The officials of a city unveil a new statue, only to find The Tramp sleeping on it. They shoo him away and he wanders the streets, destitute and homeless, and is soon tormented by two newsboys. He happens upon a beautiful Flower Girl (Virginia Cherrill), not realizing at first that she is blind, and buys a flower. Just when she is about to give him his change, a man gets into a nearby luxury car and is driven away, making her think that the Tramp has departed. The Tramp tiptoes away.
After stealing an 86-carat (17.2 g) diamond in a heist in Antwerp, Franky "Four-Fingers" goes to London to deliver it to diamond dealer Doug "The Head" on behalf of New York jeweller "Cousin Avi". One of the other robbers advises Franky to obtain a gun from ex-KGB agent Boris "The Blade". Unbeknownst to Franky, Boris and the robber are brothers and plan to steal the diamond from him before he can turn it over to Doug.
After the death of his father, Rocco Parondi (Alain Delon), one of the five sons of a poor rural Italian family travels north from Lucania to join his older brother Vincenzo in Milan by the matriarch Rosaria(Katina Paxinou). She is the "hand to which the five fingers belong" as she states in the film and she has a powerful influence on her sons. Presented in five distinct sections, the film weaves the story of the five brothers Vincenzo, Simone, Rocco, Ciro and Luca Parondi as each of them adapt to their new lives in the city.
The film is based on the journey of Pakistani Olympian boxer Hussain Shah who started his life on the streets of Lyari, Karachi as a homeless child and went on to dominate Asian boxing for nearly a decade. He became the only boxer of Pakistan history to win an Olympic medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics but was afterwards forgotten by public and media alike.
Après dix sept ans de carrière, le boxeur poids lourds Mountain Rivera est mis K.O. par Cassius Clay. Gravement blessé à l'oeil, il doit raccrocher les gants sous peine de perdre la vue. Avec l'aide de son fidèle soigneur, Army, il se lance alors à la recherche d'un travail. Une assistante sociale se prend d'affection pour ce colosse pathétique et offre la possibilité de devenir moniteur dans un camp de vacances. Mais son entraîneur, criblé de dettes, a d'autres projets pour lui, il entend le reconvertir en catcheur.
Margaret "Maggie" Fitzgerald, a waitress from a Missouri town in the Ozarks, shows up in the Hit Pit, a run-down Los Angeles gym owned and operated by Frankie Dunn, an old, cantankerous boxing trainer. Maggie asks Frankie to train her, but he initially refuses. Maggie works out tirelessly each day in his gym, even after Frankie tells her she's "too old" to begin a boxing career at her age. Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris, Frankie's friend and employee (as well as the film's narrator), encourages and helps her.
In a brief scene in 1964, an aging, overweight Italian American, Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro), practices a comedy routine. The rest of the film then occurs in flashback. In 1941, LaMotta is in a major boxing match against Jimmy Reeves, where he received his first loss. Jake's brother Joey LaMotta (Joe Pesci) discusses a potential shot for the middleweight title with one of his Mafia connections, Salvy Batts (Frank Vincent). Some time thereafter, Jake spots a 15-year-old girl named Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) at an open-air swimming pool in his Bronx neighborhood. He eventually pursues a relationship with her, even though he is already married. In 1943, Jake defeats Sugar Ray Robinson, and has a rematch three weeks later. Despite the fact that Jake dominates Robinson during the bout, the judges surprisingly rule in favor of Robinson and Joey feels Robinson won only because he was enlisting into the US Army the following week. By 1947, Jake marries Vickie.
Rocky "The Italian Stallion" Balboa is a hard-living, but failing prize fighter from an Italian neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Between fights, he works as an enforcer for loan shark Anthony Gazzo, and is regarded by many of his neighbors as a bum. The World Heavyweight Champion, Apollo Creed, announces plans to hold a match in Philadelphia during the upcoming United States Bicentennial. However, he is informed five weeks from the fight date, that his scheduled opponent, Mac Lee Green, is unable to compete due to an injured hand. With all other potential replacements booked up or otherwise unavailable, Creed decides to spice things up and give a local contender a chance to face him. He settles on Rocky, believing that he will be an easy challenge.
James J. Braddock is an Irish-American boxer from New Jersey, formerly a light heavyweight contender, who is forced to give up boxing after breaking his hand in the ring. This is both a relief and a burden to his wife, Mae; she cannot bring herself to watch the violence of his chosen profession, yet she knows they will have no good income without his boxing.
En 1974, à Kinshasa, capitale du Zaïre, a lieu une rencontre historique entre les deux poids lourds les plus reputés des Etats-Unis, Mohammed Ali, alias Cassius Clay, et George Foreman. A trente-deux ans, Ali va tenter de reconquérir le titre de champion du monde face à Foreman, vingt-cinq ans, auréolé de ses victoires sur Frazier et Norton. Le 30 octobre, le stade de Kinshasa ouvre ses grilles à 4 heures du matin.
Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) is an American welterweight boxer from Lowell, Massachusetts. Managed by his mother, Alice Ward (Melissa Leo), and trained by his older half-brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), Micky has not had a particularly successful career: He's become a "stepping stone" for other boxers to defeat on their way up. Complicating matters, Dicky, a former boxer whose peak of success was going the distance with Sugar Ray Leonard in 1978 (before Leonard became a world champion), has fallen apart since then, becoming addicted to crack cocaine. He is now being filmed for an HBO documentary he believes to be about his "comeback".
Bill "Stoker" Thompson (Robert Ryan) is a 35-year-old has-been boxer about to take on an opponent at the fictional Paradise City Arena. His wife, Julie (Audrey Totter), fears that this fight may be his last and wants him to forfeit the match. Tiny (George Tobias), Stoker's manager, is sure he will continue to lose fights, so he takes money for a "dive" from a mobster, but is so certain of Stoker's failure that he does not inform the boxer of the set-up.