--- title: "Rocky III" year: 1982 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/rocky-iii" fi1m_score: 70 critics_score: 72 critics_reviews: 5 published: "2026-09-19T15:43:31.780042+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T15:43:32.166051+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Rocky III (1982) Directed by Sylvester Stallone · 1h 40m · MPA PG · Drama, Action **Fi1m score: 70** · Critics 72 (early) from 5 reviews *In a sentence:* Rocky gets rich, gets a statue and gets shouted at by Clubber Lang until he remembers what a gym is > Stallone’s third round trades the grit of the first film for gloss and speed, and mostly gets away with it. Mr. T is a proper threat and the fights hurt; the drama between them is thinner than the film admits. ## Synopsis Philadelphia, a few years after Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) took the heavyweight title. He has defended it ten times, made money, made adverts and moved his wife Adrian (Talia Shire), his small son and his brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young) into a mansion. A bronze statue of him is unveiled on the museum steps. From the crowd, the number-one contender, Clubber Lang (Mr. T), calls him a fraud and demands a fight. Rocky’s trainer Mickey Goldmill (Burgess Meredith) wants him to retire, and admits why: the ten challengers were chosen because they could not win. Rocky takes the fight anyway, training in a hotel ballroom in front of paying fans and squeezing in a charity wrestling bout against Thunderlips (Hulk Hogan) along the way. ## Review Sylvester Stallone writes, directs and stars for the second time running, and the question he sets himself is a good one: what happens to a fighter after he wins. *Rocky III* opens with Rocky Balboa as heavyweight champion of the world, rich, famous, on chat shows and in adverts, and asks whether all that has made him soft. The answer is yes, and the film’s job is to get him hard again. It does the job at speed and with a great deal of noise. It is brash, it is enjoyable and it is thin. The opening minutes tell you what kind of film this is. Mark Warner and Don Zimmerman cut ten title defences into a montage of knockouts, magazine covers and cheques, with Bill Conti’s fanfare pushed to the front, and Rocky has gone from a Philadelphia flat to a mansion before the credits are done. William J. Cassidy fills the house with white carpet and gilt, and Tom Bronson dresses Rocky in pale silk suits and cardigans that a man from his old street would never have worn. A bronze statue of him is unveiled on the museum steps. It is a little vulgar, and the vulgarity is deliberate: Stallone wants us to see how far his man has drifted before anyone tells him. Someone does tell him, from the crowd at the unveiling. Mr. T plays Clubber Lang, the number-one contender, and he is the best thing in the film. He does not act so much as glower, and it works because Stallone the director leaves him alone: Bill Butler lights him from above in a bare basement gym so that the eyes vanish and only the jaw stays lit. When he demands a fight at the ceremony, with Wally Taylor as his manager at his shoulder, Rocky’s family look frightened, and so were we. Their first meeting in the ring, which closes the first act and which we will not describe, is shot tight and harsh under white arena light, and the punches sound like furniture falling over. It hit harder than a PG had any right to, and we sat forward. Before that comes the charity bout, a wrestling exhibition against Thunderlips, played by Hulk Hogan as a mountain in yellow trunks who throws Rocky out of the ring and into the front row. We laughed, then wondered why it was there. It is meant to show Rocky treating a fight as a show, but it runs long and plays as a sketch, and the scenes after it have to work to shake the tone off. The film’s best scene is its quietest. Burgess Meredith, as the trainer Mickey Goldmill, hoarse and old and afraid for his fighter, has to admit in a gym what he has been doing for three years, and he plays it without a trace of self-pity. It moved us more than anything in the ring did, because for once Stallone the writer lets a character hold something back. Burt Young’s Paulie gets a good early scene too, drunk in an arcade, putting a bottle through a pinball machine because his brother-in-law has a statue and he has a bar tab. Talia Shire’s Adrian has less to do than before and does it steadily. Carl Weathers returns as Apollo Creed, retired and watchful, with a proposal whose terms we will leave to the film. The trouble, as with much of Stallone’s writing, is that nobody else is allowed to hold anything back. Fear, pride, money, hunger: each is named, then named again, usually to the camera rather than to another actor. Conti’s score swells on cue every time a man laces a glove, and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”, the