David Michôd
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Part “Star 80,” part “Raging Bull,” “Christy” is a gritty, if overlong, story of struggle and resilience, of compromise and abuse.
1980’s Raging Bull was a masterwork from Martin Scorsese that delivered not only Robert De Niro’s prolific performance, but also showcased the physical transformation of a boxer at their highest and lowest points.
From Raging Bull to Rocky to Creed, we’ve seen it all.
"Raging Bull," "The Great White Hope," "The Fighter," "The Hurricane," and "Cinderella Man" are just a few of the movies that have inspired us, made us think, and brought humanity to otherwise god-like figures that occupy the ring.
He stages the fights with clarity, but they lack the visceral electricity of Raging Bull or the balletic reinvention of Creed.
Most boxing films aspire to feature some blend of the raw pathos of “Rocky” with the gritty viscerality of “Raging Bull,” and the most successful tend to find another angle to attack the rise-and-fall narrative from.
From Raging Bull to Rocky to Creed, we’ve seen it all.
Most boxing films aspire to feature some blend of the raw pathos of “Rocky” with the gritty viscerality of “Raging Bull,” and the most successful tend to find another angle to attack the rise-and-fall narrative from.
Sydney Sweeney plays Christy, a basketball player turned boxer who moves like a slugger with no technique but endless heart. She’s scrappy and volatile. Does that sound familiar? This has all the makings of a Rocky film. There is even a similar coach/boxer dynamic at the beginning as well.
…a cliche-ridden script consistently has her on the ropes, fighting to hold your interest as the “Rocky” meets “Million Dollar Baby” wannabe…
Many viewers love an underdog story, with other boxing pictures like “Rocky” (1976) showcasing just how attractive this storyline is.
He does gives us the clichés—those training montages—but what we’re watching is less “Rocky” than a film about cruelty, in the hands of a sadist husband (Ben Foster, an expert in sleazeball).
The Godfather (1972)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
influenced Animal Kingdom (2010)
Themes Characters
Like a claustrophobic "The Godfather" or an unvarnished "GoodFellas," "Animal Kingdom," the gritty debut film by writer-director David Michôd, is about family, loyalty and vengeance.
There’s a familiarity about this material, pitching itself as it does against the themes of The Godfather and Heat, but writer-director David Michôd proves specific indeed about this particular intersection of criminality and domesticity.
Played with great energy by Sullivan Stapleton, cocaine-loving Craig is reminiscent of James Caan's Sonny in The Godfather – handsome, impulsive, doomed.
Any movie about a crime family is destined to echo previous entries in the genre, from The Godfather to The Sopranos.
Her first fight has a raw, underground grit reminiscent of The Fighter and Million Dollar Baby, yet Sweeney imbues it with a hungry defiance all her own.
…someone namedrops Hilary Swank, whose exemplary Million Dollar Baby and Boys Don’t Cry are both echoed here to diminishing returns.
In the early 2000s, we even got our first real glimpse into women’s boxing with Million Dollar Baby — a film that earned seven Oscar nominations and won four, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress.
“Cinderella Man” examined boxing through the lens of economic struggle, “Million Dollar Baby” examined the question of morality, “The Hurricane” explored the dynamic between race and justice, and even a more recent example like “Southpaw” channeled the age-old theme of redemption.
Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (2004) won four Academy Awards…
…a cliche-ridden script consistently has her on the ropes, fighting to hold your interest as the “Rocky” meets “Million Dollar Baby” wannabe…
Similar to Sydney Sweeney’s Christy biopic about boxer Christy Martin, The Smashing Machine is unconventional in that success for Kerr isn’t just measured in the winning of titles.
Even just earlier this year, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson had to grow even more muscles and don facial prosthetics for The Smashing Machine, apparently to prove he is very strong and can act while being strong.
This is the second boxing-centered transformation drama of the year, following Dwayne Johnson’s “The Smashing Machine,” and like Johnson, Sweeney fully commits.
…in an Oscar season surprisingly rife with offbeat sports biopics (The Smashing Machine, Marty Supreme, each by one of the Safdie brothers)…
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, The Testament of Ann Lee, Blue Moon, The Smashing Machine, Marty Supreme, Hamnet, and more are at the front of said queue…
Much like The Smashing Machine with Dwayne Johnson and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere with Jeremy Allen White, Christy marches diligently alongside 2025's middling, performance-forward biographies…
Speaking as a sucker for nicely staged, extremely medieval sequences of repulsive, scarring, horrible war, The King brought to mind everything from Braveheart to Lord of the Rings — and Game of Thrones , especially in one harrowing, suffocating scene.
