From blood-and-sweat character studies to crowd-pleasing triumphs, the greatest boxing movies land punches you feel long after the bell. This list encompasses classic boxing films, modern boxing dramas, and a landmark documentary, all measured by ring craft, character stakes, cultural legacy, and sheer cinematic voltage. Rocky turned an underdog story into Oscar gold, cementing the sport’s place in the mainstream.
Raging Bull proved the genre can be high art, with Robert De Niro and Thelma Schoonmaker taking home Academy Awards for a film that turns the ring into a confession booth. And When We Were Kings captures the electricity of Ali–Foreman’s “Rumble in the Jungle,” a 1974 Kinshasa showdown that earned the documentary an Oscar and immortalized a global sporting moment.
Ready to glove up? Here are the best boxing movies—the ones that still make us wince, cheer, and hit rewind.
1. Raging Bull (1980)
🎬 Director: Martin Scorsese
🎭 Cast: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty
🏆 Awards: 2 Academy Awards (Best Actor, Best Film Editing)
⏱️ Runtime: 129 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 8.1/10
Scorsese shoots Jake LaMotta’s life in stark black-and-white, turning every round into a confession booth. De Niro’s physical and psychological transformation is volcanic, matched by Thelma Schoonmaker’s razor-sharp cutting that makes the ring feel like a pressure cooker. The story adapts LaMotta’s own memoir, but the film’s real subject is jealousy, control, and self-destruction. Roger Ebert called boxing the arena rather than the subject, and the film’s bruising intimacy bears that out. The result became a cornerstone of American cinema, winning Oscars for De Niro and Schoonmaker and landing on all-time lists.
Why it still knocks us out: The ring chaos is unforgettable, but it’s the quiet mirror scenes that leave the deepest bruise.
2. Rocky (1976)
🎬 Director: John G. Avildsen
🎭 Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith, Burt Young
🏆 Awards: 3 Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing)
⏱️ Runtime: 120 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 8.1/10
Stallone writes and stars as a small-time Philadelphia brawler who lands a once-in-a-lifetime shot at Apollo Creed. Avildsen’s clean, street-level direction keeps the drama intimate while Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” powers a training run through the city to the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s 72 steps. The romance between Rocky and Adrian grounds the myth in shy, everyday tenderness. The film became a sensation, earning ten Oscar nominations and winning Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Film Editing at the 49th Academy Awards. Its blueprint reshaped every modern sports drama that followed.
Why it still knocks us out: That sprint up the steps still makes crowds shadowbox before the bell.
3. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
🎬 Director: Clint Eastwood
🎭 Cast: Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman
🏆 Awards: 4 Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor)
⏱️ Runtime: 132 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 8.1/10
Eastwood shapes a spare, intimate drama about a stubborn trainer, his watchful friend, and the hungry fighter who refuses to be turned away. Hilary Swank’s transformation is total, grounding Maggie’s rise with grit and grace you can feel in every jab and slip. Morgan Freeman’s “Scrap” narrates with weary warmth, turning the gym into a quiet sanctuary for second chances. Tom Stern’s muted cinematography and Eastwood’s restrained score keep the story unshowy until a wrenching moral pivot. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor, with further nominations for Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Editing. What lingers is not victory but the cost of devotion.
Why it still knocks us out: It sneaks a bruising, ethical drama into a sports story and leaves the crowd silent at the bell.
4. Cinderella Man (2005)
🎬 Director: Ron Howard
🎭 Cast: Russell Crowe, Renée Zellweger, Paul Giamatti
🏆 Awards: 3 Oscar nominations (Best Supporting Actor – Giamatti)
⏱️ Runtime: 144 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 8.0/10
The film tracks James J. Braddock’s comeback from broken hands and breadlines to a title shot that no bookmaker wanted to price. Russell Crowe portrays him as a stubborn provider whose toughness begins at the dinner table and extends into the ring. Renée Zellweger gives the story its spine, guarding the family’s dignity while the rent comes due. Ron Howard shoots the bouts with bruising clarity and keeps returning to the relief lines and dock shifts that define the real stakes. Paul Giamatti crackles as manager Joe Gould, a fast-talking loyalist who believes even when the lights are about to shut off. The film earned three Oscar nominations, including Supporting Actor for Giamatti, which tells you how sharp the ensemble work is.
