“People love violence. They’ll slow down at a car wreck to check for bodies. The same people claim to love boxing. They got no idea what it is. Boxing is about respect: getting it for yourself and taking it away from the other guy!”
~Million Dollar Baby (2004)
I love watching movies, and I love movies about boxers even more. Every boxing movie showcases a fighter’s struggle in life outside the ring and how he/she finds solace and purpose in life through the beatings from the opponent inside the boxing ring.
Boxing movies fill us with inspiration because these stories resonate with us. I believe we are all fighters in some way or another, fighting the troubles and adversities in our day-to-day lives, day after day like a boxer fights in the ring one round after another in a boxing match.
Boxing movies depict violence but they also showcase their protagonists’ undying spirits. Boxing movies have the power to fill its viewer with inspiration. Whenever I feel low or lonely in life, I watch some of my favorite boxing movies all over again. Even though I’ve already watched them several times before, I just can’t get enough of them.
Some of the best boxing movies also feature some soulful soundtracks that make them even more inspiring to watch, even after you’ve already watched them more than 100 times. Wouldn’t you agree?
So, please check out my article Top 33 Original Motion Picture Soundtracks Of All Time, where I’ve listed some of the best movie soundtracks of all time that also include some of the best boxing movie soundtracks of all time.
Coming back to this topic, I’ve compiled my list of some of the best movies featuring a boxer character. You must watch these movies if you haven’t already, or you can watch them again if you are devoid of inspiration in your life right now, and get yourself ready for another fighting round of your life.
Alright, protect yourselves at all times. Touch gloves and fight! I mean, read on:
1. Million Dollar Baby (2004). IMDb Rating: 8.1/10
Frankie Dunn (played by Clint Eastwood, who is also the director of the film) is an elderly, tough-mannered but somewhat conscience-keeping boxing trainer and manager who also runs his gym in the neighborhood.
Frankie’s gym’s caretaker is Eddie “Scrap” Dupris (played by Morgan Freeman in his Oscar-winning supporting role), who is also a former boxer. Eddie takes care of the gym and has a small room in the corner of the gym where he also sleeps at night.
One day, Frankie is approached by a woman named Margaret Fitzgerald (played by Hilary Swank), also known as Maggie, who appears to be in her 30s. Maggie is a female boxer who works at a cheap restaurant as a waitress, trying to make ends meet while keeping her dream of becoming a professional fighter alive.
The world around Maggie always treats her like she is trash, but she is a girl with big dreams in her heart. She wishes to be trained by Frankie because she thinks he is the best trainer she can have. But Frankie refuses to train her stating “Girlie tough ain’t enough!” Frankie tells her sternly that he doesn’t train girls nor is he interested in training girls.
Maggie has been observing Frankie’s boxer’s fights closely for a long time, and she very much appreciates his way of training, so she won’t quit persuading Frankie to train her too. She manages to get official access to Frankie’s gym to train after paying a handsome gym fee to Eddie.
Frankie sees Maggie there at his gym but ignores her constantly and focuses on training his prime fighter Big Willie who is an up-and-coming boxer eager to fight the championship fight, but Frankie keeps on denying him the fight, stating he isn’t ready for it.
One day, Big Willie, who is so hungry for the championship fight is approached by some other manager for the championship fight, so he abandons Frankie to go with that other manager. In the meantime, Maggie continues to train at Frankie’s gym and still wishes to be trained by Frankie.
One night, Frankie notices her training hard at the gym throughout the day through night, so he approaches her and decides to take her on but cautions her that he will not be soft on her because she is a girl, and that he will train her as he would train any of his male fighters. Maggie agrees and starts training hard with Frankie.
Frankie arranges fights for her, and she keeps on winning one fight after another and becomes the fans’ favorite. She asks for the championship fight against a ruthless, reigning women’s champion Billie “The Blue Bear”. And Frankie reluctantly agrees to it.
In the championship fight, Maggie starts well but then she gets punched by Billie so hard that she falls on a stool kept in the corner before that round ends and breaks her neck. Frankie takes her to the hospital with Eddie joining him. The doctors tell Frankie that Maggie won’t be able to recover from this, and she becomes a ventilator-dependent patient.
Frankie tries many other hospitals for some help, but none gives him hope for her recovery. Frankie starts taking care of Maggie because her own family has already disowned her. As time goes by, Maggie’s condition deteriorates. And seeing her like that, Frankie’s anguish grows deeper. What follows after is a heart-wrenching tale of love and sacrifice.
The winner of four Academy Awards, including best picture, this movie will fill you with inspiration, yet it will deplete your soul in despair.
2. Rocky (1976). IMDb Rating: 8/10
In Philadelphia, the world heavyweight boxing champion, Apollo Creed (played by Carl Weathers) declares on TV that he will give a chance to any local boxing contender for the championship fight against him.
In another part of Philadelphia, Rocky Balboa (played by Sylvester Stallone) is an Italian-American southpaw (left-handed) boxer who fights undercard fights just to make a living along with his other petty job as a debt collector for some cunning loan shark.
Rocky’s personal life is filled with loneliness and boredom. He has no family, but he has a strong liking for a plain-looking girl named Adrian (played by Talia Shire), who also happens to be Rocky’s friend Paulie’s sister. With Paulie’s help, Rocky begins dating Adrian who is very slow to understand the ways of romantic love and relationship, but Rocky likes her anyway.
Adrian asks Rocky, “Why do you wanna fight?” Rocky tells her that because he can’t sing or dance, he just wants to fight.
Apollo chooses Rocky for the championship fight. Rocky seeks Mickey’s (played by Burgess Meredith) help to train him for the fight because Mickey has known Rocky for quite some time. Mickey disregards Rocky initially because he considers him a bum, but later on, shows interest in training him. Rocky begins to train with Mickey who has his unconventional ways of training.
As Apollo believes he is the greatest champion of the world and no one can defeat him, Rocky has the greatest challenge of Apollo’s life in store for him. What follows is a real heartwarming story of rising to the occasion and going from being nothing to being somebody in life. This Oscar-winning best picture will give you a strong purpose for your life if you haven’t found one yet.
3. Cinderella Man (2005). IMDb Rating: 8/10
Set in the Great Depression era of the 1930s, this dramatized film version is based on the true life story of the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, James J. Braddock a.k.a. Jimmy (played by Russell Crowe).
Jimmy is initially a light heavyweight contender. He breaks his hand in one of the fights and is forced to withdraw from boxing. His young wife Mae (played by Renee Zellweger) is happy because she doesn’t like to see her husband getting hurt in fights, but at the same time, she’s worried because, without her husband’s boxing, they won’t have enough money to provide for their children.
Jimmy begins to work as a laborer at the docks. With his broken hand, it’s a tough job to do but Jimmy has to provide for his family. As the Great Depression situation becomes intense, jobs become scarce and soon Jimmy finds it difficult to make ends meet. Mae tries her best to support her husband in taking care of their children, but she grows frustrated because they don’t have enough food or electricity to keep them warm in the winter.
Mae tells Jimmy that they need to pack up their kids (give them up for adoption), but Jimmy loves his children and wants to keep his children to himself.
Then, Jimmy is approached by his old friend and manager Joe Gould (played by Paul Giamatti) who offers Jimmy a fight against some smaller, less-known fighter for some good bucks. Mae is worried about Jimmy’s already broken hand and the violence he has to take in the boxing ring, but Jimmy has to fight for his children. Jimmy wins that fight and then has a series of fights against less-known fighters and continues his winning streak.
Jimmy gets a title shot against the ruthless world heavyweight champion, Max Baer. As Jimmy prepares for the fight, the whole community’s morale is lifted by Jimmy’s fairytale comeback. The newspapers label him as Cinderella Man, a symbol of hope in times of hopelessness.
This is a heartening true story of the triumph of love, courage, and hope. You’ll feel it when you watch it if you haven’t already.