Both movies trade in the same sort of muscular, woodsmoke-and-chainmail melodrama, though the more recent one roots its pedigree not in Braveheart -adjacent history but in Shakespeare: specifically Henry IV and V .
That’s where the movie is different from, say, “Braveheart.”
It’s not helped that most of his performance is incredibly one-note, never rising above a gravelly octave until the battle heavy third act (with the customary Braveheart speech – as you do).
In the most glaring instance, Chalamet gets to do a rousing pre-battle speech that will surely warm the hearts of many a Brexiteer–think Viggo in Return of The King or Gibson in Braveheart .
Pero la impronta del cineasta es casi inexistente, efectista en el mejor de los casos, como pasaba con aquella El rey proscrito que aspiraba inútilmente a la épica de Braveheart.
There are markers of comparison along the way?Natasha Braier's (2014's " The Rover ") intoxicating cinematography and saturated color scheme remind of Terrence Malick by way of Dario Argento's 1977 masterpiece " Suspiria ," while the portrayal of Hollywood's soul-devouring politics is not unlike 2014's " Starry Eyes "?but these are superficial at best once the trailblazing Refn has his way with the material.
Secuencia tras secuencia, Refn y la cinefotógrafa argentina, Natasha Braier (La teta asustada, 2009; The Rover, 2014), encierran a los personajes en una especie de penumbra habitada por los sonidos electrónicos, ensordecedores y sublimes de Cliff Martinez, y las luces de neón.
But cinematographer Natasha Braier's ("The Rover") camera pulls back to reveal amateur photographer Dean (Karl Glusman, "Stonewall") snapping away.
Natasha Braier, who most recently shot The Rover , favours locked off shots and frames-within-frames, but it all amounts to very little in terms of a consistent aesthetic; what stands out are singular, disparate shots.
Animal Kingdom also shares a trans-Pacific vibe with Michel Mann's 1981 Thief, another study of criminal mentality from the inside.
Chimes at Midnight (1965)
Directed by Orson Welles
influenced The King (2019)
Plot Themes Characters
In one of several nods to Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight (aka Falstaff), Falstaff becomes the moral center of the movie and the fictional figure stringing together bits of history and scraps of storylines from Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I and II and Henry V. (This film’s Battle of Agincourt at times resembles Welles’s Battle of Shrewsbury.)
For fellow members of the Shakespeare on Film Fan Club, it complements Orson Welles’ 1965 film Chimes at Midnight and its take on the Henry plays.
There will never be a greater movie Falstaff than Orson Welles, the star and brightly burning center of his own 1965 Chimes at Midnight.
Also sidestepping a poorly attempted replication of the ultimate version of his character (Orson Welles in “Chimes at Midnight,” that is) Edgerton as a larger-than-life, irritable yet subtle Falstaff wisely reminds Hal the reality of his situation: “A king has no friends.
“The King” tells a version of their story that falls somewhere between “Henry V,” most recently filmed to great and glorious effect by Kenneth Branagh, and Orson Welles’ 1960s compression of the “Henriad” plays about Hal and Falstaff, “Chimes at Midnight.”
The Henry plays have been adapted to the screen before, including Welles’s dazzling “Chimes at Midnight” (he plays Falstaff) and Gus Van Sant’s liberal appropriation (or bowdlerization) for “My Own Private Idaho.”
Director David Michôd drops viewers straight into the ring, with each match evoking a similar grit seen in more recent films like Creed.
He stages the fights with clarity, but they lack the visceral electricity of Raging Bull or the balletic reinvention of Creed.
Part “Star 80,” part “Raging Bull,” “Christy” is a gritty, if overlong, story of struggle and resilience, of compromise and abuse.
The film is perhaps trying something like Star 80, in which the small-time pimp Paul Snider loses his trophy wife, Dorothy Stratten, to the imperial playboy Hugh Hefner.
…a movie that often parallels "Star 80," another tale of a jealous husband trying to ride his wife's coattails to fame, with a happier ending.
