For a hugely long time now, theRockymovies have been a piece of cinema. Stretching back to 1976 when the firstRockymovie was released and won the Oscar for Best Picture, these films are legendary. With the release ofCreed IIIin cinemas recently, it’s an interesting time to take stock of the franchise.
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The first film in the franchise not to feature Sylvester Stallone’sRocky Balboa, it seems that theCreedfranchise is finally ready to stand completely apart. Nevertheless, these films are all connected as part of a larger universe, and it can be difficult to compare theCreedmovieswith the classicRockyones.
9Rocky V
The fifthRockyfilm was completely unnecessary in every way to the overall franchise. Following his victory over Ivan Drago in the Soviet Union, Rocky returns home and actually sticks to the retirement he’s been promising himself. The film instead focuses on him forgetting about his own son in favor of a young up-and-comer, Tommy Gunn, who he trains to become the new champion.
When he does and is subsequently called a fake champion, Tommy challenges Rocky to a matchbut gets into a street fight out of nowherewith him in the film’s climax instead. Not featuring Rocky ever boxing, mostly dealing with family melodrama and irritatingly inconsistent character work for a character who has always been family-focused outside this movie,Rocky Vis the weakest in the franchise.
8Rocky IV
Missing much of what madeRocky IIIgreat, particularly the training done with Rocky and Apollo,Rocky IVtried to create emotional stakes in a completely over-the-top way. Despitethe infamous Ivan Dragobeing his enemy,Rocky IVwas too on the nose with the social commentary it produced in the climax.
After Apollo helped Rocky defeat Clubber Lang, Apollo gets Rocky to help him train for an exhibition match with Soviet boxer Ivan Drago. When Drago kills Creed in the fight, Rocky vows to have his revenge and goes to the Soviet Union to box Drago in front of a hostile crowd. Much of this was fine, but Rocky’s declaration to fans in the Soviet Union who actually started cheering for him during the bout felt like a forced and unnecessary ending.
7Creed II
Following the threads ofRocky IVso many years later felt, again, unnecessary. Bringing Drago and his wife back with their son, so he could square off with the son of the man Drago killed all those years earlier feels a little bizarre. It was an interesting way to bring back legacy characters from theRockyfranchise, but it didn’t work that well.
Creed IIis clearly the weakest of the trilogy that the films have now made. Despite Creed being a character with great emotional stakes in the film, and Rocky still having something to do, there is little to no need for this to have happened in this fashion.
6Rocky Balboa
The sixth and final installment of the franchise that was about Rocky Balboa was quite simply calledRocky Balboa. A film that dealt with emotional and powerful themes, but also required quite a suspension of disbelief,Rocky Balboais an intriguing step that was maybe one too far for a fairly dead franchise.
Sylvester Stallone was sixty, making the entire thing a bit of a farce. When the current world heavyweight champion is beaten in a computer simulation by Rocky, he challenges him to a 10-round exhibition match. The ending was a strong one which mirrored the originalRockyand felt like a much nicer ending for the franchise thanRocky Vhad provided.
5Rocky II
The secondRockyfilm was essentially a rehash of the original. While the plot was acceptable and everything about the film worked fairly well, it just didn’t live up to the hype of the first movie and the huge cliffhanger it left things on. With Apollo barely holding on against Rocky in the original bout, this film had the chance to continue their story with a rematch and to get Rocky and Adrian married off.
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Rocky IIdid everything that was expected of it, down to the final seconds victory for Rocky this time around, allowing him to finally become the world champion. Despite doing all of this though, there was a sense thatRocky IIdid nothing to surprise or particularly interest fans beyond exactly what they thought they’d get.
4Creed III
The newest entry in the franchise did a great job ofstraying away from Rocky. Mostly because, at this point, there was simply no need for him anymore. Instead,Creed IIItold a story about the champ, having been on top of the world for years,facing off against a blast from his pastin Jonathan Majors' new character Damian Anderson.
After getting released from prison, Damian comes after Creed and his friends. At first, coming in under the pretense of renewed friendship, he then goes after the world title and goads Adonis into coming after him. The emotional stakes of this film were built on the merits of theCreedfranchise, rather than relying on history from theRockyfranchise to do the heavy lifting, and that is where the film excelled.
3Rocky III
Threequels are better than sequels in this franchise, andRocky IIIshowed that originally by doing the best emotional build for a fight in a film based on the merits of that film itself. Clubber Lang, a different sort of boxer to Rocky, seemed like a devastating opponent and actually beat Rocky on the night when Mickey died.
While Rocky had been distracted, he was also not able to beat Clubber due to his style of boxing. Having to relearn everything, from his former opponent Apollo Creed, was a huge part of the history of this franchise. The very reason that Creed and Rocky were friends, giving birth to theCreedfranchise, is because of this great movie. The soundtrack “Eye of the Tiger” also helped a great deal.
2Creed
Both the best movie since the originalRockyand a complete mirror of that movie in many ways,Creedfeatured Michael B Jordan as the son of Apollo Creed, seeking out Rocky Balboa for help to become a boxer. With emotional journeys both for Rocky, who deals with a potentially deadly diagnosis while training Creed, and for Creed himself, this film had everything.
A brilliant modern take on the genre, this underdog story put together a similar but new story that enchanted viewers. It remainsthe best movie in theCreedfranchiseand comes close to being as strong as the originalRockyitself.
1Rocky
However, nothing beats the original underdog charm ofSylvester Stallone’s only mostly intelligible lovable Rocky Balboa. Challenged as a random local fighter by the world champion Apollo Creed, Rocky has zero chance of unseating the charismatic king of boxing and yet pushes himself to the limit attempting to do it anyway.
It didn’t matter at the end ofRockythat he didn’t win, because that was never the point. That is what makes this film so memorably great, it was about showing the world what you could do instead of letting them assume you can’t do anything. It was the perfect movie definition of shooting for the moon, and even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.