4. Southpaw (2015). IMDb Rating: 7.3/10
In modern-day New York, Billy “The Great” Hope (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is a middle-aged, well-established light heavyweight champion, living with his wife Maureen (played by Rachel McAdams) and their only daughter, young Leila.
Billy’s record speaks great volumes about his career as a fighter. He’s taken a lot of beatings from various opponents in his career, so he’s tough, and rugged in his mannerisms but loves his wife and daughter like crazy.
In one of the post-match press conferences, a young boxer named Miguel “Magic” Escobar challenges and instigates Billy openly to fight him in the ring for the title shot. Maureen fears for Billy’s safety and life and wants him to withdraw because he has sustained some severe injuries in his previous fight. But Billy wants to fight him.
At a fundraiser event that Billy and Maureen are attending, Miguel tries to incite Billy again by saying nasty things about Maureen. Billy gets mad at him and begins to beat him, breaking the scene into a huge, rampageous brawl with Miguel’s and Billy’s men joining the rampage. A shot is fired from a gun of one of Miguel’s men, and Billy sees Maureen falling to the ground. Maureen dies in Billy’s arms from the gunshot bleeding.
After Maureen’s death, Billy falls into depression and gets addicted to alcohol and drugs, and even tries to commit suicide by running his car into a big tree but survives. Billy’s financial situation worsens, as his addiction grows.
Billy’s daughter Leila is sent to Child Care Home because Billy is never sober enough to take care of her. He is allowed to see his daughter once in a while, and she grows estranged from him because of his addiction and starts hating him.
Billy’s only hope to make a comeback into his life is boxing. He seeks help from a former-boxer-turned trainer Tick Wills (played by Forest Whitaker) to train him for a comeback against Miguel. Tick initially resents Billy because of his addiction but then agrees to train him at his gym.
Now, Billy is fighting for his redemption and his love for his daughter and wife. As Billy enters the ring to fight Miguel, he also has to fight the demons in his head and earn back respect in his daughter’s eyes.
5. The Hurricane (1999). IMDb Rating: 7.6/10
This is another dramatized movie story of a real-life African-American boxer, Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter (played by Denzel Washington). Rubin has always had a troubled childhood being a black kid living on the streets.
Rubin is often targeted by white officers for street violence even if he is not involved in such an act, only because of the dark color of his skin. He is sent to a juvenile reformatory after being arrested for some petty crime.
After spending some years in a juvenile reformatory, Rubin escapes from it and later joins the United States Army. In the 1960s in New Jersey, adult Rubin returns home after spending some training time in the United States Army where he used to box. He is hailed as a future boxing champion of the world by his fans and followers.
Rubin meets a girl named Mae and falls in love with her. Rubin and Mae marry and have a child together.
One night, Rubin is at a bar and leaves the bar with his young friend who accompanies him in a car. Their car is chased down by a white officer who asks them to pull over. The officer tells them that there had been a triple-murder in the same bar they were at some time ago. They are both taken into custody and framed as murderers and sent to prison for life imprisonment.
Rubin knows he is innocent, and he has been framed for something he never did. At the prison, Rubin refuses to wear a prison uniform, so they send him to the hole (solitary confinement), where the devouring darkness is ready to engulf him. Rubin spends day after day there in the darkness but still refuses to be treated like a prisoner and says to the darkness– “You can’t break me, ‘cause you didn’t make me!”
Finally, the prison authorities give in to Rubin’s conviction and resilience and offer him to wear prison hospital clothes without stripes. Rubin accepts it and begins to read books and educate himself in the prison. He also begins to work out and shadowbox in the prison to keep himself mentally and physically strong and is determined to fight for his innocence.
Rubin begins to write his life story in the prison cell– “From that moment on, I decided to take control of my life…I made up my mind to turn my body into a weapon…I would be a warrior-scholar…I boxed…I went to school…I began reading-W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Wright…So I gave up all the worthless luxury that most inmates crave….the girlie books, fags, cigarettes, the movies…I hated them…In fact, I hated everyone…I didn’t even speak English…I spoke hate…And its verbs were fists. I made up my mind to turn my body into a weapon that would eventually set me free or kill anyone who sought to keep me in prison!”
Rubin’s memoir is published as a book, and it’s accidentally picked up from a used book sale by a young, underprivileged, African-American student Lesra Martin, now living in Canada along with his white friends and mentors Lisa, Terry, and Sam who took him under their wing after seeking permission from his family in the US.
As Lesra reads Rubin’s story, he is highly inspired by it and is convinced in his heart that Rubin is innocent. Lesra goes to see Rubin in the prison for the first time, where Rubin asks him, “You think I killed those people, son?”
Without a second of hesitation, Lesra responds, ‘No no, I know you didn’t!”.
Rubin asks him again, “How do you know?”
Lesra affirms without a split second of hesitation, “I just know, you didn’t!”
Lesra asks his mentors to come to New Jersey with him and appeal Rubin’s case in the court of law again.
Rubin’s several appeals were rejected by the court in the past. Lesra and his group come to New Jersey and meet Rubin to discuss his case. Rubin initially shows hatred for them because they are white people but then he is convinced by Lesra that they are good people who are willing to fight with him to prove his innocence.
As Rubin begins to rework his case from inside the prison and Lesra and the group work on it from outside. Rubin also gathers support from many law-abiding citizens, including unbigoted white people from all over the country with many renowned celebs.
It’s Rubin’s two-decade-long fight for his freedom and innocence, but now with Lesra, he believes–“Hate put him in prison, but love’s gonna bust him out.”
Rubin gets ready for the final round of the fight for his freedom. Denzel packs a knockout punch with his powerful performance as Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter, earning him another best actor Oscar nomination.
6. The Champ (1979). IMDb Rating: 6.8/10
Billy Flynn (played by Jon Voight) is an ex-boxing champ, now a horse trainer, who lives in Hialeah, Florida, with his young son T.J., who is very proud of his father’s boxing achievements and always calls him “Champ.”
After giving up his boxing career, Billy gives in to excess drinking and gambling, and he also has intense anger issues. Because of Billy’s reckless lifestyle, his wife Annie left him right after T. J. was born.
At one of the local horse races, Annie has a chance encounter with charming young T. J., where T. J. is running his horse that his father gifted him for his birthday with the gambling money he earned. Annie gets to know that Billy is T. J.’s father and that he is her son.
Annie bets on T. J.’s horse, but his horse gets injured and is pulled out of the race. Annie tries to connect with T.J., but Billy hates it, so he tells her to stay away from his son because when he needed his mother, she was not there for him. Billy has always told T.J. that his mother was dead.
Annie is married to some other well-off man and wants her son back. With his gambling and drinking addiction, Billy finds it tough to take care of T. J. And T. J. always wishes for his father to make a comeback because he believes his father is the champ and no one can defeat him.
In the meantime, Billy allows Annie to connect with T. J. but only as a friend and decides to make a comeback. Billy goes to his trainer to get some training before his comeback fight. His trainer cautions him that he has grown old and has had a history of constant headaches, which could be life-threatening if he gets back in the ring. But Billy is determined to honor his son’s wish and to make a comeback.
On the fight night, Billy is up against a much younger and stronger opponent who keeps rattling Billy’s brain and fills him with bruises and blood, but Billy refuses to stop and continues to fight until he wins.
After winning the fight, severely beaten-up Billy falls to the ground and is rushed to the dressing room to get treatment from the doctor. But Billy succumbs to the blows received on his head and becomes unconscious. Little T.J. rushes forward into the room crying and talks to his father and has no idea that his father is already gone. T. J. implores everyone present in the room to wake his father, but they tell him that his father is gone. Annie enters the room and embraces crying T. J.
This is one of the most intense tear-jerkers I’ve ever watched in my life.
7. Resurrecting The Champ (2007). IMDb Rating: 6.7/10
Erik Kernan Jr. (played by Josh Hartnett) is a callow writer-journalist who covers and writes articles about sports for the newspaper/magazine The Denver Times. Erik’s father was a famous radio sports reporter of his time. Erik is divorced from his wife but still keeps in touch with her for their son. Erik always proudly tells his son about his friendships with some of the most famous sports stars, but in reality, it’s all fake, and his naive son is very proud of his father’s achievements.
