With the release of the Roberto Duran biopic "Hands of Stone," here's a look at the 20 best boxing movies ever.
20. Grudge Match
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Grudge Match didn't get good reviews , really. But, c'mon, this movie's got a stacked cast, including Alan Arkin, Kevin Hart, Jon Bernthal, and oh, by the way, De Niro and Sylvester Stallone, and they're all clearly having some fun. It's a light movie, but it's charming enough. Having Rocky Balboa and Jake LaMotta onboard puts it on this list.
19. Cinderella Man
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Ron Howard's tale of Depression-era beacon of hope James Braddock is corny but still manages some scenes that'll make you choke up. Corny can be fine if it's done this well.
18. The Main Event
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The tagline to this movie was "A Glove Story." It is, hands down, the best boxing movie starring Ryan O'Neal and Barbra Streisand in which Babs loses her perfume fortunate after being robbed by her unscrupulous business manager and becomes a boxing manager in order to make it all back while finding love in the process. In fact, it's not even close.
17. Somebody Up There Likes Me
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How did Paul Newman not make, like, 50 boxing movies? He's perfect. Did anyone do down-on-his-luck-no-goodnik-trying-to-make-good better? I dare say no one did.
16. Real Steel
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Robots are people, too, friend.
15. Requiem for a Heavyweight
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Another classic, Anthony Quinn is a podunk puncher who needs to retire. Another brutal loss will leave him with a detached retina or worse. Quinn plays a lumbering but gentle giant, trying to preserve his dignity and avoid exhibition wrestling matches. Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone) wrote this, and it's total American tragedy stuff.
14. Girlfight
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At first glance, Girlfight seems like hokum melodrama (the trailer even has a record scratch). Michelle Rodriguez, never better, is mad. Her family situation sucks. School does, too. Once she discovers boxing, though, she, and the movie, soars. Girlfight co-won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance at 2000 and deservedly so.
13. The Quiet Man
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John Ford's classic starring his main man John Wayne isn't much of a boxing movie, really. Wayne's Sean Thornton once killed a man in the ring and hung up his gloves, but it's an all-timer, great love story (Maureen O'Hara!) and makes Ireland seem both beautiful as well as awful. It was studio system filmmaking at its best.
12. Fat City
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Fat City stars Jeff Bridges and Stacy Keach as rival boxers who're both struggling to make it on the amateur circuit and get out of dead-end jobs. That's enough of a sale for most people; that John Huston directed it and it's pulp-y as heck seals its spot here.
11. Rocky III
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Clubber Lang is one of the finest creations in all of fiction. Problematic? Most definitely. Memorable? Incredibly.
10. Rocky IV
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What more is there to say about Rocky IV? The movie ended the Cold War!
9. When We Were Kings
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Arguably the finest boxing doc, and even sports doc, this chronicle of "The Rumble in the Jungle" between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali is required viewing for any fan of the sweet science.
8. The Hurricane
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The Hurricane was called "proudly old-fashioned and unabashedly sentimental" by The New York Times upon its release. Seeing as how the Grey Lady said a lot of similar things about The Shawshank Redemption, we can only assume that the paper liked The Hurricane, too. The story is about "Hurricane's" time in prison first and foremost, but whoa boy, those boxing scenes are good. Denzel Washington is so good that you start to wonder if he might have missed his true calling.
7. Creed
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Ryan Coogler's reboot of the Rocky franchise netted Stallone an Oscar nomination, himself a seat at the Marvel table and solidified Michael B. Jordan as one of the best actors of his generation. Adonis Creed's first fight, a one-take beauty, swooping around the ring, is what filmmaking and boxing flicks are all about. I can't wait for the next one, whenever it arrives.
6. Million Dollar Baby
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Roger Ebert, take the wheel: "Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby is a masterpiece, pure and simple, deep and true." Eastwood hasn't been better as an actor or director since, and you can probably say the same for Morgan Freeman. Hilary Swank netted her second Oscar playing the waitress trying to punch her way out of poverty. This movie guts you.
5. The Boxer
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Boxing is the least dangerous thing Daniel Day-Lewis's Danny Flynn gets himself involved in in this re-team with director Jim Sheridan. But the in-ring stuff is just as thrilling as the drama surrounding forbidden love and Irish separatism.
4. The Fighter
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Melissa Leo and the actresses playing Micky Ward's sisters are perfect. Amy Adams and Christian Bale are in top form as Charlene, the love interest, and Dicky, Mark Wahlberg's washed-up, screw-up brother, respectfully. And the former Funky Bunch front man gives the performance of his career this side of The Departed. They're all shepherded to career heights by David O. Russell. Is The Fighter a perfect movie? No, but it's extremely close.
3. Ali
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Michael Mann's portrait of the Greatest is a capital B biopic. Will Smith's never been better than he is here in the title role. Boxing's such fertile ground for film that this one barely cracked our top three.
2. Rocky
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Rocky's a perfect movie. The screenplay's perfect. The cast is perfect. I challenge anyone to keep his or her heart rate steady when Bill Conti's iconic score starts up. The trailer's voice-over ends with, "His name is Sylvester Stallone, but you will always remember him as Rocky." Fact check: True.
1. Raging Bull
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Not only the best boxing movie, Martin Scorsese's Jake LaMotta movie is arguably the best American film ever made. Don't @ me. If there's a finer example of toxic masculinity and guilt, I've yet to see it. The fights are, without a doubt, the best in-ring scenes of all time. They're art. What a great movie.
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