Best movies like Battling Bunyan

Lex 'El Animal' Vargas is a promising Portorican boxer in Queens, but lacks ambition to aim for the big career. That changes after his brother Paulie is accidentally shot dead by a teenager in an amateur hold-up on their late dad's shop, which he now closes to turn professional boxer. His star rises fast, but success brings its own problems, as he he lacks experience to handle professionals and resist the abuse they and his ghetto past entourage make of his generous nature.

It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.

In this crime drama, a young woman leaves her unhappy life at home to become a sophisticated night club singer. Her first job is nearly fatal when she entangles herself with the mobsters who own the joint and learns too much about their operation. Her boss decides to kill her and make it look like suicide. An intrepid reporter disbelieves the report and exposes the truth to the public.

Patty Sullivan (Erica Eleniak) is a battered woman who decides to take charge of her life by taking boxing lessons to better protect herself when her boyfriend becomes violent. Patty soon learns she has some talent for boxing and sets her sights on competing in a professional fight. More is on the line than just the woman's title.

A nightclub performer, jealous about the talents of an aspiring singer, tries to sabotage her chances at a professional career.

A former youth boxing champion, Jimmy McCabe is a man in search of hope but looking in all the wrong places. When he hits rock bottom he turns to his childhood boxing club and the only family he has left: gym owner Bill corner man Eddie and promoter Joe. Back in training, years after anyone thought he was a contender, he risks his life, as he tries to stand tall and regain his place in the world.

After completing his military service, Walter Gulick takes a job as a sparring partner at a gym, the owner of which sees potential in Walter as a professional fighter—and takes him under his wing.

Two men, working as professional boxers, come to blows when their careers each begin to take opposite momentum.

Diana Guzman begins to train as a boxer and achieves impressive success, blazing new trails for female boxers, all while keeping it a secret from her father.

An aspiring country singer, whose money is disappearing faster than his career opportunities, enters a "Tough Man" amateur boxing contest to earn some cash to pay his bills. Amazingly enough, he wins it, and is picked to go onto the national finals. He's torn between his first love, music, and the glitz, glamor and money of the "Tough Man" world.

Robert Armstrong stars as Scoop Adams, an ace newsreel cameraman whose love affair with the bottle all but destroys him professionally. Scoop manages to get his photographer pal Dick (Richard Cromwell) fired as well, but he promises to restore Dick's reputation, some way or another. He gets his chance while covering a dirigible wreck (some three years before the Hindenburg), saving the day for both Dick and himself.

Extra-marital fun and games at a convention of the Honeywell Rubber Company in Atlantic City.

A small-time talent agent discovers an amazing boxing kangaroo and figures to use it as his stepping-stone into the big time.

A gangster running a protection racket gets information that he's about to be prosecuted on income-tax-evasion charges. He hires a man with a photographic memory to memorize his books, then destroys them all so the police won't have any evidence to link him to the racket.

Newspaper staffer Alice Woods persuades the editor to allow her to chase a story, that of prizefight contender Martin, who is about to fight for the championship. However, he does not know that his manager is preparing to double-cross him.

A mechanic works for his sweetheart's father, who builds racing boats. He begs for and gets the chance to race a new-design boat, but his rival gets him intoxicated before the race and he wrecks the boat. Now he has to make good and show he has the right stuff.

An honest guy gets trapped into the world of horse racing and his once prosperous life becomes a downward spiral into the underworld.

Jimmy, an idealistic and hard-working young man, has just arrived in New York City with dreams of making his fortune. Along the way he faces numerous obstacles, opportunities and temptations, but through it all, he considers the actions of his hero, Abraham Lincoln, for guidance. Will Jimmy see his dreams come true, or will he be another of the countless hopefuls chewed up and spit out by New York's mean streets?

A police reporter solves a murder case in Chicago, then moves on to St. Louis-but not voluntarily, since he has been kidnapped by the minions of the Windy City gang leader against whom he is scheduled to testify.

Western - When football player Tex fletcher arives home he finds his father missing. Jim Davis has killed the father and learning of Tex's identity - Tex Fletcher, Joan Barclay, Ralph Peters

Unknown to Joan Manning, her trading post partner Weathers is operating a counterfeiting ring. When miner Jim Smithers brings his gold dust in, Weathers pays him off in counterfeit money. Jim's drunken brother, Bill, comes to the post and Weathers hears him say that Jim is leaving the area for good. Weathers sends Hawks to kill Jim and retrieve the bogus money. RCMP Sergeant Renfrew and Constable Kelly find Jim's body, and Renfrew hurries for Jim's cabin to search it. He is attacked by Weathers' men who have found the money. Renfrew is suspicious when Bill Smithers body is found, supposedly a suicide, with a note he had burned the money. This leads the Mounties to suspect counterfeiting. Kelly follows Manti, an Indian who works for Weathers, to the gang's hideout and is captured. But Renfrew is trailing Kelly.

Reporter vs. German spies and their new metal.

An up-and-coming heavyweight fighter, George Wilson, arrives in Vulcan City, a small mid-western town over-run by racketeers, to fight a heavily-favored Frankie Sebastian. George arrives but his manager Dolan is nowhere to be found. But Ma and Pa Karlsen, owners of Karlsen's Kozy Kottages motel and restaurant take him under their wing. He meets Miss Gormley who is also there to meet the no-show manager who is blackmailing her brother. Dolan still hasn't arrived by the date of the fight but, to the surprise of sports-promoters Tom Healy and Dominic Guido, George shows up and wins the fight. This wins him the friendship of trainer Al Muntz and the enmity of Willie Foltis, a punchy ex-fighter and a Healy henchman. This leads George to a fight with "Soldier" Freeman, whose manager Scotty Cameron has made arrangements for the favored-Freeman to take a dive, so he and Healy and Guido can clean up betting on the underdog. But Honest George has other plans.

