#002 - Rocky Movies Ranked: The Best Films, Not Our Favorites

2024-02-22

There have been eight films that can be called “Rocky Movies” since the original Rocky was released in 1976, and a ninth if you’re stretching it, including a spin-off series that now has a life of its own. Everyone has their favorites — if you grew up in the 1980s and ‘90s, you probably loved Rocky III and Rocky IV as a kid and that has translated over to adulthood. But how does this series of films about relationships, coming back from insurmountable odds, and, yeah, boxing, look to someone of the same age who didn’t see...

There have been eight films that can be called “Rocky Movies” since the original Rocky was released in 1976, and a ninth if you’re stretching it, including a spin-off series that now has a life of its own.

Everyone has their favorites — if you grew up in the 1980s and ‘90s, you probably loved Rocky III and Rocky IV as a kid and that has translated over to adulthood. But how does this series of films about relationships, coming back from insurmountable odds, and, yeah, boxing, look to someone of the same age who didn’t see the majority of the series until he was an adult compared to someone who has been watching the first four films since he could crawl?

We get into that while ranking Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V, Rocky Balboa, Creed, and Creed II by which movies we feel are objectively the best overall films, not which are our favorites. It generates some weird results. NOTE: We didn’t get into Creed III or include it in our rankings, because Rocky Balboa ain’t in it, so it ain’t a Rocky Movie. It is what it is.

We also talk about the new version of the fourth film, Rocky v. Drago, that was re-edited by Stallone himself from original footage during COVID, and yeah, we shit on Rocky V for the requisite duration and intensity.

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