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: The Unwritten Code, Up Front, When We Were Kings, Whiplash, The Navy Way 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.
You may filter the list of movies on this page for a more refined, personalized selection of movies.
Still not sure what to watch click the recommend buttun below to get a movie recommendation selected from all the movies on this list
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.
The Navy Way
The experiences of a disparate group of young men as they make their way through Navy boot camp.
Night Ride
Two truck drivers fired by the crooked trucking firm they worked for start their own company. Their former boss, worried about the competition, tries everything he can to drive them out of business, from sending his pretty daughter to seduce them to having his henchmen sabotage their trucks.
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.
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.
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 Kid from Kokomo
Gruff boxing manager "Square Shooting Murph" Murphy manages a naive boxer from Indiana, Homer Baston.Homer is willing to give up his boxing career searching for his parents, so Murphy hires two jailbirds to play his long lost parents to keep him in the ring.
The Challenger
A legendary trainer comes out of retirement to help an underdog boxer fight his way to a better life.
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.
Fighting
Small-town boy Shawn MacArthur has come to New York City with nothing. Barely earning a living selling counterfeit goods on the streets, his luck changes when scam artist Harvey Boarden sees that he has a natural talent for streetfighting. When Harvey offers Shawn help at making the real cash, the two form an uneasy partnership.
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.
Thieves' Highway
Nick Garcos comes back from his tour of duty in World War II planning to settle down with his girlfriend, Polly Faber. He learns, however, that his father was recently beaten and burglarized by mob-connected trucker Mike Figlia, and Nick resolves to get even. He partners with prostitute Rica, and together they go after Mike, all the while getting pulled further into the local crime underworld.
Tough Enough
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.
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.
I'll Sell My Life
A woman hoping to raise cash to pay for an operation to restore her blind brother's eyesight finds herself implicated in a nightclub murder.
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.
Pride of the Marines
A Marine sacrifices his adopted son and his girlfriend so that they might find a new and more prosperous life.
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?
Navy Bound
A sailor who is a champion boxer in the Navy is forced to leave the service because his family's business, a tuna fishing operation, is in financial trouble. He becomes a prizefighter and one day signs up for a winner-take-all boxing match, which could make him a lot of money but could also result in the end of his boxing career.
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.
The Big Fight
Based on the David Belasco stage production of the Max Marcin play in which heavyweight-champion Jack Dempsey played the role of the fighter, Tiger: This "behind-the-scenes look of a heavyweight-championship fight" looks much like all of the other boxing films in which the Champ gets involved in a frame-up and is asked to take a dive.
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.
Joe Louis: America's Hero Betrayed
An American story. Traces the career of Joe Louis (1914-1981) within the context of American racial consciousness: his difficulty getting big fights early in his career, the pride of African-Americans in his prowess, the shift of White sentiment toward Louis as Hitler came to power, Louis's patriotism during World War II, and the hounding of Louis by the IRS for the following 15 years. In his last years, he's a casino greeter, a drug user, and the occasional object of scorn for young Turks like Muhammad Ali. Appreciative comment comes from boxing scholars, Louis's son Joe Jr., friends, and icons like Maya Angelou, Dick Gregory, and Bill Cosby.
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.
A truck driver turns to prizefighting with hopes of earning enough cash to send his son to military school. 1944.
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: The Unwritten Code, Up Front, When We Were Kings, Whiplash, The Navy Way 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.
The Unwritten Code
The Unwritten Code is an offbeat, better-than-average Columbia wartime "B" picture. Though Ann Savage and Tom Neal are top-billed, the central character is supporting-actor Roland Varno. He plays a Nazi spy who sneaks into the U.S., hoping to release hundreds of German prisoners. He fails, but not until plenty of bullets have been spent. The most interesting aspect of The Unwritten Code is the casting of Savage and Neal as the "good" characters: in 1945, these two cult favorites would play the decidedly unsavory protagonists of the film noir classic Detour.