Erik is often ridiculed by his supervising editor, who calls his articles and stories bland and worthless. One night, in the alley, when he is out for some work assignment, Erik sees a group of brute young men, bullying an elderly homeless man who calls himself a boxing champ and tells them he was once ranked no. 3 in the world. Man is getting beaten up by the young men, and that’s when Erik intervenes and tries to help the elderly man.
The elderly man tells Erik that he was once a professional boxer but lost it all, and now he is a homeless man. Erik learns through his research that the homeless man is a former popular world heavyweight boxing championship contender, Bob Satterfield. Erik is intrigued by his life story and writes an article about him. The magazine publishes Erik’s article ‘Resurrecting The Champ’. And the article is well received by its audience and becomes a popular story.
The people who knew Bob Satterfield personally claim that he died a long time ago and the story published about him is false. Bob Satterfield’s son also comes to know about the false story and is frustrated over The Denver Times’ lack of research and wants to sue them for it. Erik learns that the homeless man was also a boxer of his time, who had once fought Bob Satterfield in the ring but lost and was not that famous, and he always impersonated Battling Bob Satterfield.
Erik is ridiculed by his editor, but he decides to write another article to let his readers know about the error he made in telling the story. The truth about Bob Satterfield story is finally told. Erik is satisfied in his heart to have redeemed himself by telling the truth, and now he can face his son with his head held high. Erik remains friends with the homeless boxer until his sudden death.
8. A Fighting Man (2014). IMDb Rating: 5.5/10
Sailor O’Connor is a retired Irish-American boxer who has never been knocked down in his boxing career. Sailor’s mother is dying from cancer, and he wishes to take her back to Ireland, their homeland before she makes her final farewell.
Sailor approaches a local boxing promoter for one last fight, so he can make the money he needs to take his mother to their homeland. Sailor also manages to convince his old trainer to help him get ready for the fight.
Sailor gets to fight against a young African-American boxer King Solomon who has had an abusive family and now has a girlfriend who is pregnant with his child. King wants to fight because he needs the money to start a good, steady life with his girlfriend and their soon-to-be-born child.
Sailor is often approached by Diane, a middle-aged woman living in the same town who is a recovering alcoholic and has a tragic past. And Diane is often ignored by Sailor, but she continues to approach him to seek forgiveness for something grave she had done to him in the past.
King and Sailor are inside the ring beating the hell out of one another round after round, each fighting for his redemption. In the middle of the boxing rounds, each fighter’s past is flashed back, and it is revealed that drunk Diane had accidentally rammed her car into Sailor’s car some years ago, killing his wife and two children and indicatively appearing to have killed her own children who were with her in the car at the time of the accident.
Both men refuse to quit in the ring as their fight gets more intense. Although the movie has a low IMDb rating, I guarantee you that it won’t fail to inspire you and fill you with some really dramatic emotions.
9. Creed (2016). IMDb Rating: 7.6/10
Former world heavyweight boxing champ, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) has now aged and lost everyone dear to him, including his beloved wife, Adrian. He is a loner who runs a local restaurant named after his wife.
Rocky tries his best to steer clear of boxing and never wishes to have any connection with it. One day, at his restaurant, Rocky is approached by a young African-American man who aspires to be a boxer and wishes to be trained by Rocky. Rocky tells him that boxing has nothing to do with him anymore and asks the young man to let him be.
The young man reveals that he is the son of Rocky’s old rival and friend Apollo Creed. Rocky reminds the young man of his father’s death in the ring many years ago and tells him boxing is not worth it. The young man manages to persuade Rocky to train him by telling him that he can’t do anything else but boxing.
Rocky sees his young self in the young man and is now ready to train that young man, Apollo’s son Donnie (played by Michael B. Jordan), for his fighting dream.
It is also revealed that Rocky has some sort of cancer and is struggling to cope with it. Rocky refuses to seek treatment for his condition because no treatment could save his wife when she died from some form of cancer too. But with Donnie’s help, he seeks treatment for it.
Creed is a spin-off film from the Rocky Film Franchise (Rocky I-VI). Stallone’s performance as an aged trainer received critical acclaim and many accolades, including a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor and an Academy Award nomination for the same.
10. Raging Bull (1980). IMDb Rating: 8.2/10
Directed by the legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, Raging Bull tells a dramatized true story of a real-life Italian-American boxer Jake LaMotta (played by Robert De Niro).
In the boxing ring, Jake is a ruthless fighter and a champ, but outside the ring, he is doubly ruthless and a highly rampageous individual. He is married to beautiful, young Vickie, his second wife, and has children with her, but he is always jealous of his wife talking to or getting anywhere near the other men.
Jake always throws tantrums at Vickie and abuses her physically and verbally over petty doubts. As his boxing career flourishes, his personal family life is on the rocks because of his tantrums and excess alcoholism.
Robert De Niro packs a powerful performance as Jake LaMotta, which earned him the best actor Oscar.
11. The Fighter (2010). IMDb Rating: 7.8/10
A middle-aged boxer, Micky Ward (played by Mark Wahlberg), is managed by his mother, Alice (played by Melissa Leo). And Micky is trained by his elder half-brother Dicky Eklund (played by Christian Bale), a hardcore crack junkie and a former boxer who once went the distance with the great Sugar Ray Leonard. And HBO is making a documentary on Dicky’s life.
Micky also has many step-sisters and sisters. He also has an ex-wife and a young daughter with her, but he is now in a relationship with a young local bartender Charlene (played by Amy Adams), who supports him in his boxing aspiration.
The fights arranged by Alice don’t do any good to Micky’s career as a fighter. She ends up arranging fights for Micky against fighters who are either too good for Micky or more heavily weighed than Micky, so Micky always ends up losing the fights. His brother Dicky is always high, and whatever training he gives Micky does Micky no good.
One night, to make some money, Dicky makes his girlfriend act as a street prostitute. She picks up a client, where Dicky shows up as a fake police officer to extract some money from the man, but then the real cops show up and apprehend Dicky when he tries to run away. Micky arrives at the scene and tries to reason with the cops for his brother, but they hold him down and break his hand.
Dicky is incarcerated and is traumatized without the crack. Dicky also watches his HBO documentary on prison television, depicting him as a junkie and how drug addiction ruined his boxing career. So, Dicky has an eye-opening moment of his life, and he decides to sober up and train himself to be a fighter again.
In the meantime, Micky gets to train in some well-established gym with his father and also gets a chance for a title shot. Upon his prison visit to Dicky, Dicky tries to advise Micky on how to fight his opponent to have the upper hand, but Micky has already lost faith in his brother and disregards his advice.
Dicky is released, and he goes to see Micky with Alice to do some training with him, but Micky refuses to have any association with them. Dicky gets frustrated and goes back to his junkie pals in the crack house, but this time, not to get high, but only to say goodbye to them, and he walks out.
Dicky goes to Charlene to convince her that Micky is going to need him too. Charlene finds it hard to trust Dicky because of his history but agrees anyway.
Dicky, Alice, and the whole family are back at Micky’s corner along with Charlene as Micky gets ready for the fight of his life.
12. Ali (2001). IMDb Rating: 6.7/10
Ali is a movie about the legendary heavyweight champion of the world, Muhammad Ali (played by Will Smith). The movie focuses on Ali’s rise to fame and greatness, and his personal and racial struggle in the mid-60s through the mid-70s.
Cassius Clay Jr. (Ali’s name before conversion to Islam) is an up-and-coming, young, African-American boxer in the 1960s. He becomes the world heavyweight champion by defeating Sonny Liston despite Liston trying to cheat by rubbing something in Cassius’s eyes which causes him temporary blindness.
Cassius is friends with Malcolm X, a civil rights activist and a Muslim minister who is a member of the Nation of Islam, a group of black American separatists. Cassius meets Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Cassius is already impressed with Elijah Muhammad’s ideologies and how Islam is a liberating religion for racially suppressed black Americans.
