Best movies like The Contender

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Contender Starring Buster Crabbe, Arline Judge, Julie Gibson, Donald Mayo, and more. If you liked The Contender then you may also like: Up Front, When We Were Kings, Whiplash, The Navy Way, Off Limits 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.

A truck driver turns to prizefighting with hopes of earning enough cash to send his son to military school. 1944.

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Know any good movies to watch like The Contender 1944. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

Up Front

Military comedy set during WWII, inspired by Bill Mauldin's popular newspaper cartoons of soldiers "Willie" and "Joe".

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.

Whiplash

An artist follows a woman from California to New York, where he boxes for her mobster husband.

The Navy Way

The experiences of a disparate group of young men as they make their way through Navy boot camp.

Off Limits

Wally Hogan has things going his way. He is the manager-trainer of Bullet Bradley, a fighter who has just won the lightweight championship. However, life suddenly takes a not-so-happy turn when Bullet gets drafted.

Rabbit Punch

Heckling the Champ gets Bugs into the world championship fight as the challenger.

Real Steel

Charlie Kenton is a washed-up fighter who retired from the ring when robots took over the sport. After his robot is trashed, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son to rebuild and train an unlikely contender.

Jawbone

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.

Journeyman

A boxer suffers a serious head injury during a fight, and must deal with the consequences.

Kid Galahad

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.

The Challenger

A legendary trainer comes out of retirement to help an underdog boxer fight his way to a better life.

Palooka

Joe Palooka is a naive young man whose father Pete was a champion boxer, but his lifestyle caused Joe's mother Mayme to leave him and to take young Joe to the country to raise him.

Joe Palooka, Champ

After losing heavyweight contender Al Costa to mob boss Florini fight promoter Knobby Walsh recruits small town boy Joe Palooka to take his place. First in the series.

Four Boys and a Gun

The moving story of four young men struggling against overwhelming odds to remain honest. When their crooked employer shorts their earnings; they turn to crime, their first theft ending in tragedy.

Cain and Mabel

A chorus girl and a heavyweight boxer are paired romantically as a publicity stunt.

Homeboy

Johnny Walker is a cowboy and a boxer. He is very shy and a bit of a fool. He is in love with Ruby, but he cannot tell her. He is also a bit old to keep on boxing, but its the only thing he does well.

Against the Ropes

A fictional story inspired by North America's most famous female boxing promoter, Jackie Kallen. Her struggle to survive and succeed in a male dominated sport.

Timber Queen

Russ Evans, A WWII veteran army pilot, decides to check up on the widow of an old war buddy of his, Elaine Graham. The logging company she inherited is doing poorly, but Elaine gets an order in for a huge shipment of lumber. Russ and his friend Squirrel volunteer to help her cut the timber for the shipment, along with her friends Smacksie Golden and his girlfriend Lil Boggs, who are not used to doing physical labor. Russ pilots the plane to deliver the lumber before the company falls to a slimy businessman.

Battling Bunyan

A young man has a chance to become partners in an auto-repair business, but he doesn't have the money. In order to come up with some quick cash, he decides to temporarily become a professional boxer. The problem is that he isn't an athlete, knows nothing about boxing and stands a very good chance of getting the stuffing beaten out of him.

Woman-Wise

A crusading sportswriter exposes racketeers involved in paying off fighters to throw their matches.

Fighting For A City

The story of a young boxer on the road to his dream; a world title fight in his hometown of Leeds. On the way, we meet an extraordinary family, a father who trains his son and the most passionate fans in boxing. The film is set against the backdrop of one city; Leeds. Half aspirational professionals and students, half austerity ravaged estates, Leeds is a schizophrenic metaphor for England in 2016. Our boxer bridges the two because this is a city in need of a hero. Can he match and fulfil their hopes and dreams?

Keep Punching

Henry Jackson, known as Little Dynamite, is a Golden Gloves champion, who agrees to turn professional when approached by fight manager Ed Watson, despite the opposition raised by his father and Fanny Singleton, his sweetheart.

Casablanca Driver

This mockumentary follows the world's worst boxer and the events that led to his meteoric rise in the year 1969.

The Girl from Monterrey

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...

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.

Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston

Overcoming the seemingly insurmountable odds that life threw his way, Liston became heavyweight champion of the world when he knocked out Floyd Patterson in 1962. Eight years later, he died but friends questioned the cause of his death.

Gas House Kids

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.

Flying Fists

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.

The Red Ball Express

August 1944: proceeding with the invasion of France, Patton's Third Army has advanced so far toward Paris that it cannot be supplied. To keep up the momentum, Allied HQ establishes an elite military truck route.

Steady Company

Truck driver Norman Foster has aspirations to become a prize fighter, but romantic interest June Clyde finds the idea deplorable. Henry Armetta and ZaSu Pitts supply the laughs.

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.

Bad Boy Boxer: The Last Chance

Boxer Lee Selby has walked a rocky road in life. He’s fought his way up from small smoky social clubs in south Wales to boxing’s world stage today. He’s now a contender, preparing for the defining fight of his life - to try and become the featherweight champion of the world.

Cold Justice

When a washed-up boxer invites a British priest to minister in his South Chicago neighborhood, he never suspects that the priest is not who he says he is.

Hollywood Stadium Mystery

A boxer is killed in the ring, and the only clue is a tune that a man was whistling.

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