Best movies like The Big Punch

He kissed his way into trouble... and had to fight his way out!!!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Big Punch Starring Wayne Morris, Lois Maxwell, Gordon MacRae, Mary Stuart, and more. If you liked The Big Punch then you may also like: When We Were Kings, World in My Corner, The Opponent, Knockout Reilly, Bowery Blitzkrieg and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Gangsters frame a boxer for murder when he refuses to throw a fight.

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When We Were Kings

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.

World in My Corner

A scrappy fighter from Jersey City named Tommy Shea -- "born in a dump, educated in an alley" -- catches the eye of wealthy businessman, Robert Mallinson, who allows him to train at his Long Island estate. Shea soon falls for Mallinson's daughter, Dorothy, but fears he doesn't have the money to support her in proper style. To get this money, Shea decides to work with crooked fight-promoter Harry Cram, even though this means dropping his honest manager, Dave Bernstein. As the big fight approaches, however, Shea begins to have second thoughts.

The Opponent

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.

Knockout Reilly

A Malcolm St. Clair silent boxing sports romantic love triangle prison melodrama about a steel worker who saves a girl in a bar fight by knocking out the man coming on to her. It turns out the man was a boxer named "Killer"; so our steel worker becomes a boxer, but is then arrested for a crime he didn't commit. While in prison, he continues training, so that when he gets out, he can fight "Killer"; he is losing the fight, but his girl tells him that "Killer" framed him, which gives him the drive to knock his opponent out in the final round!

Bowery Blitzkrieg

The East Side Kids discover that one of their own, Danny, is torn between staying and school and becoming a boxer, and is getting mixed up with gangsters.

Breakdown

A boxer (William Bishop) jailed for murder proves his girlfriend's (Ann Richards) wealthy father and a ward boss framed him.

The Champion

Walking along with his bulldog, Charlie finds a "good luck" horseshoe just as he passes a training camp advertising for a boxing partner "who can take a beating." After watching others lose, Charlie puts the horseshoe in his glove and wins. The trainer prepares Charlie to fight the world champion. A gambler wants Charlie to throw the fight. He and the trainer's daughter fall in love.

The Great White Hope

A black champion boxer and his white female companion struggle to survive while the white boxing establishment looks for ways to knock him down.

Joe Palooka in the Knockout

The third of the Monogram series based on Ham Fisher's "Joe Palooka" comic strip, opens with Knobby Walsh, the manager of Joe Palooka trying to talk his way out of a traffic citation, and the story leading to that point is told in flashback as narrated by Walsh. Heavyweight champion Joe, after knocking out an opponent who later died in his dressing room, feels responsible and threatens to give up boxing. But the dead fighter's fiance thinks he died as the result of a drug that was given to him by a gang of gamblers, who made a rich haul betting on Palooka. Joe, Knobby and the police unite to run down the gamblers, but not before Joe also is nearly murdered by the same means...a poisoned mouthpiece. Elyse Knox is along as Joe's sweetheart Anne Howe, although Anne and Joe had long been married in the comic strip.

Joe Palooka in the Big Fight

Gangsters frame Joe on a drunk charge and a murder rap so they can put their own fighter into a big event. Joe investigates in an attempt to prove his innocence.

Diggstown

Gabriel Caine has just been released from prison when he sets up a bet with a business man. The business man owns most of a boxing-mad town called Diggstown. The bet is that Gabe can find a boxer that will knock out 10 Diggstown men, in a boxing ring, within 24 hours. "Honey" Roy Palmer is that man - although at 48, many say he is too old.

The Fighters

Behind-the-scenes documentary chronicling the Fight of the Century between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.

Gladiator

Tommy Riley has moved with his dad to Chicago from a 'nice place'. He keeps to himself, goes to school. However, after a street fight he is noticed and quickly falls into the world of illegal underground boxing - where punches can kill.

The Life of Jimmy Dolan

Champion boxer Jimmy Dolan has cultivated a wholesome image for himself, but he's a boozer and womanizer behind the scenes. Intoxicated at a party, he punches a reporter who threatens to expose his hypocrisy, and accidentally kills him. Dolan panics and skips town, winding up on a farm that serves as a home for disabled children run by kindhearted Peggy. As the cynical Dolan falls for Peggy, he begins to change his ways.

