Chaney (Charles Bronson), a mysterious, down-on-his luck drifter during the Great Depression, arrives in town in the boxcar of a freight train. He comes upon a bare-knuckled street fight run by gamblers. After the bout, he approaches one of the fight's organizers, the fast-talking "Speed" (James Coburn), and asks Speed to set up a fight. Betting his few dollars on himself, Chaney wins with a single punch.
Gabriel Caine (James Woods), a con man, is released from prison in Winfield, Georgia and immediately gets to work on his next scam. Caine and his partner, Fitz (Oliver Platt), travel to a small town not far from the prison: Diggstown, a city obsessed with boxing.
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.
Well-meaning and mild-mannered milkman Burleigh Sullivan (Kaye) meets Polly Pringle (Mayo), a beautiful, but out-of-work, singer, whilst on his rounds early in the morning. He tries to get her a job at the club where his sister Susie (Vera-Ellen) is performing, but gets the sack for his trouble. Whilst meeting Susie after the show, he sees her being molested by drunken boxer 'Speed' McFarlane and his bodyguard 'Spider'. In the fracas, Speed is knocked out and his manager, Gabby Sloan, is furious.
In the 1920s, Sean Thornton (John Wayne), an Irish-born American from Pittsburgh, travels to Ireland to reclaim his family's farm and his birthplace in Inisfree. He meets and falls in love with the fiery Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara), the sister of the bullying, loud-mouthed landowner Squire "Red" Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen). Danaher, who had wanted the farm himself, is angry that the Widow Tillane (herself angered by Danaher's admission that he had discussed her in the local pub) accepts Sean's bid, and retaliates by refusing consent for his sister to marry. Several town locals, including the Catholic priest, Father Lonergan (Ward Bond), conspire to trick him into believing that the wealthy Widow Tillane (Mildred Natwick) wants to marry him, but only if Mary Kate is no longer living in his house. After learning the truth on Sean and Mary Kate's wedding day, an enraged Will refuses to give his sister her dowry which is made up of a large sum of money and her family possessions passed down from her mother.
Rocky Barbella (Paul Newman) grandit à New York à la fin des années 1930, au sein d'une bande de petits délinquants. Il fait plusieurs séjours en maison de correction. Déserteur de l'armée américaine, il intègre la salle d'un manager de boxe (Everett Sloane). Repris par les autorités, il est incarceré dans une prison militaire. Cette forte tête est prise en main par un sergent, et lui fait comprendre qu'il a de l'or dans les poings et qu'il vaut mieux mettre sa force et son courage en devenant un vrai boxeur qu'au service du mal. Rendu à la vie civile, il se consacre entièrement à la carrière de boxeur professionnel et gravit progressivement tous les échelons jusqu'à devenir champion du monde sous le nom de Rocky Graziano.
Erik Kernan Jr. (Hartnett) is a young fledgling journalist employed by The Denver Times. Frustrated, Kernan struggles with his supervising editor Ralph Metz (Alda) concerning rudimentary coverage over his sports related articles. Metz views Kernan's editorial work as bland and uninspiring considering his recently deceased father was a famous sportscaster. Kernan is separated from his wife, Joyce (Morris), who also works at the newspaper, and worries that he might be losing touch with their young son, Teddy (Goyo).
Tommy McCoy is a tough New York City boy, close to his dad, Brian, a performer in vaudeville. One night while his dad's doing a song and dance for the audience as part of a boxing event, Tommy accepts a challenge to step into the ring. He knocks out his opponent.
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.
The drama charts the story of Midge Kelly (Kirk Douglas), a boxer who pushes himself to the top of his game by knocking out opponents and back-stabbing friends. He has no qualms about deceiving the various females he encounters and he eventually double-crosses Tommy Haley (Paul Stewart), the manager who found him and helped pave his road to fame.
Diana Guzman is a Brooklyn teenager whose hot temper gets her into trouble at school as she repeatedly starts fights with other students. Her frustration stems from her unhappy home life; she lives in a public housing estate with her brother Tiny and their single father, Sandro. Sandro pays for Tiny's boxing training in hopes of his becoming a professional boxer, although Tiny would prefer to be an artist. After visiting Tiny's gym and intervening in a spar to defend him, Diana asks the trainers to let her box, too. She is told she can train there, but not compete in actual fights. When she learns that she cannot afford coaching from Tiny's trainer, Hector Soto, she asks her father for an allowance but he tells her to get a job. She resorts to stealing his money instead and returns to the gym, where Hector begins to teach her the basics of boxing.
Andy "Champ" