Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is a small-time boxer who gets the chance to make a better life for himself. Legendary boxer Apollo Creed has agreed to fight an amateur, so Rocky sets out to prove himself a champion. Co stars Burt Young.

Film Trivia

• Sylvester Stallone wrote the script for this movie. It was one of 35 that he had written over the years. He agreed to sell the rights to the script on the agreement that he would play the lead role, Rocky.
• Sylvester Stallone permanently damaged his knuckles after filming the scenes where he punches slabs of beef. He punched the meat so hard and so often that his knuckles flattened out. To this day when Stallone makes a fist his knuckles are flat.
• Sylvester Stallone quit smoking cigarettes while making this film because he was getting out of breath too often.
• Burt Young, who plays Paulie, walks down the street drunk in one of the scenes. An actual drunk wandered up to Young and told him he wasn't acting convincing enough. Young then asked the drunk to demonstrate how it should be done and then copied him.
• Sylvester Stallone claims that after this film was released, Elvis Presley contacted him and asked him to come to Graceland with a copy of the film. Stallone was too afraid to meet Elvis, but he did send him a copy of the film.

If you like Rocky, try these:

• Rocky Balboa
• Rocky III
• Raging Bull