A Christian movie, The Hill, which won the Family Film and TV award for the best feature film at the end of January, was one of Netflix’s top movies in January. It was also the streaming platform’s most popular movie for at least six days that same month, Christian Headlines reports.

The movie, starring Dennis Quaid, is based on the true life story of Rickey Hill (played by Colin Ford) the son of a Baptist preacher who went on to play professional baseball despite suffering from a degenerative spinal disease. Quaid plays Rickey’s father, Pastor Hill.

“No words! Netflix #1 movie in America! Crazy! Keep the thumbs up and we’ll stay awhile. Thank you all for your undying support!!,” wrote the movie’s director Jeff Celentano in a celebrity post on Instagram.

But the movie’s popularity is a bit of a surprise because according to Forbes magazine, it only had sales of $7.6 million when it was released in movie theaters in August 2023.

But despite this, it has an outstanding 97% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and predictably only a 44% score by the critics, with over half labeling it ‘rotten.’

As a child, Rickey had several operations and required braces to learn how to walk. Those braces resulted in him being bullied. Despite the corrective surgeries, Rickey ended up walking with a limp.

But, he ended up developing an ability to hit the ball by practicing hitting a stone with a stick.

Rickey found his niche when his brother talked him into playing baseball, where he became known as the ‘home run king’ at the age of nine, despite playing with older boys.

Rickey grew up in poverty and even faced some resistance from his father when he wanted to pursue baseball, as his dad wanted Rickey to become a minister.

According to Forbes, Hill got his break at 18 when he was invited to participate in a 700-player baseball camp featuring top players in America.

When he wasn’t selected for the final main tryout featuring the best players, Hill asked one of the scouts why the camp’s best hitter wasn’t playing.

They decided to include him and made him the designated hitter for both teams, and he went 11 for 11 including three home runs.

Though Hill never made it to the major leagues, he signed to a minor league contract by the Montreal Expos in 1975. He would play for three more minor professional teams before retiring in 1978 at age 22 because of the pain after his spine gave out.

“When you have to fight for the first few years of your life, you’re fighting all the time — walking and trying to do all those things. It just came built-in,” Rickey said in an interview with ChristianHeadlines.

“I was born with problems. I didn’t let them take me down. I’m still here. I’ve still got the same faith. It’s very powerful, very strong. I fought the fight and I kept the faith and I finished the course,” Rickey added.