Why it still knocks us out: Every punch doubles as a bill paid, turning a title fight into a working-class miracle.
5. The Fighter (2010)
🎬 Director: David O. Russell
🎭 Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo
🏆 Awards: 2 Academy Awards (Best Supporting Actor – Bale, Best Supporting Actress – Leo)
⏱️ Runtime: 116 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.8/10
Lowell, Massachusetts, gives this story its grit as Micky Ward climbs toward a title shot with a fractured family in his corner. Christian Bale disappears into Dicky Eklund, the charming, self-sabotaging half-brother whose highs and lows keep tilting the ring. Amy Adams brings flinty resolve as Charlene, the partner who refuses to be shouted out of the game. Melissa Leo is electric as the hard-charging matriarch juggling loyalty and control. The boxing is staged with claustrophobic realism that mirrors HBO fight broadcasts, but the real brawl is domestic. The film took home two Oscars for Bale and Leo, with nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Amy Adams, and more.
Why it still knocks us out: Because the toughest opponent here isn’t in the opposite corner—it’s the family you can’t throw in the towel on.
6. Creed (2015)
🎬 Director: Ryan Coogler
🎭 Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad
🏆 Awards: 1 Oscar nomination (Best Supporting Actor – Stallone)
⏱️ Runtime: 133 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.6/10
Coogler revives the Rocky universe by shifting the center to Adonis, a young fighter chasing a name and a self. Michael B. Jordan blends swagger with doubt, while Stallone’s weary, tender mentor turn gives the franchise its beating heart. Tessa Thompson’s Bianca adds texture and momentum, grounding Philly in music and modern ambition. DP Maryse Alberti shoots the bouts with you-in-the-pocket proximity, highlighted by a single-take fight that feels like shared breath. Ludwig Göransson’s score braids fresh motifs with a nod to the old fanfare, and Meek Mill fuels a bike-crew training run that rattles the streets. Tony Bellew’s Ricky Conlan brings credible danger to the title shot that crowns the arc.
Why it still knocks us out: The one-shot bout and Stallone’s late-career grace make this a franchise rebirth that earns its own gloves.
7. Creed II (2018)
🎬 Director: Steven Caple Jr.
🎭 Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Dolph Lundgren
🏆 Awards: Various nominations
⏱️ Runtime: 130 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.1/10
The sequel moves from hunger to heritage as Adonis Creed accepts a challenge from Viktor Drago, son of the man who killed his father. Steven Caple Jr. treats the rivalry like an inheritance, letting every stare and body shot carry decades of unfinished business. Michael B. Jordan balances ego and vulnerability while new fatherhood reframes what winning even means. Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren play men haunted by old choices, giving the corners of the ring a weathered ache. The desert training stretch feels blistering and practical, built on ugly reps and stubborn will. The Moscow finale trades spectacle for hard-nosed attrition and lands its most human punch when Ivan makes the call that Apollo never got.
Why it still knocks us out: It turns a 1985 grudge into a story about fathers, sons, and the courage to throw in the towel.
8. Ali (2001)
🎬 Director: Michael Mann
🎭 Cast: Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Jon Voight, Jada Pinkett Smith
🏆 Awards: 2 Oscar nominations (Best Actor – Smith, Best Supporting Actor – Voight)
⏱️ Runtime: 157 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 6.7/10
Michael Mann tracks a turbulent decade as Cassius Clay becomes Muhammad Ali, a champion who fights as hard outside the ring as in it. Will Smith builds the role from footwork and breath control upward, then lets the charisma and conviction take over. The film zeroes in on the Liston fights, the name change, the draft standoff, and the “Rumble in the Jungle,” treating each moment like a test of faith. Jamie Foxx’s Bundini Brown brings wit and heartbreak to the corner, while Jon Voight’s Howard Cosell becomes a sparring partner in ideas. The sound design makes every jab crack and every crowd roar feel lived in. What lingers is the portrait of a man whose politics, poetry, and presence hit with heavyweight force.
Why it still knocks us out: Because it remembers the loudest punch Ali ever threw was his voice.
