Your top 3 Boxing Movies

[Toney Loc]

Cinderella Man

Million Dollar Baby

Gentleman Jim

What's your favorite movie featuring a black boxer?

[Burning Phoenix]

allow me to butt in as what i remembered that was one if not the primary selling point of the movie back then, how robert de niro stuffed his body to looked like jake of late. i believe it became the benchmark for actors who wanted to show dedication to their profession. now thats a good topic really but i guess not on here. prolly that dedication was the inspiration of christian bale playing the role of ****y to shed down weights.

Well Christian Bale is known for bulking up or slimming down for roles. He bulked up for American Psycho and he also got really skinng for The Machinist. Like sick skinny. Good to know that the academy awarded him for his work on The Fighter.

[nomadman]

I don't watch too many boxing movies as they tend by their very nature to focus on the lives of the boxers outside the ring, which I don't have much interest in. Also the fights themselves are almost invariably crap. Of the handful I've seen I'd have to say I liked the original Rocky the best. Yeah, it's an obvious pick but I've never seen another movie which came close to it in terms of raw emotional power. Its grimness, its wamth, its humanity and bathos, combined to create an inspiring film of rare power that I love to this day. But the fights were crap.

I quite liked Michael Mann's Ali as well. Pretty understated, focusing on a part of Ali's life that we don't tend to see. Decent fights, though nothing awe-inspiring. Excellent soundtrack.

Cinderella Man would have to be my third pick (if only because of my rather small list of movies to draw from). I confess I didn't think much of it when I first saw it but over the years it's grown on me. Decent depression era tale of a journeyman that gets to fight for the heavyweight championship of the world. Didn't like their depiction of Baer though. Very inaccurate protrayal.

Haven't seen either The Fighter or Million Dollar Baby. Thought Rocky 6 was ok. Liked Raging Bull but thought it was horribly overrated. Watched it quite a while back now though, so it might deserve another viewing.

[tibbar]

Well Christian Bale is known for bulking up or slimming down for roles. He bulked up for American Psycho and he also got really skinng for The Machinist. Like sick skinny. Good to know that the academy awarded him for his work on The Fighter.

Matt Damon too did it skinny tbh i forgot the title of the movie but not the way he looked because at the beginning i have not recognized him. sylvester stallone bulked up too for his role in rocky.

[Cyberspace]

Rocky 1, Raging Bull and The Joe Louis Story(first dvd I ever owned)

[physiker]

RE: Christian Bale and DeNiro, and losing or gaining great weight:

The extra disc for Raging Bull details that they tried to talk DeNiro out of the massive, rapid weight gain--which also required shutting down shooting the film--and instead told him they had prosthetics for the weight gain. He said no. I think he went to Paris to pig/dine out rapidly.

Now it seems to me that there is not as much, if anything, that can be done re prosthetics for emaciation. So maybe Bale and others who do a great weight loss should be given more credit than they are. I guess the Award was final recognition of this. Last year was not the best for movies. I thought TF, Swan, others and the acting were over-rated, but maybe there wasn't much else to pick from?

TF, did not have the Gatti wars, seemed--despite the title--not to have much (memorable) boxing in it. I hear they may do a TF II with the Gatti fights.

As they say, not every year is 1939.

That said, I thought The Fighter was good, but pales in comparison to RB, The Hurricane, M$Baby and some others.

[lefthook2daliva]

I quite liked Michael Mann's Ali as well. Pretty understated, focusing on a part of Ali's life that we don't tend to see. Decent fights, though nothing awe-inspiring. Excellent soundtrack.

I like just about anything from Micheal Mann and Ali was definitely no exception.

[physiker]

Well it's almost 2 weeks since people posted their faves here.

And there are many new members I see.

Tell us your favorite boxing movies and why?