Cassius is given the name Muhammad Ali by Elijah and gets converted to Islam. Ali’s father disapproves of his name change and conversion to Islam. Later, Ali’s young wife leaves him because she is not Muslim and is not able to abide by Islamic religious practices that Muslim women need to follow.
Malcolm gets separated from the Nation of Islam due to his differences with Elijah and is later assassinated. Ali is distraught by Malcolm’s death.
Ali continues his championship reign. When the Vietnam War erupts, Ali is asked to go to war as a part of the military draft, which he bluntly refuses, stating his disbelief in the war on the grounds of his religious beliefs.
Ali is stripped of his championship title. He is banned from boxing and sentenced to prison for five years for the refusal, but he appeals his case in the supreme court and is out on bail.
Ali also has a cordial relationship with sports journalist and broadcaster Howard Cosell (played by Jon Voight), who publicly shows support for Ali’s refusal of the draft to the Vietnam War, by conducting TV interviews with him. Although convicted, Ali remains free on an appeal. Ali is now married to Belinda and has a child with her.
Although Ali is not allowed to box anymore anywhere in the world or in the United States, he learns he can still fight in Atlanta, Georgia, where there is no state boxing commission.
Ali goes to meet Joe Frazier, the current world heavyweight champ. Ali tells Joe that he is going to fight Jerry Quarry in Atlanta and is going to win that fight. And then he asks Joe to announce a fight against him for a title shot. Joe agrees, saying he is going to kick Ali’s ass. Ali fights Jerry and wins.
Ali’s ban is revoked after the following couple of years and he is back in the ring, still the people’s champ, but loses his championship title fight against Joe. Later, Joe loses it to George Foreman. Ali goes to fight Foreman in Zaire and once again becomes the champion of the world.
Will Smith was nominated in the best actor category for his performance as Ali at the 74th Academy Awards.
13. Gladiator (1992). IMDb Rating: 6.5/10
After teenager Tommy Riley’s (played by James Marshall) mother passes away due to the big C, he and his father move to a new town to start a new life.
Tommy’s father has gambling debts and his lenders are always on their tail to try to extract the money. Tommy’s father gets a new job but has to travel to distant places for it frequently, leaving Tommy alone in the town.
Tommy is a quiet but very bright student at the local high school, where the gang members from his school always try to trouble him, and another student like him, an African-American Abraham Lincoln Haines (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) from a ghetto.
Tommy tries to keep to himself, but the gang members always try to mess with him unnecessarily. Tommy gets a job as a dishwasher at a restaurant owned by the mother of a girl named Dawn from his school, for whom he develops feelings.
One night, outside the restaurant, the gang members gang up on Tommy, but he fights them off skillfully and manages to survive. His fight is observed by a local boxing promoter who offers Tommy a fight in an illegal underground boxing tournament. At first, Tommy rejects the offer, but then he is lured into fighting by the promoter for the amount of money he can make to help him pay off his father’s gambling debts.
Tommy becomes an overnight success and is viewed as a great money-making prospect by the underground boxing joint owner Jimmy Horn, a fierce boxer of his time, and everyone is still in awe of his power.
Tommy also sees Lincoln at the tournament. Lincoln saves Tommy from his one more encounter with the gang members who try to kill Tommy. Lincoln tells Tommy that he is fighting for his baby and wife and wants to take them out of the ghetto to a better place.
Lincoln and Tommy become close friends. Horn keeps his eyes on everyone, and this friendship between Lincoln and Tommy is no secret to him. Tommy is a hotshot fighter and knows how to win. In the tournament, Tommy is matched against Lincoln, but he takes the beating from Lincoln, refusing to fight him.
During the fight in the ring with Lincoln, Tommy tries to convince Lincoln, while taking the beating from him, that Horn wants them to kill each other because he has bettors who’ve put money on them, and who wins or loses doesn’t matter, Horn is going to make big money anyway.
Lincoln, after beating the hell out of Tommy and Tommy never retaliating, realizes Tommy’s telling the truth, so he steps away from the fight. Seeing this, Horn gets infuriated and steps into the ring and knocks Lincoln out of the ring.
Tommy challenges Horn to fight him on the condition that if he wins, his father’s debts will be paid off, and if he loses, he will continue to work for Horn and do whatever he wants.
Horn and Tommy go after each other in a gruesome fight for respect. And Tommy just doesn’t know how to quit.
14. Champion (1949). IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
A massive crowd, equal to the size of a thousand ocean waves is cheering in the boxing arena, as the champion walks toward the ring with his team for a fight. Everyone in the crowd gets on their feet to cheer for him as he enters the ring. As the champion gets ready for a fight, his life flashes back.
Middle-aged Midge Kelly (played by Kirk Douglas) is on the road, traveling to L.A., California with his brother Connie to go into business with a restaurant there, where they have bought a share in it.
They take the freight train. On the train, some goons assault them for the money. Midge pushes his brother off a running train. He fights the goons and jumps off the running train. Connie gets his leg hurt and uses a stick to walk, whereas Midge only has a few minor bruises and cuts on his face.
On their way, they hitchhike a car ride with the boxer Johnny Dunne and his girlfriend who are going to Kansas City, where Johnny is a contender for a championship fight. Midge and his brother get off there.
Midge has another brawl at a local restaurant when a man there calls his brother a gimp. To compensate for the restaurant damages, the restaurant manager takes them to a boxing joint where Midge is offered a boxing fight for some dollars. Midge and his brother need the money, so Midge steps into the ring and fights blindly, because he knows nothing about boxing, however, he wins.
When the fight is over, the promoter pays him less than what he had promised. Midge punches him and flees the place, but he is noticed by boxing trainer/manager, Tommy Haley who offers Midge to come and train with him for professional boxing at his gym in California, but Midge shows no interest.
When Midge and Connie arrive in California for their restaurant business deal, they get to know that they got conned into the restaurant scheme. To survive, they both take up waiting and dishwashing jobs at a local restaurant, where Midge falls for the owner’s young daughter Emma.
Midge tells Emma about his dream of becoming somebody great in his life and having a rich lifestyle. Emma falls in love with Midge. When Emma’s father sees Midge and her making out, they are forced to get married to each other by him. Emma and Midge end up having a shotgun marriage, but Midge is reluctant.
So, Midge and Connie flee to meet Tommy Haley at his gym. Midge starts training hard at the gym and gets into professional fights with local contenders. Midge starts winning and continues his winning streak.
Success and lust for fame and money drive Midge away from his loved ones and friends. Midge uses the women who love him to his advantage. He also betrays his trainer and brother to join another boxing manager.
What will be the upshot of Midge’s selfishness? Where will this take him – to glory or straight to hell? You better watch it to find out.
Kirk Douglas was nominated for the best actor Oscar for his performance as an ambition-blinded boxer.
15. Real Steel (2011). IMDb Rating: 7/10
In a futuristic world, human boxers are replaced by robot boxers. Charlie Kenton (played by Hugh Jackman) is a former boxer who owns a robot boxer named Ambush. In a bet fight, Charlie’s robot Ambush loses the fight against a black bull owned by the robot boxing promoter Ricky. Charlie has no money to give to Ricky, so he evades the payment and is about to flee when he is approached by two men who tell him about his ex-girlfriend’s untimely death and inform him about his son Max’s custody hearing.
Charlie has not seen Max ever before in his life. Max is now eleven years old and lives with his aunt Debra (Charlie’s ex-girlfriend Caroline’s sister) and her wealthy husband Marvin who want his full custody. Max is a huge robot boxing fan.
At Max’s custody hearing, Charlie demands Marvin to pay him $100,000 with $50,000 in advance, because he needs to buy a new robot Noisy Boy with that money. Marvin agrees and Charlie officially signs the deal to give them Max’s full custody. But Marvin also requests Charlie to keep Max with him for a few months because he and Debra are going away on a vacation and can’t take Max with them. Charlie agrees to keep Max with him until Debra and Marvin return from their vacation.