District Attorney Holden and his special investigator Betty Higgins are trying to convict brothers Joe and Lou Manson, silk-racket hoods, after they are indicted for murder.

This Universal programmer was based on a Collier's Magazine story by journalist Quentin Reynolds. This story in turn was ostensibly based on a true incident, in which a gangster "returned from the dead" to save an innocent young man from the electric chair. The nurse of the film's title is Katharine McDonald, who falls in love with her prizefighter-patient Lee Burke as he recovers from a beating received in a fixed prizefight. Katharine must fend off the advances of criminal attorney John Dodge, another patient who also loves her and becomes jealous of Lee. But when Lee is framed for the murder of his disgruntled manager, Slice, by a henchman of the fight-fix leader, Joe Largo, Dodge takes on his defense and works with Katherine to discover the real killer. Convicted and sentenced to death, Burke is about to walk the "last mile", as Katharine encourages mortally wounded Largo to a deathbed confession.

On the eve of his execution, a vice-rackets bigshot recalls his various exploits in crimes such as abortion and white slavery, in which he frequently operated under an alias.

A low-level gangster determines to let nothing stand in the way of his gaining control of the numbers rackets in Harlem.

A cruel sea captain (Charles Middleton) oversees a rough crew.

A husband-and-wife vaudeville team disguise their young son as a girl so he can enter a contest run by a movie studio that's looking for "a new Shirley Temple".

Car racer Burn 'em Up Barnes, son of a wealthy manufacturer, leaves home to make his own way in the world. After being robbed by hoodlums, Barnes joins a group of hobos who take him in and show him the carefree life.

A guitar playing killer terrorizes a housewife while his partner robs the bank where her husband works.

Jimmy Albright is a young athlete with a passion for boxing. His mentor, Harry Sloan, an aging trainer and former boxer, sees Jimmy's potential, not only as a boxer but as a young man. With Harry's guidance, Jimmy trains and fights his way to the top of his division. All things appear to be on track, except for one small twist: Jimmy's parents, Don and Doreen, don't know he's a boxer...

Ex-vaudeville performer Trixie makes a come-back, and threatens to thwart the ambitions of her song-writing step-children, Bob and Judy.

Mexican club singer Lita Valdez is amazed to find that her younger brother Alberto is a talented boxer and is even more thrilled by his consistent success in the ring. Till he is forced to fight Jerry O'Leary, the man she loves. Caught between her devotion to both men, Lita tries her best to have the match canceled, but there is much more to the boxing racket than she had ever imagined...

Big Town Girls have dating service jobs long enough to learn that a society matron needs a boxer to perform at a party. They talk a waiter into playing the part and a series of accidents and tricks sends him on a boxing career.

A drugged man covered in blood is picked up by police. Before the cops can get answers the man escapes in search of answers to the mystery himself.

A man is convicted of killing his boss, whom he suspected of having an affair with his wife. On board the train taking him to prison for his execution are a reporter, who is dying of lung cancer and wants to interview the condemned man--and who also has some inside knowledge of the circumstances of the man's case. Also aboard is the prisoner's wife, who doesn't believe her husband is a killer and desperately wants to talk to him about it but he refuses to speak to her.

An assistant district attorney tries to stop his girlfriend's father from being swindled out of his money by a crooked lawyer in a racetrack scam.

The Gas House Kids tackle a gang of criminals in the hope of winning the reward and helping a returning war veteran make a life with his girl.

A man falls in love with a young woman, only to discover that she's the daughter of an ex-girlfriend who jilted him almost 20 years before.

When Mark 'High Gear' Sherrod (Murray) looses his nerve, the race car driver takes a job driving a taxi, but when he befriends a cute reporter and the young handicapped son of a deceased driver, he attempts to return to the track.

A fast-talking boxing manager and the somewhat hapless fighter he manages happen to run into a young man who was a good prizefighter in his day but is now out of the sport and has a drinking problem. They decide to train him for a big match, and in the process find themselves involved in romance, shady characters and a possible kidnapping.

A lumberjack knocks out a champion boxer in a brawl, gets drawn into the boxing world where he is unknowingly set up for a fixed fight.

Richard Dix, a displayer in a department store, enters a raffle and wins the so-called 'hoodoo' bad-luck automobile formerly owned by the store owner's son, a soul seemingly always in trouble with cops and women. Well, suddenly Dix begins to have the same problem, only he also gets mixed up in the life of Esther Ralston and her Aunt Edna May Oliver. Hilarious misunderstandings and undertakings become the fodder for the day!

A coming-of-age comedy about Jimmy, a quiet, heavy-set high school kid who is constantly tormented by the resident school bully Miles and his cronies. After an altercation on his way home from school lands him a chance meeting with former professional boxer "Action" Jackson and trainer Manny, Jimmy decides to learn how to fight back.

A meek millionaire masquerades as a boxing star to win a girl's heart.

A campus flirt who has been "pinned" by most of the boys of Sigma Chi fraternity falls for a no-nonsense athlete who doesn't have time for such diversions as women.

In this vintage "adults-only" exploitationer, whiskey and fast cars lead an innocent young girl into a life of prostitution and murder.

The teenage daughter of a puritanical Reverend promises him she will not marry until she is older, but after a night of heavy drinking she wakes up to find she has a husband.

Bill Bronson is a likable young bank clerk, whose congenital thirst for liquor is kept under control until he joins his wife Mary at getting blotto at a company party. From there it is a downward spiral.