Real Steel (2011) starring Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lily, Dakota Goyo, Anthony Mackie
A divorced dad is forced to reconcile with the son he barely knows, over their love of fighting robots. Can they go from zeroes to champions in Real Steel?
The Champ (1931) starring Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper
The Champ – the original father-son tale remains one of the all-time great tearjerkers. Wallace Beery plays the washed-up prizefighter making a ring comeback to provide for his son.
Battling Butler (1926) starring Buster Keaton, Sally O’Neil, Francis McDonald
Synopsis
Buster Keaton remarked that Battling Butler was his favorite of all his films. Based on a Broadway play, the story revolves around a case of mistaken identity between two Alfred Butlers. One is an effete millionaire (Keaton), the other the heavyweight champion of the world (Francis McDonald). Coincidence brings them to the same backwoods Kentucky neighborhood, where Keaton finds love with a mountain girl. But not before antagonizing Butler-the-brute into a Madison Square Garden grudge match.
The Prize Fighter (1979), co-starring Tim Conway and Don Knotts
The Prize Fighter is a very funny, very sweet comedy. Set in depression-era America, Tim Conway stars as Bags Collins who has a perfect record as a boxer – twenty fights, twenty knockouts—and twenty losses. His manager, Shakes, is the ‘brains’ of the team, played by Don Knotts. However, his luck starts to change, and Bags starts to win against other ‘loser’ boxers and eventually gets a shot at the title in his weight category. Unfortunately, this is when they find out that the fight has been rigged …
Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) starring Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney, Julie Harris
Requiem for a Heavyweight is a very powerful, very hard-hitting movie about boxing. Rod Serling wrote a teleplay that shows the steamy underbelly of professional boxing — and it’s not a pretty picture. In short, Rocky it isn’t. The movie begins with Anthony Quinn, the ‘Heavyweight’ of the title, losing his final boxing match to (a very young) Cassius Clay. Anthony Quinn’s character, Louis ‘Mountain’ Rivera, has become punch-drunk and is on the verge of losing his eyesight in the boxing ring. His corrupt manager (played extremely well by Jackie Gleason, in a very serious role) needs to find a way to pay back the mob … and if that means ruining Rivera’s chance at happiness, then so be it.
In City Lights, Charlie Chaplin plays the part of Charlie the little tramp, a homeless vagabond, who encounters a flower girl, only to discover that she’s blind. After Charlie rescues an inebriated rich man from committing suicide, the eccentric millionaire decides that Charlie is his best friend, and takes him out partying, gives him a car, etc. — only to totally forgot about him when he’s sober.