9. The Boxer (1997)
🎬 Director: Jim Sheridan
🎭 Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Brian Cox
🏆 Awards: Various festival awards
⏱️ Runtime: 113 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.0/10
After 14 years in prison, Danny Flynn comes home to Belfast determined to fight clean and keep politics out of the ring. He reopens a non-sectarian boxing club with his old trainer, Ike Weir, and tries to rebuild a life with Maggie, the childhood love now bound to an imprisoned IRA husband. Jim Sheridan frames the gym as a fragile neutral ground while militants circle, turning every bout into a referendum on peace. Chris Menges’ cinematography keeps the city’s tension in the air, even in quiet scenes. Day-Lewis trained for a year and carries that discipline into a performance built on restraint rather than rage. The punches land, but it’s the cost of breaking the cycle that stings.
Why it still knocks us out: Because it remembers that sometimes the bravest move in a fight is stepping away from one.
10. Southpaw (2015)
🎬 Director: Antoine Fuqua
🎭 Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, Rachel McAdams
🏆 Awards: Various nominations
⏱️ Runtime: 124 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.3/10
Billy Hope starts as a bruiser with belts and a family, then loses the center that kept him upright and has to rebuild from the canvas up. Jake Gyllenhaal’s transformation is all coiled shoulders, slurred breath, and a fighter’s wary eyes that never quite relax. Forest Whitaker plays Tick Wills with quiet steel, turning a rundown gym into a refuge where discipline replaces rage. Rachel McAdams gives the story its shattering pivot, and Oona Laurence keeps the stakes human every time the gloves come off. Eminem’s tracks drive the temp,o and James Horner delivers one of his final scores, a mournful engine beneath the grind. The climactic bout lands because the real victory happens long before the bell, in custody hearings and in the mirror.
Why it still knocks us out: The redemption arc feels earned, sweaty, and stubborn enough to hurt.
11. The Hurricane (1999)
🎬 Director: Norman Jewison
🎭 Cast: Denzel Washington, Vicellous Reon Shannon, Deborah Kara Unger
🏆 Awards: 1 Oscar nomination (Best Actor – Washington), Golden Globe win
⏱️ Runtime: 146 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.6/10
Middleweight contender Rubin Carter sees his title dreams derailed by a murder conviction, and the film follows the long grind to clear his name. Denzel Washington locates the role at the intersection of discipline and fury, showing a man who keeps training his mind when the ring is gone. Norman Jewison stages cells, courtrooms, and clippings like exhibits, turning the investigation into a slow, methodical combination. The friendship with Lesra Martin and the Canadian trio becomes the engine that keeps the case moving, and Vicellous Reon Shannon anchors those scenes with warmth. The boxing is memory and metaphor, a reminder of a life paused while the fight moves elsewhere. Washington earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination and won the Golden Globe, which tells you how fully the performance lands.
Why it still knocks us out: It turns the justice system into the toughest opponent a fighter has ever faced.
12. Hands of Stone (2016)
🎬 Director: Jonathan Jakubowicz
🎭 Cast: Édgar Ramírez, Robert De Niro, Usher Raymond
🏆 Awards: Various festival nominations
⏱️ Runtime: 111 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 6.6/10
Édgar Ramírez channels Roberto Durán’s volcanic pride and street-born swagger, a fighter who treats every round like a referendum on respect. Robert De Niro’s Ray Arcel plays the counterweight, a patient craftsman teaching control to a hurricane. The film captures the heat of Panama City and the glitzy pressure of late-70s Las Vegas while staging the Leonard bouts with crisp, readable choreography. Usher brings surprising finesse as Sugar Ray Leonard, all flicker and footwork, while Ana de Armas threads warmth and worry through Durán’s home life. Rubén Blades adds cool steel as promoter Carlos Eleta, pushing a national icon toward myth. The infamous “No Más” rematch lands here as a bruising character beat rather than a punchline.
Why it still knocks us out: Because it reminds you that quitting is complicated when pride is the thing you fight for.