Max is a smart young boy who knows everything about Charlie’s deal with his aunt and uncle, so he demands that Charlie give him the half money as his share. Charlie frustratingly tells Max that he spent the money to buy Noisy Boy.
Charlie and Max stay with Charlie’s present girlfriend Bailey, who is the daughter of his gym owner and former trainer. Charlie tries to work with Noisy Boy using a voice recognition feature, but the robot doesn’t respond to Charlie’s English commands. So, Max puts the headset on and gives Noisy Boy commands in some foreign language, which he learned while playing video games, and the robot begins to respond.
After Max threatens to drop Charlie’s truck keys into the sewer, Charlie unwillingly takes Max with him to an underground boxing match where his Noisy Boy fights against a brutal robot boxer. And Charlie’s Noisy Boy is crushed to defeat.
Charlie and Max go to a metal valley, a junkyard of unused metals and robots, to look for some unused robot parts to make a new robot where Max slips and falls into a deep valley because it is raining heavily. Max survives the fall and discovers an obsolete robot boxer, Atom, buried under the ground. Max believes that the robot saved him from further falling into a deep hole and asks Charlie to help him take the robot out, Charlie denies it and asks him to do it himself.
Max takes the robot out and wheels it out in the morning, where Charlie is waiting for him by their truck, angry Max punches his father hard. Atom has a shadow functionality where he can mirror the moves shown to him.
At first, Charlie is reluctant to work with Atom but Max insists that Atom is a robot boxer that was built to last long, and they can win if Charlie shadow-boxes with him using a shadow movement-capture functionality. Max is right, Atom begins to win fights, one after another and Charlie ends up making more and more money from their wins.
Charlie and Max develop a father-son bond. Max challenges the world robot boxing champ, Zeus, to fight his Atom for a Real Steel Championship. In the meantime, their earnings are forcefully robbed by Ricky and his men when Ricky and his men come after Charlie and beat the hell out of him in front of Max.
The penniless situation forces Charlie to send Max back to his aunt and uncle, but Max wants to stay with his father. Marvin gives Charlie the remaining $50,000 but Charlie refuses to take it and walks out, leaving Max under their care. Max is upset with Charlie and won’t talk to his aunt or anybody. Charlie convinces him that he deserves better. Max angrily tells Charlie that he always wanted Charlie to fight for him.
Later, Charlie goes to see Max at his aunt Debra’s place and tells Max that his mother (Charlie’s ex-girlfriend) was a cool person. Max tells Charlie that his mom was the coolest.
Charlie decides to grant Max’s wish of Atom’s fight against Zeus for the championship and seeks Debra’s permission to take Max with him. And now Max and Charlie are together again, maybe for the last time for the Real Steel Championship fight, a fight for their love and redemption.
16. Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956). IMDb Rating: 7.5/10
Rocky Barbella (played by Paul Newman) comes from an impoverished family, consisting of an abusive father but a caring mother and a sister.
Rocky, as a young boy, spends his time on the streets hanging out with his punk buddies and doing petty criminal activities. Growing up with troubles all around, grown-up Rocky is caught by the law for his involvement in one such act of crime, and he is sent to a correctional facility. Another fellow inmate named Frankie Peppo tells Rocky to go to Stillman’s gym, if he wants to make quick dough from gloved fighting. Rocky shows no interest in that.
In prison too, Rocky has rugged and rowdy mannerisms. He acts defiantly against the prison authorities and causes them a lot of trouble. But soon, Rocky is released from prison, and he is forced to join the US army. He doesn’t give a damn about the army discipline, rules, and regulations either. He disregards his commanding officers and runs away from the camp after punching an officer.
But Rocky needs the money, so he goes to Stillman’s gym and gives Frankie Peppo’s reference and learns that Peppo is still serving time in some prison. Rocky starts boxing there with the assumed name Rocky Graziano to hide his identity because he is a wanted army deserter.
Rocky has a natural talent for boxing and begins to win his fights against the local boxers. Later on, he is caught by the army authorities and is dishonorably discharged. He also serves a year in the US military correctional facility for the act of desertion.
Once again in prison, Rocky has rugged ways with other inmates and has heavy punching brawls with them. The army sergeant at the facility encourages Rocky to become a professional fighter, but frustrated Rocky disregards it saying, “I just don’t wanna fight, with gloves or without gloves. I just don’t wanna fight!”
But since he can’t do anything else, Rocky resumes his fighting career and falls in love with Norma, his sister’s friend. Rocky marries Norma and has a child with her. Rocky continues to win but he loses his fight for the championship against Tony Zale.
Rocky is approached by Peppo who tries to blackmail him into throwing his next fight over his dishonorable discharge, which Rocky has kept only to himself and no one knows about it, not even his wife.
Rocky avoids his next fight by faking an injury, so he is called by the boxing commission. He is interrogated by the commission and asked to identify the blackmailer, but he refuses to identify even after Peppo is brought in before him along with Peppo’s two men by the commission.
News about Rocky’s dishonorable discharge is published in the newspaper and Rocky’s boxing license is revoked, and he is banned from professional boxing.
Rocky falls into depression but with his family’s and friends’ support, he recovers and is back in the ring once again seeking his redemption and fighting for the championship.
17. The Harder They Fall (1956). IMDb Rating: 7.5/10
After his newspaper company goes out of business, sportswriter Eddie Willis (played by Humphrey Bogart) is broke. A boxing promoter Nick Benko (played by Rod Steiger) hires Eddie as his PR man to promote his new fighter Toro.
Toro is a gigantic, heavy-sized young fighter from Argentina, but he lacks boxing skills. However, Nick wants to use Toro’s mammoth appearance to draw the boxing fans to his fights and make money out of them.
Eddie uses his PR skills to promote Toro for Nick and travels with their boxing crew from city to city on their bus. Toro and his manager are unaware of the fact that all of Toro’s fights are already fixed, but Eddie soon becomes aware of what is going on.
Although Eddie’s conscience keeps on telling him that what is going on is morally wrong, and he should let the truth out, he continues to play along, because he needs the money coming from it. Eddie continues to negotiate with other fighters’ managers to make sure Toro’s fights remain fixed.
During Toro’s fight against a boxer named Gus Dundee who had been beaten badly in his previous fight against the champion Buddy Brannen, Dundee collapses and dies shortly after. Toro is consumed by the guilt that he killed Dundee in the ring and now he wants to quit boxing and go back to his country. But Eddie knows the truth that Dundee already had a broken neck from his previous fight against Brannen, and he was unfit to fight, but he fought Toro anyway because it was going to be a fixed fight and there was a lot of money involved.
Eddie’s conscience finally gets the best of him, so he tells Toro the truth about all his fights. Eddie tells Toro that all of his fights were fixed and that he was never a good fighter and Dundee died because of the injuries sustained in his previous fight against Brannen.
Toro has one last fight against the champion Brannen. Toro is beaten up badly and loses the fight. Eddie learns that Nick had sold Toro’s fight to another manager for large sums of money from Toro’s defeat this time. Eddie gets his payment of $26,000 as promised, but Nick manipulates the accounting and the accountant tells Eddie that Toro gets only forty-some dollars after all the deductions.
While escorting Toro to the airport where Toro is fleeing back to his country, he asks Eddie for his money, Eddie thinks for a moment and gives Toro all of his $26,000.
Guilt-filled yet somehow liberated Eddie comes home to his wife. Nick and his men visit Eddie’s house and threaten him not to utter a word about all that has happened. Eddie gives no damn about Nick’s threats and sits at his table in front of the typewriter and begins to write his experience to expose the truth about the corruption in boxing.
This was the very first movie of legendary Humphrey Bogart I had ever watched, and I must tell you I fell in love with his charismatic screen presence. This is Bogart’s swansong before his death in 1957.
18. Triumph of The Spirit (1989). IMDb Rating: 6.8/10
This biographical boxing drama is based on the life story of a real-life Greek boxer Salamo Arouch (played by Willem Dafoe).
