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Which was the best Rocky movie? I say Rocky IV.

I liked this last one.

The last one was definitely good, it wasn't in the same spirit as the other ones. A helluva lot better than Rocky V though. At least Stallone didn't do to Rocky what they did to Indiana Jones.

1976 original was clearly best. Shot in 28 days for 1.1 Million and won 3 Oscars.

First one and the last one ...

The first one was a great movie!

I always thought the reason it was so great was that Rocky lost. Not only did he lose, but the night before the fight he tells Adrian the he KNOWS he's going to lose--that he is just "not in Apollo Creed's league." Then, he redefinines what victory is FOR HIM.

Then, at the end of the fight, you only hear the judges announce the decision in the background, because it doesn't matter, Rocky already achieved what he wanted to.

I always thought that was a really wonderful thing.

(Plus, I really dug Creed's trainer, the only guy who saw that Rocky might actually be a little dangerous.)

There is a Rocky marathon on Verses (VS--channel 603 on directv) on Thanksgiving day.

1 and 2

I'm visiting my parents for Thanksgiving, and they have DirecTV, guess I'll have to tune in. Thanks!

Certainly, the original.

Come on! ROCKY III. Mr. T in his prime! Hulk Hogan before he became a reality star/street drag racer who cripples people. It was big, dumb and fun; what more can you ask of a movie?

I was waiting for someone to bring up III, but IV has the best training montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwvoTDoO9Hg

The first one was really my favorite.

I have to say the idea of him getting smarter, dumber, and such really is sort of strange.

I don't think it should have been best picture that year, but hey that is just me.
It was a good movie.

Yes, that was the same year that TAXI DRIVER, THE OUTLAW JOSE WALES, MARATHON MAN, THE OMEN, THE SHOOTIST and ATHE MUPPET MOVIE came out, so you might be right, Danny.

I like #1 best…

I think it won best picture because we were going through the 70's and everything was not so good. The Bronx was burning and NYC in general was a wild scene, the city was broke and corruption was out of control. Not to mention what was going on in the rest of the country.

Rocky represented all of us who were down and out. Rocky was a rags to riches story and we all needed to believe in something at that moment in time. By the movie winning it gave us hope that things could get better...and they did.

For pure entertainment, I put III on top (due to the indefatigable Mr. T), followed by IV (vs. the Russian).

However, I agree that the first was the better crafted movie (to me).

Yep yep the first is a great movie I thought he kinda spoiled
the whole thing by doing more
its totaly lost the magic now
I used to get a shivver when the music came on after the fight
and pretend I was a boxer with my bro and beat the crap out of each other
ah the innocence of childhood
the third was also good (just)

None of the sequels even come close to the first.

Rocky was a legitimately great movie. Not just a great Rocky movie, and not just a great Stallone movie. It was simply a great movie, and the only one in the series that can truly be called such.

Rocky II was good, but not great, and tried too hard to reproduce the original.

Rocky III was so-so. By this point, Stallone had put any notions of artistic movie-making behind him and was just going for box-office bang. If you can say a film series jumps the shark, Rocky III was the shark-jumping film.

Rocky IV was absolutely brutal. It was a Cold-War-inspired hand grenade that ended with a schmaltzy, phoney, contrived message of peace. If was full of cliche and cheeziness. It started to go south as soon as Pauly gave that *** robot to Rocky's kid ... and as I recall, that was the first scene after the opening credits. Ugh, what a terrible movie.

Rocky V? It wasn't just bad -- it was an insult to our intelligence. Stallone realized he'd gone too far away from Rocky's roots. So he gave him brain damage to get him back to being dumb again, and made him poor. It was a sad effort to recapture the magic of the original. And to top it off, they put Rocky and Adrian back in their old neighbourhood, with Adrian in her old pet shop job and Rocky at the gym. Oh, please. It also had some horribly one-dimensional characters, like his kid, the Tommy Morrison character, the promoter. It was an attrocity.

I haven't seen Rocky Balboa. I've heard it's better than some of the other sequels, but III, IV, and especially V killed my interest in the franchise, and I'm not going to bother with the pure cash-grab sixth film until it's on TV, for free, when I have nothing better to do.

The first film was the best. It's not even a contest. The other films actually detract from the original.

I agree. The first one was by far the best. However, I also was surprised at how good the last one was. He went back to the formula that really made Rocky was endearing.

Kyle

The first one and last one were my fav. I found the second, third,forth and fith lost Rocky's character and story. Rocky Balboa was a nice finish as it went back to it's roots, the way it should have been.