Hammer

Hotheaded laborer B.J. Hammer can't go long without ending up in a fight, and, after he comes out on top in a particularly impressive workplace scuffle, word of his brawling skills makes its way to Davis, a top boxing manager. Hammer is hired by Davis and begins a lucrative career in the ring, only to find out that his new employer wants him to throw a fight and take part in other illicit activities. Hammer reacts to this news violently, and the feud is on.

Iron Man

In Coaltown, Pennsylvania, miner Coke Mason hopes to better himself, buy a radio store, and marry Rose Warren. His gambler brother George thinks Coke can be more successful as a boxer, knowing that when he fights he's consumed with a murderous rage that makes him an "iron man." Seeing dollar signs in Rose's eyes, Coke reluctantly agrees, though he's fearful of the "killer instinct" that makes him a knockout success in the ring...and brings him the booing hatred of the fans. Will Coke throw off his personal demon before he kills someone?

Undisputed

Monroe Hutchens is the heavyweight champion of Sweetwater, a maximum security prison. He was convicted to a life sentence due to a passionate crime. Iceman Chambers is the heavyweight champion, who lost his title due to a rape conviction to ten years in Sweetwater. WHen these two giants collide in the same prison, they fight against each other disputing who is the real champion.

The Set-Up

Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.

The Shakedown

The life of a less-than successful professional boxer changes when he takes in an orphan.

Secrets of a Nurse

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.

Women in Prison

The superintendent of a women's prison is pressured to pardon a member of a criminal gang. When she refuses, her daughter is framed on a manslaughter charge and sent to prison.

Night of the Warrior

A kickboxer has an accounting problem with the mobster (Anthony Geary) who lent him money for a nightclub.

Pit Fighter

Jack Severino has no memory, all he knows is the brutal sport of Pit Fighting. When his past catches him up, he realizes he is not who he thought he was. For some men must fight for redemption.

Fist of Honor

As two rival Godfathers view to take control of the city, a hot-tempered family member kills two relatives of the opposing family, breaking the "Truce of Honor". Now the war begins! As a young boxer seeks revenge for his fiancée's death, the streets become a real-life battlefield... to settle the score!

Fighting Fools

The boys are working at the local boxing arena where their friend, Jimmy Higgins, is boxing. During a crooked match Jimmy is killed. The boys seek out his older brother, Johnny, a former boxer who gave up the sport rather than go crooked, and help train him to get back in the ring. They try to get him a shot at the title, and when they do the same crooked gangsters that were behind Jimmy's death try to get Johnny to take a dive.

Pardon Our Nerve

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.

Golden Gloves

An amateur boxer's girlfriend inspires him to face a ring pro entered by a gangster.

Sunset Park

Gino Sarcione, a boxer, is forced to take his fight outside the ring into the back alleys of Sunset Park to stand up for what's right and protect those he loves.

Counterpunch

Based on a true story. A young boxer, Emilio, from the wrong side of the tracks with big dreams of winning the Golden Gloves boxing championship, finds himself at a cross roads after being locked up. As he fights his way back into the winning circle he gets a second shot at the championship title. As he is toe to toe in the ring with his competitor he'll throw all the punches and be the last man standing.

The Prize Fighter

"Bags" the boxer (funnyman Tim Conway) and his manager, Shake (Don Knotts), are quite a pair: One is a dim bulb, and the other has a mean streak. Times are tough and they must save their gym, so they line up some moneymaking fights. But when Bags and Shake discover that the bouts have been rigged, they end up with their backs to the wall and must fight back -- literally.

The Destiny of Marty Fine

When an ex-boxer witnesses a Mob hit the gangster forces him to commit a murder in order to save his own life.

Born to Fight

An honest boxer refuses to throw a fight for a gambler. They get into a fight and the boxer knocks the gambler out. Thinking he's killed him and believing that the police are after him, the horrified boxer runs off and takes to the road, promising never to box again. However, one day he comes upon a small but scrappy young kid who has the potential to be a champion. The former boxer takes the kid under his wing and trains him, but the kid's ensuing success starts to go to his head. Pretty soon he finds himself mixed up with gamblers, too.

The Crooked Circle

A young prizefighter finds himself being squeezed on all sides to throw a fight.

Untold: Deal with the Devil

Christy Martin broke boundaries and noses as she rose in the boxing world, but her public persona belied personal demons, abuse and a threat on her life.

On the Ropes

The story of three young boxers and their coach who is determined to guide them in a positive direction in and out of the ring.

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