Salamo is a young man who lives in one of the towns in Greece and works as a dock worker. He belongs to a Jewish family consisting of his elderly father, mother, his younger brother, and his fiancee, Allegra.
During WWII, after Greece is occupied by the Nazis, Salamo and his family are captured by the SS army, and they are put on a train and sent to a Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz. Before the capture, Salamo was a fighter and the boxing champion of his town in Greece.
At the concentration camp, Salamo is separated from his fiancee Allegra, who is put into the ladies’ section of the camp. And in the men’s section, under a harsh SS discipline, Salamo is forced into hard labor with his father and brother and with other male prisoners in the camp.
At one of the labor sites, Salamo gets into a fight with one of the Kapos after his brother is pushed down by the Kapo. The SS officers watch him fight but let him live.
Salamo is called in by the officers and asked to fight against other imprisoned fighters like him in the ring, where many other officers come and bet on the fights. Whoever loses the fight is sent to the gas chamber, and whoever wins it, gets a loaf. As everyone else around him including his dear ones is burned alive in the gas chamber, he fights and keeps winning to stay alive, hoping to see Allegra someday.
This heart-rending drama will leave your spirit shaken, and it will also uplift you at the same time.
19. Hands of Stone (2016). IMDb Rating: 6.6/10
Roberto Duran is a young boxer from Panama. Roberto has a natural gift for boxing. Ray Arcel (played by Robert De Niro) spots him during one of his fights. Ray is a renowned American boxing trainer who has trained many champion fighters.
Impressed by Roberto’s natural talent, Ray talks to Roberto’s manager to offer him training with him to fight for the championship. Roberto initially denies it, stating his utter dislike for America and the Americans because his father was an American man who had walked out on him and his mother, leaving them alone in poverty when he was a kid.
Also, while growing up in Panama, as a young kid, Roberto witnesses the US army’s cruelty in the US-governed Panama Canal, where many Panamanian college students are killed while peacefully protesting against US governance.
Young Roberto grows up fighting on the streets against the other kids his age. He has a teacher who lives in the slums, and he teaches young Roberto many life lessons about respectful living.
After seeing him fight on the street flawlessly and skillfully, a local boxing coach Plomo takes young Roberto under his wing and starts training him like a professional fighter at a young age. Soon, Roberto becomes a disciplined, skilled fighter.
Back in the present time, in the mid-70s, Roberto starts training with Ray and has a winning streak of fights in the U.S. Roberto falls in love with a rich girl named Felicidad, who is hesitant at first, but later accepts his love, and soon they get married and have children together.
Roberto has a championship title shot against the great Sugar Ray Leonard. Before the fight, at a restaurant, he instigates Leonard by cussing him and calling him a clown. Roberto also demeans Leonard’s wife who is present there. Roberto’s trainer, Ray chastises him for his mean behavior toward Leonard’s wife and threatens to leave and stop training him if he does that again.
The fight takes place and Leonard, with a disturbed and enraged mindset against Roberto about what he had said before the fight, loses his momentum in the fight, which results in the new welterweight champion of the world, Roberto Duran.
Roberto gets overwhelmed by his success and starts indulging in a decadent lifestyle of excess alcohol and pretty women. Felicidad gets upset by his behavior, but still supports him and tries to help him out of it.
Roberto grows tired of everything and begins to lose track of his life. In the process, he hurts his wife and trainer. He also ends up demeaning his childhood teacher Chaflan. Later, Chaflan is killed in a road accident after stealing food from the restaurant.
Roberto’s manager forces him to a rematch against Leonard because there are going to be millions of dollars involved in it. Roberto reluctantly agrees to a rematch. With his mind broken into pieces and his body out of shape, Robert throws that fight only after a few rounds. His fans back in his home country are disheartened by this, and they ridicule and protest against him.
Roberto slips further into depression. But soon, with his wife’s help and for the love of his children, he begins to overcome his depression. He wants to make a comeback and restore his fans’ faith in him. So, he contacts his trainer Ray to train him again, but after Roberto threw his last fight, Ray quit boxing and doesn’t want to go back to it. Ray advises him to train with Plomo because Ray believes Plomo knows Roberto better than anybody else.
Roberto starts training with Plomo and has a championship fight against Davey Moore. Ray comes to see his fight. Leonard meets Roberto before the fight where they both have a respectful talk, and Roberto says sorry to him about what he had said about his wife before their first match.
Roberto is back in the ring, fighting for the championship and getting his respect back.
20. Grudge Match (2013). IMDb Rating: 6.4/10
Henry “Razor” Sharp (played by Sylvester Stallone) and Billy “The Kid” McDonnen (played by Robert De Niro), were boxing rivals and both were at the peaks of their careers. Both of them had only one respective defeat in their careers in which Kid had once defeated Razor and Razor had once defeated Kid.
At the time, Kid wanted another rematch against Razor, but Razor had unexpectedly backed out before their fight could take place, which cost both of them a loss of big fight money. Since then, Kid has always held a grudge against Razor.
Many decades later, now both Razor and Kid have aged. Razor is now bankrupt and works in a shipyard to make ends meet. The Kid, on the other hand, is a hotshot who runs a successful business and owns a bar.
Razor’s former trainer, Lightning (played by Alan Arkin), is now a sickly, old man who has accumulated debts. So, Razor wants to help him, but he needs dough for it. That’s when Razor is approached by Dante Slate Jr. (played by Kevin Hart), who is the son of Razor’s former business partner, Dante Slate Sr. because of whom Razor had lost his investments.
Slate Jr. offers Razor a motion capture acting role for a boxing video game with a handsome payment in return. At first, Razor is not willing to trust Slate Jr. because of his past experience with his father, but then he reluctantly agrees to it, because he needs the money. Slate Jr. has also approached Kid for the same, and Kid is very excited to go nose-to-nose with Razor again.
At the recording studio, Razor is shocked and surprised to see Kid there, and Kid becomes furious to see Razor there. They end up fighting and damaging the studio. They are both arrested for it but are later released. Their fracas is captured on a video by someone in the studio, and it goes viral online.
Slate Jr. is excited by this incident and proposes them a rematch to settle their final score. Razor wants no more boxing but he is forced to fight because he also loses his job. The Kid is ever ready for the fight because he wants to settle the unsettled score between him and Razor.
Razor is approached by his ex-girlfriend Sally Rose (played by Kim Basinger), who has also aged but is still a beautiful lady. She had cheated on Razor in their youth with his rival Kid and got knocked up with Kid’s child at the time. Then she married someone else after Kid refused to take responsibility, and she is now widowed.
Sally wants to reconnect with Razor, because she had always loved him, but Razor shows no interest in her.
Razor asks Lightning to help him get in shape, and Kid is approached by his biological son B. J., whose mother happens to be Sally. During the training, Lightning discovers that Razor is blind in one eye from an accident he had some years ago at his work. Sally and Lightning implore him not to fight, but Razor needs this fight, so he decides to go for it anyway.
So now, Razor and Kid, the old rivals, are ready to step back into the ring for one last time in their final “Grudge Match.”
Most boxing movies have grave themes, but this one is an exception, a boxing movie with comedy and drama. I watched it only because of my intense admiration for two of my favorite actors Stallone and De Niro, and also for my love of boxing movies. If you like them too, then you cannot afford to miss out on this one.
21. Girlfight (2000). IMDb Rating: 6.7/10
Girlfight tells a story about a bellicose high school girl named Diana Guzman. When Diana is in school, she always gets into fights with other girls over petty issues. At home, she has a father named Sandro, who always treats her with disrespect. She has a brother named Tiny, who goes to training to become a boxer against his own will, but only because his father wants him to be a professional boxer.
Diana and her father always have fierce arguments in the house over her mother’s passing some years ago.
One day, Sandro sends Diana to make payment to Tiny’s trainer Hector at his gym, where Tiny goes to train to fight. During a training fight, some guy Tiny is sparring with inside the ring, punches Tiny even after the training fight session is over. Diana becomes furious to see this, and she punches back that guy pretty hard, shaking him to his core.
