The answer, of course, is neither: It was "Chariots of Fire." Hugh Hudson's nostalgia-charged costume drama centered on the Paris Olympics of 1924; it won four Academy Awards, including best picture of 1981, and introduced a majestically catchy musical theme from Vangelis' synthesizer score, an inescapable component of any TV coverage of an inspirational sports saga.

If only the film were any good! It takes off from the true story of Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), a Jewish sprinter from Cambridge, England, and Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), a Church of Scotland sprinter who was studying divinity in Glasgow. Abrahams and Liddell had to endure social snobbery and public derision to achieve their athletic goals. But the movie fails to give a satisfying shape to their struggles. Liddell is supposed to have a spiritual potency that extends to all parts of his life: He's a fundamentalist Protestant who won't race on Sundays. Yet when he says that he feels God's spirit when he runs, you wonder how that feeling differs from any other kind of athletic exhilaration.

At least we get to see Liddell in his native milieu. Abrahams' Jewish roots are only spoken about, his family life only hinted at. Since the movie's portrait of both his Jewishness and his opponents' anti-Semitism is so muted, it's possible that his critics are right and he is propelled by ruthless upward mobility. He might well be a British Sammy Glick -- except that we never get to see What Makes Harold Run.

The most likable character in "Chariots of Fire" is an aristocrat, Lord Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers), who practices hurdles with glasses of champagne balanced on the ends of the bars. He is the only one with a developed sense of humor. Then again, he can afford to relax: He fits right into the film's idyllic yearning for the historical, pastoral splendor of Great Britain. Cinematographer David Watkin adds to the elegiac effect with landscapes so verdant you feel like running through them barefoot. Combine the greenery with Vangelis' aural blanket and you're in a blissful Anglo-Saxon never-never land. No wonder Prince Charles and Lady Di requested the film for their honeymoon yacht.

Maybe "Chariots of Fire" was so spectacularly successful at the box office because, thanks in large part to Watkin and Vangelis, it heightened the banal blend of "human interest" and "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" that too often typifies Olympics film and video coverage.

But a handful of moviemakers have seized on Olympic sport itself and used it to celebrate or probe the emotional extremes and physical poetry of people who put themselves on the athletic edge. For a filmmaker, taking off from events as charged yet as familiar as the Olympics has all the danger of grabbing for the big brass ring. The following directors made the grab and came away with the bronze, the silver and the gold.

The gold: Kon Ichikawa's "Tokyo Olympiad"

"Tokyo Olympiad" is a great movie. It matches the sensuality of Riefenstahl's "Olympia," and then tops it with a rich and fervent humanism. This is one Olympic epic that needs no political disclaimer. Kon Ichikawa, a contemporary and equal of Akira Kurosawa's, had made several earlier classics, like "Fires on the Plain" and "Odd Obsession." But he'd never filmed a documentary before he distilled the 1964 Summer Games into this fluid, funny extravaganza. He brought a fresh eye to the Olympics, and a fresh ear, too, with some of the most rousing combinations of sight and sound ever recorded, such as the whir on the soundtrack setting off the blurred whirl of a bicycle race.

Nonjocks will be relieved by the way Ichikawa explores the tragic and humorous aspects of athletic concentration. This director focuses on the A's and D's of athletic neurosis -- anticipation and anxiety, desire and delay. And seasoned jocks will be delighted by Ichikawa's acknowledgment of the effort that goes into even botched games and lost causes. In a transcendent sequence, Ichikawa's camera calmly tracks with Ethiopian marathon champion Abebe Bikila. One long, unbroken close-up of Bikila churning with astonishing consistency toward the finish line sums up the loneliness of the long-distance runner -- and his heroic tenacity. But Ichikawa caps even this awesome, climactic episode with a prolonged, loving look at the also-rans: at their sweating, gasping torsos and the sores on their feet.

Above all, what makes the film a masterpiece is the all-encompassing vision of human endeavor and community that Ichikawa brings to his subject. He frames the 1964 Summer Olympics as a haven for international sanity and as the ideal setting for heart-testing human feats of strength, agility and speed. Ichikawa's mingling of the rising sun and the Olympic flame makes perfect sense. At the end, after the races and the hammer throws and the long jumps, the gymnastics, the weight lifting, the sharpshooting and the water races, after the panoply that spills out of the arenas and onto the screen as if from a sportsman's horn of plenty, the athletes meet for a celebratory go-round in the stadium. The closing subtitles read, "Night. And the fire returned to the sun. For humans dream only once in four years. Is it enough for us: this infrequent, created peace?"

It's a measure of the movie's cumulative impact that this final plaintive note doesn't come off as forced or fancy. It emerges from the euphoric peaks of the material. Ichikawa isn't the kind of reductive humanist who imposes a Family of Man sameness on international communities. Right from the opening parade of teams he insists on the differences among races and nations. Every entrance is a doodle on a particular patriotic style, from the sloppy confidence of the Americans in their Stetsons to the suave way the Italians flip their lids in a wave.

Now playing: Read all the recent movie reviews by Salon's critics