As sports fans, we’re hyper-critical of sports movies. We watch, disect and analyze every nook and cranny.

We can’t help it. We love sports, we love movies, and we want to love movies about sports. So when we see a bad one, it’s tossed out like a Ryan Leaf jersey or Akili Smith rookie card.

But when we see a good one? We watch it over and over, find our favorite parts and let it permeate our lives.

Seriously, how many times have you quoted “Remember the Titans”?

“Moneyball,” a film adaptation of the book by the same name, tells the story of Oakland Athletics’ general manager Billy Beane and his 2002 squad.

We’ll spare you the monatony of describing the rest of the movie as it happened because this isn’t a movie review, per se, and we also aren’t Rotten Tomatoes.

But what we do want to do is explain why we believe “Moneyball” is a great sports movie — and in our opinion a great movie overall, but that’s a debate for another day.

So beware, there are spoilers throughout this column. So either skip those parts, or go see the movie (Hint: we suggest you see the movie.)

To be a good sports movie, in our estimation, the movie must do a few things. First, it must evoke some certain emotion — empathy, sadness, awe, whatever — but it also has to be specific and it has to move the viewer in some way.

Second, it must have elements that multiple groups of people can relate to. Sports movies shouldn’t just be for sports fans.

Third, it has to get the sports stuff right. This should be obvious, but it clearly isn’t in many sports movies.

Movies like “Rudy,” “Hoosiers,” “Miracle,” “Field of Dreams,” “The Natural,” “Friday Night Lights” and “Remember the Titans” — to name a few of the all-time greats (we know we’ve left some out) — all do this and do this brilliantly.

We quote these movies. We re-watch these movies. We cry, laugh, celebrate and sometimes even grieve (re: the Gerry Bertier/Julius Campbell scene after Gerry’s accident) during these movies.

We get chills and go completely silent during these movies.

“Moneyball” has these moments.

We get a rare behind-the-scenes view of what a Major League Baseball general manager does day-in and day-out.

Granted, we’re sure some Hollywood liberties were taken — and acknowledge we are not the movie critics to point these out specifically — but we get the feeling that what we’re seeing is very close, if not accurate.

When Scott Hatteburg hits the home run against the Kansas City Royals to clinch the 20-game win streak — longest in American League history — the chills trickle down your spine.

In the theater, when the home run was first hit, the audio in the movie  briefly goes silent, and the theater in which we watched the movie was as quiet as any of us have experienced.

You can’t fake those moments.

And you can’t help but cheer for Beane and the A’s, even though you’re a sports fan and already know the ending. Making us want to watch a movie when we know how the team does is obviously a marker of a great movie.

The movie also became a story more of Beane and his mission to make something out of nothing (actually $30 million, but that’s not the point). Non-sports fans could cheer for Beane the person, not Beane the GM.

In our estimation, “Moneyball” ranks with the movies we already mentioned. And it‘s one that will live forever.