Then Diana decides to train to become a boxer herself. She approaches Hector at the gym, who, at first, shows no interest in her because she is a girl but then asks her if she can pay him, only then he will train her. Diana manages to make Hector his regular payments by rustling it up from somewhere or other and begins to train with him. She warns Tiny not to utter a word about it to their father.
Diana begins to train hard and fights some gender-blind fights against the boys weighing about her weight. She showcases all the necessary skills to become a great fighter.
She also falls in love with a guy named Adrian, who also trains at the same gym and aspires to be a professional boxer. Adrian is already seeing some other girl, and when Diana asks him if he loves that girl, he tells her that he’s not sure if he loves that girl or if that girl loves him.
Diana and Adrian become close. One day, Sandro sees Diana and Adrian kissing each other. When Diana gets home with a black eye that she got from a fight, Sandro questions Diana about her relationship with Adrian, thinking Adrian is abusive toward her. Diana and her father argue over it. She loses her cool and reminds Sandro that her mother died of suicide only because he was abusive toward her, and starts beating the hell out of him, only to be intervened by Tiny later on. Tiny gives up boxing and gives all his money to Diana to help her make the training payments.
Later, Diana has an amateur fight scheduled against a girl, but that girl backs out at the last moment, so she ends up fighting a gender-blind fight against a guy, who is disqualified after he punches her below the belt, making Diana win the fight by default. Diana shows resilience in her fight, and Hector encourages her for it.
Diana’s next fight is for the amateur featherweight championship against her lover Adrian, who had previously gone easy on her in their training fight, thinking she was his girl. However, this time, he fights with all his might against Diana like she is a man he is fighting against. Diana outboxes Adrian and wins the championship by the judges’ unanimous scores in her favor.
Adrian fears that Diana won’t respect or love him anymore because he lost his fight against her, but Diana appreciates that he fought her like he would fight any other guy and treated her like a fighter. She tells him she respects him more, and they embrace each other.
22. Father Stu (2022). IMDb Rating: 6.5/10
Father Stu tells the real-life story of Stuart Long (Played by Mark Wahlberg), a boxer from Helena, Montana, who fights amateur fights to get by in life. Stuart lives with his mother, Kathleen, and has an alcoholic, estranged father, Bill Long (played by Mel Gibson).
Stuart also had a brother who died when they were both young, growing-up boys. After his brother’s untimely death, the whole Long family lost their faith in religion, and his father left him and his mother to live separately.
One day, after his boxing fight, Stuart sees a doctor for his jaw injury, which has become worse from the fights. His mother, Kathleen also accompanies him there. She tells him to get a regular job, instead of boxing, with which he defiantly disagrees.
The doctor tells him that he has a life-threatening infection in his jawbone and that he should stop boxing. Stuart suspects that his mother told his doctor to come up with something like that to stop his boxing, so he fiercely argues with her, telling her not to stop him from fighting.
Stuart gets drunk at night and visits his brother’s grave. He expresses his hatred for Jesus by punching the Statue of Jesus outside the cemetery. Stuart is spotted by the county sheriff and the deputy and taken to the sheriff’s office.
In the morning, his mother comes to get him in her car, where he tells her that he has figured out that he wants to go to Hollywood to become a movie star. His mother tries to talk him out of it, but Stuart is determined this time. His mother asks him to look his father up when he goes to California. He gets pissed off at this.
Stuart moves to California to chase his dream but continues his rugged ways, which help him stay protected against the casting couch in the movie industry. Stuart struggles to find an acting job, so he gets a job at a local grocery store, hoping to meet people in the movie industry to get himself a movie role.
One day, at the store, Stuart notices a good-looking woman, who is trying to buy something, and he gets smitten by her. He tries to talk to her and bluntly even asks her out but the woman gives him the cold shoulder and walks out. Stuart tries to chase her, but his manager stops him saying stalking customers is a fire-able offense.
Later, Stuart finds out from another worker that the woman is a member of some local church group. Stuart gets well-groomed and goes to that church, looking for the woman. He spots her outside the church, and she looks at him there with apprehension.
For the first time in many years after his brother’s passing, Stuart steps inside the church, obviously looking for the woman, not God. He gets acquainted with some young male members of the church. And one of them tells him the woman’s name is Carmen, and he also informs Stuart that she is about as Catholic as the cross itself.
Stuart spots Carmen and they talk. He flirts with her and tells her he can be whatever she wants him to be and wants to marry her. Carmen tells him that she’s Catholic and warns him if his intention is sex, then no sex before marriage, and tells him she cannot marry a non-catholic man. Carmen is a teacher at the Church school. She tells him to spend an hour in church daily, and he happily agrees.
On his brother’s birth anniversary, Stuart drives down to a no-man place under the night sky. He also gets a small cake, lights a candle, wishes his brother happy birthday, and drinks beer in the car. He is caught while driving back to his hotel and taken in under the Driving Under the Influence charge.
The next day, Carmen is waiting for Stuart at church, but he fails to show up on time, and when he does, Carmen has already left.
Stuart tries to steal his father Bill’s truck from his job site, but he is father is informed of this over the wireless by the security. Bill comes down to find Stuart. Stuart tells him that he wants to become an actor and is trying to be an exception in the family. They argue over the past, and Stuart walks out on him.
Stuart goes to see Carmen at her church school, where she is with her students. She is upset and doesn’t want to talk to him, but he convinces her that he is ready to get baptized before meeting her parents for their marriage.
Stuart begins to attend the church regularly for the official catholic ritual of religious teaching and training before baptism. He begins spending sessions with priests for the process. Carmen accepts his love, and they start a relationship.
Stuart decides to give up alcohol and finally gets baptized. Carmen takes him to see her parents, who are devout Christians, and Stuart impresses them with his Spanish and newly-found Christian faith.
Stuart makes his first confession to the father in his foul-mouthed way. He is frustrated over his acting career and about not getting the kickstart he had hoped.
Stuart only gets a small commercial acting job. Out of frustration, he goes to a bar and binges on alcohol, despite having vowed previously to keep away from alcohol.
At the bar, he has a fiery conversation with a long-haired, scar-faced, stranger guy who tells him that he’s having too much to drink and tells him that he should be grateful for what he has, instead of being angry over what he doesn’t have.
The guy warns him that he shouldn’t ride back on his bike at night on the highway. Stuart tells him to find someone else to give his shit to because he doesn’t care.
After that guy walks out, Start asks the bartender what the guy was drinking. The bartender tells him that he was only drinking water.
Stuart rides his bike on the highway in his drunken state, and a speeding car crashes into him. He gets thrown off his bike and gets run over by another speeding car.
Severely injured, Stuart becomes disoriented. And when he is about to die, he has a vision of a young, beautiful woman (evidently Holy Mother Mary) who tells him he will not die for nothing. Stuart tells her that if her son (Jesus) wants to show him hell, he is not afraid of fire.
Mother Mary tells him that her son (Jesus) died for him and his brother and everyone else. She blesses and kisses Stuart on his forehead as he is being transported to the hospital by the medics. It turns out that the stranger at the bar who warned Stuart was none other than Jesus Christ.
Stuart is brought to the hospital unconscious, and his mother, Kathleen, shows up worried. The doctor shows no hope as he becomes comatose.
Later, Carmen shows up at the hospital, and Stuart’s mother tries to stop her when she starts praying for him. Out of some miracle, Stuart regains consciousness and once again, has a vision of Mother Mary’s hand caressing his bleeding head.
Stuart’s father shows up at the hospital after being informed by his mother of his accident and finds Stuart alive and being taken to the operating room for surgery.
Carmen comes running after him and puts St. Joseph’s locket in Stuart’s palm. Surprised Bill sees it and asks who she is. She tells him she’s Stuart’s girlfriend, and Bill tells her he is Stuart’s father and asks Stuart if he has told Carmen that he is an atheist. Carmen tells Bill that Stuart is now baptized. Stunned and worried for his son’s health, Bill shows some tearful emotions but gulps them back.
