‘I Play Rocky’ Proves Optimism Still Packs A Punch

A controversial Republican president has just been punished at the ballot box. An unpopular war hangs over the nation. Groceries are too expensive. Energy bills are too high. Ordinary Americans increasingly suspect that the economic system is no longer working for them. Popular culture seems obsessed by stories of national decline: of broken institutions, declining moral standards, and mentally unwell people roaming the streets. Trust in the media is collapsing amid accusations of bias, manipulation, and outright deception. And precisely when it should be celebrating a major anniversary of its birth as a nation, America is having a crisis of confidence. Welcome, not to 2026, but to 1976.

Into the ring steps an unknown actor named Sylvester Stallone, who has just written a script about a failed boxer from Philadelphia who knew he could not win but still wanted the chance to try. Filmed in early 1976 and given a modest release in a few movie theaters that November, “Rocky” grew by word of mouth to become a cultural phenomenon, culminating in its shocking triumph at the 1977 Academy Awards. At a moment when American culture was increasingly drawn toward stories of corruption, failure, and loss, “Rocky” told a different tale: not that everything was great or even easy, but that the American dream was still possible if you were willing to persevere, to believe in yourself, and to “go the distance.”

“I Play Rocky,” which tells the story of how Stallone’s screenplay became that iconic film, may turn out to be my favorite film of 2026. There are so many reasons to recommend this movie. The first, which is obvious from the trailer, is the casting. Lead actor Anthony Ippolito did such a convincing job as Al Pacino in “The Offer,” a TV drama recounting how “The Godfather” got made. How could he pull off another transformation, this time metamorphosing into a young and hungry Sylvester Stallone? Clearly Ippolito put in some serious gym time to buff up for the role, but there is also the matter of mastering the slouchy Stallone walk, part defensive, part vulnerable, and that distinctive voice. Well, he delivers, and then some.

The second factor is that the “making of” story really is incredible. As with all cinematic retellings of real events, a degree of artistic license will have gone into the version we see on the screen, as timelines will have been compressed and characters merged for dramatic efficiency. But as Stallone put it in his new memoir, “The Steps,” the story grew out of the realization that he needed to create an opportunity for himself rather than wait to be given one by someone else. The germ of the plot developed from the idea he obsessed over while contemplating his nonexistent career: “Do I really have what I think I have inside?”

He worked up a plot about “a character whose dream had already crashed and burned” with boxing as “a relatable metaphor for life” into “Rocky,” and during negotiations to sell the script to independent producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, he refused to sacrifice the title role. Executives deemed Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, and Ryan O’Neal the kind of bankable names who could green-light this movie, rather than an unknown. But Sly held out, taking a massive pay cut in the process. In granting this concession, the film studio United Artists imposed its own condition, that the movie be made on a minuscule budget. As Stallone later joked in an interview, “Rocky” was made on a smaller budget than a fancy toothpaste commercial. 

However, adversity is so often the paradoxical fuel that creativity requires, and never more do we see this illustrated than with “Rocky.” Because the shooting schedule was so tight, director John G. Avildsen essentially had to film every scene in one take, possibly allowing himself the luxury of retakes if really pushed. That kind of limitation evidently fed his creative process, since he won an Oscar for directing the picture, beating out starrier auteurs such as Ingmar Bergman, Alan J. Pakula, and Sidney Lumet. 

The movie brilliantly depicts the coming together of that almost alchemical blend of factors required to create a work of artistic genius. The producing team of Winkler and Chartoff, their glorious ’70s comb-overs unruffled throughout the shoot’s numerous challenges, are the story’s cheerleaders and fairy godfathers, demonstrating that delicate balancing act between blind faith in their novice star and the ruthless pragmatism required to oversee the practical and financial considerations. Some of my favorite parts of the movie are watching the duo spar with a hilariously bouffanted Tracy Letts, having a blast as a fictional senior executive blowhard at United Artists. Winkler and Chartoff patiently and politely wear down the executive’s conviction that he alone knows what will make a movie work. The real-life pair’s generous inclusion of Stallone himself when accepting their awards at the 1977 Oscars ceremony demonstrates the genuine affection they must have felt for the star they helped create. 

The financial limitations also meant “Rocky” had to go without a large supporting cast of extras, camera operators, and general behind-the-scenes crew. The budget could not cover the prohibitive union dues that came with a large film crew or pay for permits to film in certain parts of Philadelphia, so the small and nimble film crew had to be ready to leap into action the minute the traffic, or another variable, proved amenable. 

Due to the budgetary and scheduling constraints on “Rocky,” a revolutionary piece of camera equipment called the “Steadicam” became the tool of necessity. Today it is a standard piece of filmmaking equipment. Back then, however, the technology was so cumbersome that a long-suffering lackey had to trail behind the camera operator lugging two heavy car batteries during filming. “I Play Rocky” mines these technical and creative challenges for considerable comedy while showing us just how improvised the making of “Rocky” was.

Such comedic moments complement an equally endearing script. Director Peter Farrelly, more famous, along with his brother Bobby, for giving the world such ’90s gross-out movies as “Dumb and Dumber” and “There’s Something About Mary,” finds here a more charming strain of film comedy. The only less-than-wholesome part is a brief scene near the beginning where we observe a young and homeless Stallone resorting to participating in a soft-porn film to tide him over financially. “I Play Rocky” treats this single unsavory part of our hero’s story with admirable restraint, especially so given Farrelly’s past record, but it is worth knowing about this plot detail beforehand if you are thinking about whom to take to see the film. Aside from this one moral speed bump, the remainder of the film depicts Stallone, now a devoted husband and father, striving to provide for his family while sustaining his dream of artistic success.

It is easy to forget the surprising scale of the original’s box-office and awards success because we know that “Rocky” went on to spawn five direct sequels and launch the spin-off “Creed” franchise. It is therefore tempting to treat its victory as inevitable. In reality it was anything but. At the 1977 Academy Awards, “Rocky” defeated a field that included “Taxi Driver,” Martin Scorsese’s dark examination of mental illness, child abuse, and urban alienation; “Network,” Sidney Lumet’s savage satire of media corruption; and “All the President’s Men,” Alan J. Pakula’s glossy account of the Watergate scandal. On paper, these were the serious, culturally important films that should have defined the decade. 

Yet when “Rocky” won best picture in 1977, it was more than a triumph for an underdog movie. It was a vote of confidence in an idea. Inside the film, Rocky’s opponent Apollo Creed enters the arena dressed as George Washington crossing the Delaware, a symbol of American possibility at a moment when many Americans had begun to doubt it. Creed chooses Rocky because he believes that in America even an obscure and washed-up club fighter can be handed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The extraordinary success of Stallone himself then seemed to prove the point.

Fifty years later, amid our own anxieties about decline and dysfunction, “I Play Rocky” serves as a timely reminder of why the original film resonated so deeply. However unfashionable and naive the sentiment may now seem, we still need hopeful stories to remind us that even though life is a struggle, effort matters, character matters, and ordinary lives can become extraordinary ones.

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Bridget Riley studied modern history at Oxford and completed a Ph.D. in medieval history at the University of Reading. She writes on history, culture, and the philosophy of religion.

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