about messy relationships might not be the kind of drama they had in mind.

William Contreras: National Treasure: Book Of Secrets (2007)

A two-time All Star and Silver Slugger Award winner, Contreras might be the Brewers’ most pivotal player: He played in 150 games and caught 128 last season despite playing with a broken finger that sapped his power for much of the year. Now healthy, Contreras is a candidate for a major offensive bounceback that could be a big part of the Brewers’ success. If he struggles with health or performance, however, then catching could quickly become one of the team’s biggest question marks.

Meanwhile, did you remember there was a second National Treasure movie? The people who saw it might wish there hadn’t been: it got a 35% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and one of the top results on a Google search for it is a Reddit post from someone who didn’t understand it. What does this mean for Contreras? The Brewers would certainly love a second installment of Contreras’ 2024 MVP candidacy as they continue their search for the City of Gold, but they’ll be less excited if the sequel pales in comparison to the original like this movie did.

Brice Turang: The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)

Turang’s major step forward in 2025 was one of the biggest stories in the Brewers’ franchise record-setting 97 win campaign. He was voted the best defender in the sport in 2024 but broke out on offense a year ago, setting new career highs in virtually every statistic and raising his on-base plus slugging by 130 points. If Turang can sustain 2025’s level of performance he’s a franchise cornerstone-level player. If he can improve upon it again (and he’s still only 26 years old), he could be one of the most valuable players in baseball.

New Moon, meanwhile, was the second of five film adaptations of a massively popular book series. IMDB says this is the one where “After Edward leaves because of an incident involving Bella, Jacob Black becomes her best friend, but what Bella doesn’t realize is that Jacob also has a secret that will suddenly change their lives.” I’ll, uh, take their word for it.

Perhaps we’ll never know if Turang was Team Jacob or Team Edward (and, to be honest, he was probably a little young to be seeing the movies either way), but New Moon maintained the momentum of a series that became a cultural phenomenon and spawned five film adaptations of four books. If Turang’s 2026 season is anywhere near that level of success it’d be very good news for the Brewers.

Pat Murphy: Funny Girl (1968)

In an era where most MLB managers feel somewhat interchangeable, Murphy has managed to stand out nearly every day of his short two-year tenure at the helm of the Brewers, and he’s been NL Manager of the Year in each of those seasons. Whether it’s his personality in the dugout, his seeming love of short position players, or bits like his “pocket pancakes,” Murphy has been up to the task of replacing the winningest manager in franchise history and has very quickly emerged from Craig Counsell’s shadow.

Meanwhile, Murphy turned 10 in 1968 and the year featured some iconic films like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, and Planet Of The Apes, but for eight of the last nine weeks that year the nation’s #1 movie was Funny Girl, a Barbara Streisand-led film adaptation of the 1964 Streisand-led Broadway musical that was in itself an adaptation of the biography of early 20th century star Fanny Brice. It follows Brice’s rise to fame as a comedian and singer and her tumultuous personal life.

Murphy’s baseball life has had its own share of tumult, including but not limited to 947 collegiate coaching wins before being forced to resign at Arizona State in 2009, and a heart attack at a team workout in 2020. Like Brice, however, Murphy is experiencing more stardom than ever on the back end of his biggest struggles, and if his performance in 2026 ends in a parade, then no one will care if it rains on it.

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