Stuart begins recovering and gets back on his feet with the crutches for a while. He begins praying and focusing on his faith and comes back home.
Despite still not being married, Carmen asks him to make love to her, and they make love, only to be regretted by them both later.
Stuart makes another confession of all that has happened in his life to the father and identifies his calling to become a priest and serve God. Stuart tells Carmen about it, who tells him not to do it because she wants to marry him and have a life with him. He disagrees with her, so she goes to tell his mother, who also tries to convince Stuart not to do it, and then his father, Bill joins the opposing group to stop Stuart from doing it, but he is bent on it. He disregards them all and decides to enroll in a seminary.
At first, the church authorities reject Stuart’s application. However, later on, he goes in person to meet the rector, who eventually allows Stuart to enroll.
Stuart grows fat and weak. While playing basketball with his fellow seminarians, Stuart falls to the ground. One of his friends at the seminary tries to help him up, but he keeps losing his balance again and again and falls several times.
Stuart is taken to the hospital, where the doctor informs him that he has some muscular disorder like ALS, where muscles continue to grow weak, and there’s no cure for it.
Stuart gets upset with God but accepts his suffering as a gift from God like it was for Jesus Christ, who had suffered severe pain too.
Stuart tries to reconnect with Bill and tells him that he prays for him. Carmen is engaged to another man and visits Stuart at the seminary. She shows him her support this time. Stuart’s ability to move freely becomes limited as his muscles begin to lose strength. Soon, he becomes a wheelchair-bound individual.
The rector declines Stuart’s ordainment because he thinks, with Stuart’s disability, he won’t be able to perform the ritual of sacraments and may end up disgracing it. Stuart tries to convince him that the body doesn’t mean anything to God and that we are all spiritual beings, not human beings. However, the rector still refuses to ordain him.
Bill begins to take care of Stuart, and they all get back together again as a family after many years in Helena. The local church, Carmen, and all his fellow seminarians file a petition to ordain Stuart despite his physical limitations, and he is allowed to be ordained.
Stuart is ordained with the help of other seminarians and in the presence of his family and followers. He delivers an emotional sermon at the church about God’s love, even for the worse of the worst sinner, such as him. His sermon leaves his father, mother, Carmen, and all present in tears.
Bill begins to attend a therapy group to deal with his alcoholism and admits in the group session that he was not a good father to his children.
Stuart begins his ministry service and soon connects with the people of Helena, who call him Father Stu.
Father Stu continues his missionary work to help people find and make their faith strong. As his muscles grow weaker, Father Stu’s faith grows stronger. He gets ready for the final round of his life.
Mark Wahlberg delivers a knockout performance as Father Stu.
23. On The Waterfront (1954). IMDb Rating: 8.1/10
Terry Malloy (played by Marlon Brando in his best actor Oscar-winning role), is a former prize fighter, who now works for the corrupt dock union boss Johnny Friendly. Friendly controls all of the dockworkers and their payments. Terry’s brother Charley (played by Rod Steiger) is Friendly’s henchman and never goes against him.
Terry is asked by Friendly to bring Joey Doyle, a fellow dockworker to his apartment building’s rooftop, where Friendly’s men are waiting for Joey. So, on one night, Terry goes to Joey and hollers his name from downstairs with a bird in his hands. Terry tells Joey that he has found his lost bird, and he asks Joey to come to the rooftop to get it.
Joey comes to the rooftop, where he is thrown off the rooftop and killed by Friendly’s men. Terry is distraught to see Joey die. Terry had thought that Friendly’s men were only going to talk to Joey to discourage him from testifying against Friendly to the Waterfront Crime Commission.
All the dockworkers know about Friendly’s corrupt activities on the waterfront, but they fear speaking against him. In the meantime, Terry begins to see Joey’s sister Edie. Edie wants to bring justice to her deceased brother. So, she tries to seek help from a local priest, Father Barry, to make the dockworkers testify against Friendly.
Father Barry has a meeting with the dockworkers where Terry is present too as an informant upon Friendly’s order and his brother Charley’s insistence. Johnny Friendly’s men disrupt the meeting and workers run for their lives. Edie is saved by Terry.
Another dock worker seeking to testify against Friendly is killed at work when a heavy load of whiskey bottles falls on him from a height that is let loose by Friendly’s men. Edie and Father Barry continue their campaign against Friendly.
Terry begins to develop feelings for Edie, and Edie shows feelings for him too. As Terry’s feelings for Edie intensify, Terry’s guilt and remorse for Joey’s death grow deeper. Terry confesses his guilt and his role in Joey’s death to Father Barry, who asks Terry to confess it to Edie too. Edie is heartbroken to hear this from Terry, and she doesn’t wish to see him again.
Friendly begins to suspect Terry and asks Charley to caution him not to go against him. Charley tries to caution Terry, but Terry has a fierce argument with him and recounts his fight where he had a chance to win and become a fighter of a great kind, but because Charley told him to throw a fight upon Friendly’s order who wanted to make money from his defeat, Terry couldn’t win, and it ruined his boxing career.
Terry goes to Edie and forcefully enters her apartment. He tells her that he loves her. Terry’s name is hollered from downstairs just like Terry had hollered Joey’s name before he was killed. Terry runs downstairs realizing Charley is in trouble. Edie runs after him. Both Edie and Terry are about to get run over by the truck in a narrow lane, but they survive.
From a few blocks away, Terry and Edie find dead Charley hung up on a docker’s hook, indicating Friendly’s men did it, and they also tried to kill them by running over the truck. Angry Terry goes to a nearby bar to find and kill Friendly, but Father Barry persuades him not to do it but to fight Friendly by telling the truth about him in a court of law.
Terry testifies against Friendly and Friendly is excommunicated by his rich, powerful partners in crime, but Friendly still has control over the waterfront dock. So, he banishes Terry from dock jobs. Edie asks Terry to leave with her to the city, but Terry refuses.
Terry shows up at the dock for a job where the workers are picked up randomly for a day’s work by Friendly’s dock managers. Everyone is picked for the job except Terry. Friendly and his men are watching this scene from their office by the river.
Terry is proud that he spoke against injustice and corruption. So, he proudly goes to Friendly’s office down the dock to dare him openly. Terry incites Friendly by telling him that Friendly is cheap and nothing without his men. Friendly comes out and the two men engage in an intense fistfight while all of the dockworkers watch this happen.
Father Barry and Edie arrive at the scene where bruised and bloody-faced Friendly walks out in rage with his men and orders the workers to get back to work. The workers refuse to work if Terry is not allowed to work.
Edie and Father Barry and some other workers find Terry lying on the dock’s floorboard, bruised and bleeding. Father Barry urges Terry to get up and walk because Friendly is laying odds that Terry won’t get up. Father Barry also tells Terry, “You’ve lost the battle, but you have a chance to win the war!”.
Terry asks them to get him on his feet. A wobbly, bleeding Terry begins to walk alone with his docker’s hook in his hand toward the entrance of the dock workplace, as the other dock workers watch him pass through. Terry gets inside, and other workers follow him there.
The movie doesn’t feature any boxing scenes, but the protagonist Terry is a prize fighter, so I decided to include this one on the list. The movie won the awards for best picture, best director, best-supporting actress for Eva Marie Saint as Edie, and best actor for Brando at the 27th Academy Awards.
So, ladies and gentlemen! The winners by the unanimous decision are these great movies featuring a boxer character, and you must watch them if you love movies too.
Finally, I’d like to conclude this article with a quote from On The Waterfront. which was also used by Robert De Niro’s character Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull:
“You don’t understand. I coulda had a class. I coulda been a contender. Instead of a bum, which is what I am. Let’s face it!”
~Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando)/Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro).
Tattered gloves or tattered life, never stop fighting!
Disclaimer: The movie stills used in the article belong to their production houses and distributors.