13. When We Were Kings (1996)
🎬 Director: Leon Gast
🎭 Cast: Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Don King, James Brown
🏆 Awards: 1 Academy Award (Best Documentary Feature)
⏱️ Runtime: 88 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.9/10
Leon Gast’s documentary drops you into Kinshasa in 1974 as Ali and Foreman circle each other and an entire nation leans in. Ali works the streets like a showman-politician, courting crowds while quietly shaping the rope-a-dope that will exhaust a heavier champion. Foreman’s camp stays controlled and inward, a stark counterpoint to Ali’s kinetic runs and press theater. The film braids training footage with the Zaire ’74 concert, letting James Brown and B.B. King turn a title fight into a cultural earthquake. The eighth-round knockout lands, but the film’s charge comes from the heat, the waiting, and the politics humming under every chant. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and remains the definitive record of a myth being made.
Why it still knocks us out: It bottles Ali’s electricity and a city’s roar, then lets you hear the ropes creak.
14. Body and Soul (1947)
🎬 Director: Robert Rossen
🎭 Cast: John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Anne Revere
🏆 Awards: 1 Oscar win (Best Cinematography), 1 nomination (Best Actor)
⏱️ Runtime: 104 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.6/10
John Garfield plays Charley Davis, a hungry New York fighter who climbs fast and learns how expensive a quick rise can be. The film treats boxing as a business of debts and favors, where every handshake hides a contract you can’t read. Robert Rossen builds a noir atmosphere that seeps from alleys into the ring, and Abraham Polonsky’s script gives the corruption real teeth. James Wong Howe’s cinematography is legendary, gliding around the canvas to capture sweat, breath, and the instant when doubt enters a fighter’s eyes. Garfield’s moral reckoning turns the final bout into a choice rather than a spectacle. The Academy took notice, with Howe winning the Oscar and Garfield earning a nomination that underlines how hard this story hits.
Why it still knocks us out: Because the knockout isn’t just a punch, it’s a clean break from the people who own the ring.
15. Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
🎬 Director: Robert Wise
🎭 Cast: Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Everett Sloane
🏆 Awards: 2 Academy Awards (Cinematography, Art Direction)
⏱️ Runtime: 113 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.5/10
Paul Newman’s breakout turn as middleweight champ Rocky Graziano crackles with street-bred energy and a wary charm that never softens the edges. Robert Wise stages gyms, alleys, and tenements with tough, near-noir realism while Joseph Ruttenberg’s black-and-white images put sweat and smoke right on your skin. The role was originally headed to James Dean; after his death, Newman stepped in and ran with it, announcing a star. The film’s grit is matched by tenderness in the home scenes with Pier Angeli, which gives the punches real consequence. It won two Academy Awards, including black-and-white cinematography and art direction, underscoring how sharply it’s crafted. This is the working-class boxing biopic that made a future icon feel inevitable.
Why it still knocks us out: Because you can feel a star being born in every feint, clinch, and crooked grin.
16. The Champ (1979)
🎬 Director: Franco Zeffirelli
🎭 Cast: Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway, Ricky Schroder
🏆 Awards: Golden Globe (New Star – Schroder)
⏱️ Runtime: 121 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 6.8/10
Zeffirelli remakes the 1931 classic as a tender, unvarnished story about a washed-up fighter trying to parent with empty pockets and swollen hands. Jon Voight plays Billy Flynn with ragged pride that keeps failing him at the worst possible moments. Faye Dunaway arrives like a storm from a different life, forcing decisions that hurt no matter which way they go. Ricky Schroder gives the film its heartbeat, pushing past sentiment to show a kid learning the price of grown-up choices. The gym scenes feel lived-in, and the final fight is staged with clarity that serves as an ending audiences still talk about. Schroder’s turn earned him a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year, and the film stands as a rare tearjerker that doesn’t flinch.
Why it still knocks us out: Because the hardest punch lands after the bell, when the crowd has gone quiet.
17. Fat City (1972)
🎬 Director: John Huston
🎭 Cast: Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell
🏆 Awards: 1 Oscar nomination (Best Supporting Actress – Tyrrell)
⏱️ Runtime: 96 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.3/10
In Stockton’s worn-out gyms and cheaper bars, an aging fighter named Tully meets a kid who might still have a shot. John Huston shoots the ring without glamour, letting loose punches and tired clinches speak to lives stuck between paydays. Stacy Keach gives Tully a battered dignity that cracks whenever the lights go out. Jeff Bridges plays Promise with a teenager’s uncertainty, while Nicholas Colasanto guides both men with a trainer’s patient realism. Susan Tyrrell is a live wire as Oma, a companion and a crisis in the same breath, a turn that earned her an Oscar nomination. What emerges is a bruised poem about cycles that repeat unless someone finds the strength to break them.