The actor didn’t undergo a transformation like Charlize Theron did for Monster, where she went from a beautiful actress to an intentionally unattractive person…
…in a move not unlike Margot Robbie in I, Tonya, or even Charlize Theron in Monster…
She’s transformed her body, like Robert De Niro in Raging Bull and Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club, and she’s dramatically deglamorized herself, like Charlize Theron in Monster and Jennifer Aniston in Cake.
The predictability doesn’t sink the film, but it keeps it from rising to the level of reinvention achieved by more daring sports dramas such as Foxcatcher or I, Tonya.
The filmmakers were clearly aiming for I, Tonya, which has weirder and crueler energy.
…turning in a performance that recalls Margot Robbie in I, Tonya in terms of portraying false bravado…
…in a move not unlike Margot Robbie in I, Tonya, or even Charlize Theron in Monster…
…there’s nothing Sweeney does here that tops Margot Robbie’s turn as the similarly cocksure sportswoman Tonya Harding in 2017’s I, Tonya.
(As Joyce Salters, Merritt Wever, who is beginning to look like the great Shirley Knight, is much more subtle than Allison Janney’s campy turn in I, Tonya; she has a gently spoken sweetness that makes her love feel all the more coldly withheld.)
Netflix Robert Pattinson channels Monty Python and the Holy Grail as the French dauphin in The King.
In this film it seems the actor has finally realised his limitations and based his performance on a careful study of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).
It would take nearly 20 years before audiences saw another knockout women’s boxing story: The Fire Inside, a biopic about Claressa Shields.
Rachel Morrison’s The Fire Inside also premiered at Toronto in 2024…
It suffers from many of the same issues plaguing last year’s “The Fire Inside,” unleashing a flurry of punches so fast and furious you never have enough time to absorb them.
"Raging Bull," "The Great White Hope," "The Fighter," "The Hurricane," and "Cinderella Man" are just a few of the movies that have inspired us, made us think, and brought humanity to otherwise god-like figures that occupy the ring.
“Cinderella Man” examined boxing through the lens of economic struggle, “Million Dollar Baby” examined the question of morality, “The Hurricane” explored the dynamic between race and justice, and even a more recent example like “Southpaw” channeled the age-old theme of redemption.
"Raging Bull," "The Great White Hope," "The Fighter," "The Hurricane," and "Cinderella Man" are just a few of the movies that have inspired us, made us think, and brought humanity to otherwise god-like figures that occupy the ring.
“Cinderella Man” examined boxing through the lens of economic struggle, “Million Dollar Baby” examined the question of morality, “The Hurricane” explored the dynamic between race and justice, and even a more recent example like “Southpaw” channeled the age-old theme of redemption.
Only God Forgives (2013)
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
influenced by Animal Kingdom (2010)
Characters
Scott Thomas has never had a role quite like this to sink her teeth into before, and the typically even-keeled star relishes the opportunity to play such an arch matriarch (though she’s no match for Jacki Weaver’s cunningly manipulative mama bear in “Animal Kingdom”).
Easily one of the nastiest matriarchs in cinema history, Crystal is as ruthless as Jacki Weaver's Mama Smurf in Animal Kingdom , and as imperious as Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest , but way nastier than either.
What’s more, once the initial jolt has worn off, Crystal isn’t nearly as interesting as, say, Jacki Weaver’s character in “ Animal Kingdom ,” a criminal den-mother of fascinating contradictions.
In a mad turn of casting against type, Scott Thomas electrifies, trash talking with a broad American accent in the kind of mean matriarch role that delivered Jacki Weaver an Oscar nomination for "Animal Kingdom."
Living up to the hype surrounding his role in The King, Timothée Chalamet gives a star-making turn as a youthful, tormented Henry V—transforming from a louche booze artist with father issues into a heroic warrior who despises war.
The King arrives on screen 30 years after Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V. Branagh’s film addresses the tenor of the Margaret Thatcher era by presenting a grungy, harsh reality, but it manages to build to peaks of regal heroism anyway.
Likewise, forget expecting anything akin to Kenneth Branagh's airless, but much lauded 1989 re-enactment of Henry V .
The King is the muddiest and bloodiest take yet on Henry V.
Honour is at the centre of this take on Henry IV Parts I & II and Henry V with (Ronan's Little Women and Lady Bird co-star) Timothée Chalamet playing the wastrel Prince Henry, who grudgingly ascends to the throne and then has to figure out whether his most dangerous enemies are across the Channel or much closer to home.
They punch metal and eat dirt until The King‘s body count outpaces Hamlet’s.