Hit the heavy bag and perfect your rope-a-dope with our ranked list of the best boxing movies of all time
It’s called ‘the sweet science’, an odd nickname for a sport where the goal is to punch your opponent unconscious. But there’s something compelling about boxing that has kept filmmakers, in particular, coming back to it for decades, even as its position in popular culture has waned. Obviously, there’s the gladiatorial aspect – two individuals locked in combat, essentially bare but for their gloves and attire, duking it out in the vaunted squared circle for a ravenous crowd. Within that framework, there is a wealth of human stories to be told: about winners and losers, the has-beens and the shoulda-beens and the never was, underdogs and sure things. And in the great films, you really don’t have to know anything about the sport to get drawn into those stories. These are ten of the absolute best examples.
A movie so iconic it inspired the city of Philadelphia to erect a statue in honour of a fictional athlete. It’s a testament to just how real Sylvester Stallone’s unlikely breakthrough as a writer-director-actor feels, and to the believability he brings to the role of Rocky Balboa himself. A mumbly meathead with a heart of gold and fists like frozen beef, he embodies the self-doubt of every working-class palooka who’s been told he’ll never amount to nothin’ – until, of course, he’s given the opportunity of a lifetime. Even if you’ve seen it a million times, or simply absorbed it via osmosis from the countless underdog tales that follow the same beats, once ‘Gonna Fly Now’ hits the soundtrack, only the sourest cynic remains stuck to their seat.
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