song that has followed the film around ever since, turns up more than once and we noticed each time. The film runs 100 minutes and does not waste one, which is a kind of achievement, but it also means no scene is given room to breathe. [*Rocky*](https://film.one/film/rocky) (1976) was grey and slow and belonged to its streets, and [*Rocky II*](https://film.one/film/rocky-ii) (1979) kept most of that. This one belongs to a hotel ballroom, chandeliers over the heavy bag and paying spectators on folding chairs, and Stallone knows it, because that ballroom is where he puts the champion’s first training scenes. Whether the film finds its way back to the streets we will leave to it. It is worth an evening if boxing films are yours, and best watched with somebody who will shout when the bell goes; it is that kind of film, and it does not pretend otherwise. *Fi1m score 70, published 19 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (5) - **Time Out**, DP (90/100, inferred): Stallone has made each Rocky film a more magnificent spectacle than the last, with boxing scenes paced with increasing fury that turn them into epic symbolic struggles. The film depicts Rocky's struggle to come to terms with success in a simple progression from danger and defeat to triumph, making it pure audience movie-making. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/rocky-iii) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (70/100, inferred): The film is funnier than its predecessors and Rocky has become more urbane, which is to the good. It offers opportunities for tears and ends on an alarming note suggesting there may be a Rocky IV. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/28/movies/for-rocky-iii-a-search-for-problems.html) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): Stallone manages to twist the plot to make an interesting difference in the third film. The critic praises the menacing performance of Mr. T as Clubber Lang and notes that the battles are well-staged, though the dramatic interludes are less successful. [Read](https://variety.com/1981/film/reviews/rocky-iii-1117794534/) - **Paste**, Dom Sinacola (75/100, inferred): The critic views Rocky III as a very good sequel that exemplifies Stallone's singular auteurist vision in turning populist material into something more. He singles out the training montage for its focus on the male body as a fetish object and moral standard. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/sylvester-stallone/rocky-iii-40-years) - **Eye for Film**, Stephen Carty (2.5/5): The critic finds Rocky III increasingly cartoony and glamorous compared to earlier entries, with more action and less character drama, but still worthwhile for fans due to strong dramatic moments like Mickey's death and training sequences. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/rocky-iii-film-review-by-stephen-carty) ## Details - **Director:** Sylvester Stallone - **Director:** Sylvester Stallone - **Writer:** Sylvester Stallone - **Cinematography:** Bill Butler - **Editor:** Don Zimmerman, Mark Warner - **Music:** Bill Conti - **Production design:** William J. Cassidy - **Costume design:** Tom Bronson - **Producer:** Robert Chartoff, Irwin Winkler - **Cast:** Sylvester Stallone as Robert 'Rocky' Balboa; Talia Shire as Adrianna 'Adrian' Balboa; Burt Young as Paulie Pennino; Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed; Mr. T as Clubber Lang; Burgess Meredith as Mickey Goldmill; Tony Burton as Tony 'Duke' Evers; Hulk Hogan as Thunderlips - **Runtime:** 1h 40m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 28 May 1982 - **Genres:** Drama, Action - **Budget:** $17 million - **Box office:** $125 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7vbDPUMWDc ## Where to watch in the US - AMC+: streaming - Pluto TV: free - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Apple TV: add-on, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $6.99, uhd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-19.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst New Star 1983: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst New Star (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Rocky* (1976), Fi1m 85: The grey, slow original, before the statue; see where the man came from. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/rocky.md) - *Fat City* (1972): John Huston’s boxing film about losing, for when you want the opposite of a montage. - *Raging Bull* (1980), Fi1m 91: The other great fighter film of the era, with the rage turned inward. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/raging-bull.md) - *Girlfight* (2000): A Brooklyn teenager takes up the gloves; small, fierce and unsentimental. - *Tokyo Fist* (1995): Tsukamoto’s Japanese boxing nightmare, for those who found Clubber Lang too gentle. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/rocky-iii