Collection
Rocky
Nine films about getting up.
Which order? Release order; Creed continues the story with a new lead.
Rocky
- 1
Rocky 1976*Rocky* is a touching boxing drama, carried by Sylvester Stallone’s awkward charm and John G. Avildsen’s patient direction. The supporting characters deserve more room, but the film earns its big emotional appeals.Fi1m 85 - 2
Rocky II 1979Sylvester Stallone takes over as director and runs the first film again, with more money and less patience. The middle hour drags and the sentiment is thick, but the fight at the end is worth waiting for.Fi1m 66 - 3
Rocky III 1982Stallone’s third round trades the grit of the first film for gloss and speed, and mostly gets away with it. Mr. T is a proper threat and the fights hurt; the drama between them is thinner than the film admits.Fi1m 70 - 4
Rocky IV 1985Stallone strips the Rocky story to a poster and a soundtrack: one Soviet giant, one American in the snow, and Vince DiCola’s synthesiser doing the talking. The training footage still gets the pulse up; everything around it has been cut away.Fi1m 52 - 5
Rocky V 1990Sylvester Stallone and John G. Avildsen, who directed the first film, send Rocky home to South Philadelphia, broke and hurt, and for half an hour the series remembers what it was for. Then a protégé with a mullet arrives, and the film turns into a cartoon.Fi1m 54 - 6
Rocky Balboa 2006Stallone’s sixth outing as Rocky is smaller, sadder and better than anyone had a right to expect. The first hour, a widower telling old stories in a half-empty restaurant, is the best in the series since 1976. The fight is the part we could have done without.Fi1m 68
Creed
- 7
Creed 2015Ryan Coogler makes a familiar boxing story feel worth telling again, helped by Michael B. Jordan and a generous Sylvester Stallone. The plotting is predictable and the pace occasionally slackens, but the affection is earned.Fi1m 85 - 8
Creed II 2018Steven Caple Jr.’s sequel is well acted, cleanly shot in the ring and entirely without surprise. Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone carry it; Dolph Lundgren, saying almost nothing, walks off with it. Worth an evening if you know what you are buying.Fi1m 64 - 9
Creed III 2023Michael B. Jordan directs himself with confidence and without Stallone, and Jonathan Majors gives the film a wounded, watchful antagonist it barely knows what to do with. The fights are inventive; the story around them is the old one, told faster than it can bear.Fi1m 72
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