Directed by:
John G. AvildsenScreenplay:
Sylvester StalloneCinematography:
James CrabeComposer:
Bill ContiCast:
Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith, Thayer David, Joe Spinell, Jimmy Gambina, Bill Baldwin, Al Silvani, Jodi Letizia (more)VOD (4)
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Rocky Balboa is a struggling Philadelphia boxer who is scorned by his gym's owner, patronized by a local loan shark and rebuffed by a shy plain-Jane, whose brother keeps trying to engineer a romantic match. Heavyweight champion Apollo Creed comes up with the Bicentennial gimmick of touting a new fight as the chance for a nobody to become a somebody while planning to easily win the bout himself. But someone forgets to tell Rocky, who trains earnestly for the fight, and comes out swinging. (Showtime)
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Reviews (11)
Miracles happen sometimes. The boxer Rocky lasted all rounds undefeated in his fight with the heavyweight champion of the world, and this B-movie, from which nobody expected anything, went for the highest standard and received two major Oscars. And a third miracle on top of that: the until then unknown Sly Stallone received two Oscar nominations, including the script, full of great dialogue, which he wrote in three days. Sly lived the American dream and rose to stardom.
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I've always liked Rocky, and every time I see it again, I'm amazed. It will probably never cease to amaze me how natural the whole film feels, how it does without a single cliché and how likeable its main character is. And best of all, it owes it all to Sylvester Stallone, actor, writer and fight choreographer. I'm not usually interested in boxing unless there's an interesting story behind the violence. But Rocky (like Raging Bull or Somebody Up There Likes Me) has just such a story.
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The duel of an outsider with a favorite remains an eternal topic in the sports genre, and when the main protagonist himself writes the script about a person who stood up to everyone who didn't believe in him, the only thing left for perfection is some equivalent from the real world. Maybe the one when the Academy really ate it up back then and awarded both Sly and Rocky with a few shiny statues. The fact that a series eventually became out of a unique story is actually a shame, but that's a different story.
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There is strength in simplicity. A still completely unknown Sylvester Stallone triumphed with a magnificently written script, where one clever dialogue follows another, and he further enriched it with the so-called wooden acting, which has been so criticised. But let's be honest, can you imagine someone else under the name Rocky? America in the 1970s is truly timeless.
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This film about the American dream is all the more natural, convincing and powerful the less it tries to be spectacular and cater to the audience at all costs. It is the humble inception of a legend, not yet aware of its future historical importance. Rocky is the purest film definition of Sylvester Stallone, both as an actor and as a person.
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