Was looking at some of the boxing movies ive got and was thinking theres some good viewing - Cinderella Man, Hurricane, Body and Soul, Somebody Up There Likes Me, On The Waterfront, Price of Glory, Gladiator (not the Crowe one). And of course the Rockys Anyone no of anymore good ones - heard theres an excellent Jack Johnson one called The Great White Hope. Please dont mention Calcium Kid or Ali.
Boxing films are hard to make good, but Raging Bull is hands-down the best ever. I thought every single one of the Rocky film sucked. Way, way too cheesy. The best in recent years is Million Dollar Baby...that is s good films, but still very flawed.
there's one with Josh Hartnett/hartnell?, Black Dahlia (i think) i remember thinking the choreography for the fights was better than alot of movies.
Undefeated Undisputed 1 and 2. The Great White Hope I believe was with James Earl Jones. The Great White Hype was funny with Damian Wayans.
Why can't people mention Ali or Calcium kid if they rate those movies. You're kind of skewing the outcome of the open question to fit your opinion. My all time favourite if allowed as its also a documentary is When we were Kings. Everytime I see that it makes me want to go out and rumble my self. I know not much boxing in it but it beautifully captures the actual events leading up to a fight. No film can truly capture what goes on in the ring so I'd rather watch actual fight footage. After that my favourites are The great white hype and Rock IV. Just because its so hard to make a good boxing film which create a sense of realness with the action and all that so I prefer something fun. Raging Bull, Cinderella man and The great white hope are also good movies.
I agree. The Rocky films are frequently disparaged by boxing fans because they lack grit. But I dare any of you to change the channel when Rocky 3 comes on TNT. That movie is about as entertaining as any movie I have ever seen. Just review for a moment all of thing that happen: Rocky wins 10 fights in a row; he fights Huk Holgan in a charity match; he gets his statute; he loses to Clubber Lang; his trainer dies; he loses faith in himself; Appollo teaches him to fight a new way; Paulie becomes a conerman; he Ko's Clubber. Did I leave anything out?
Requiem for a HW is excellent (esp the Quinn/Gleason/Rooney one) Champion (Kirk Douglas) is excellent The Set Up - this is a hidden gem. Track it down if you don't know it. From Allmovie.com: Robert Wise's blistering tour de force on the fight game, a key influence on Martin Scorsese's seminal Raging Bull (1980), remains one of the best films on that world. An undefeated boxing champion while at Dartmouth, Robert Ryan gives what's likely his best performance as the over-the-hill pug who balks when ordered by his manager to throw a fight. Wise throws the harshest possible light not only on the well-known corruption of game, on the seediness of the milieu, and the grueling punishment absorbed by the fighters, but also on the febrile bloodlust of the fans, for whom the director reserves his greatest revulsion. As the film unfolds in "real" time, it touches briefly on the range of boxers on that night's card, and from the nervous young kid to the washed-up middle-weight, all are equally mesmerized by the mythology of their craft. In the main event, Ryan absorbs perhaps the worst pre-Scorsese battering on celluloid. Noir icon Audrey Totter evinces an unexpected tenderness as Ryan's concerned wife, and James Edwards is poignant as a fighter on the slide. -------------- There are Dempsey and Marciano tv bio-pics that aren't bad, but aren't particlarly special, either. I think the Dempsey one was better (called "Dempsey" and "Rocky Marciano").
Although it cannot rightly be called a boxing movie, Butch, the boxer from "Pulp Fiction" was probably the best role Bruce Willis ever played...other than "Die Hard."