Why it still knocks us out: Because it understands that most fights are for rent, pride, and a reason to get up tomorrow.
18. Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)
🎬 Director: Ralph Nelson
🎭 Cast: Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney
🏆 Awards: Various nominations
⏱️ Runtime: 95 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 7.8/10
Anthony Quinn’s Mountain Rivera is an aging contender forced out by damage you can see in his eyes and in the way he moves. His manager, Maish, deep in debt, angles him toward humiliating wrestling gigs to keep collectors at bay. Julie Harris’s employment counselor offers a way back into ordinary life, a fragile thread of dignity that keeps slipping from his grip. Ralph Nelson shoots cramped rooms and smoky offices that feel as punishing as any ring. Mickey Rooney’s loyal trainer tries to hold the line while Gleason’s Maish shows the terrible mix of weakness and calculation that ruins men. The final walk into the arena, in a costume that mocks everything he was, is as devastating as any knockout.
Why it still knocks us out: It understands that the hardest blow lands after the cheers fade, when a fighter must choose between pride and survival.
Honorable Mentions
19. Triumph of the Spirit (1989)
🎬 Director: Robert M. Young
🎭 Cast: Willem Dafoe, Edward James Olmos, Robert Loggia
🏆 Awards: Various festival awards
⏱️ Runtime: 120 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 6.8/10
Willem Dafoe plays Greek Jewish boxer Salamo Arouch, forced by SS guards to fight fellow prisoners for survival inside Auschwitz. Robert M. Young shoots the story with stark, unblinking focus on routine cruelty and the thin bargains that keep people alive one more day. The production filmed on location at Auschwitz with special permission, which gives the barracks, yards, and crematoria an unsettling authenticity. Edward James Olmos and Robert Loggia bring grit and sorrow to the margins, sharpening the film’s sense of witness. Cliff Eidelman’s score stays restrained, letting the cadence of marching feet and barked orders carry the horror. What you remember is the cost of each “win” when losing means death for someone else.
Why it still knocks us out: Because it treats every round as a moral injury, not a sports beat.
20. Undisputed (2002)
🎬 Director: Walter Hill
🎭 Cast: Wesley Snipes, Ving Rhames, Peter Falk
🏆 Awards: Various nominations
⏱️ Runtime: 96 minutes
🎯 IMDb: 6.2/10
Walter Hill stages a claustrophobic prison showdown between lifer Monroe Hutchen and disgraced heavyweight champ George “Iceman” Chambers. The Mojave Desert’s Sweetwater Penitentiary becomes a pressure cooker where syndicates run fights and reputation is currency. Ving Rhames builds Chambers from vanity and brute force, while Wesley Snipes makes Hutchen quiet, precise, and principled. Roger Ebert noted the story’s echoes of the Tyson era, and Hill leans into that tabloid-meets-pugilism charge. The bout is cleanly cut and bruisingly simple, the kind of fight that decides who you are when the crowd is hostile and the exit is locked. The film later spawned a cult sequel run that turned “Undisputed” into its own fight universe.
Why it still knocks us out: It’s pure granite genre craft — two fighters, one room, no alibis.
The Final Round
From Raging Bull’s bruised poetry to Rocky’s museum-step euphoria, these are the greatest boxing movies because they make every round mean something beyond the scorecards. The best boxing movies aren’t just about who lands the final hook; they’re about pride, poverty, legacy, and the people in your corner when the lights go out. That’s why When We Were Kings still crackles, why Creed felt like a franchise rebirth, and why mid-century classic boxing movies like Body and Soul keep punching above their era.
Bookmark this list for your next marathon and pass it to that friend who only knows the montage. Then tell us: which boxing films did we underrate, which training sequence makes you lace up, and what deep-cut boxing drama deserves a rematch on our list? The bell’s rung—but the conversation’s just getting started.
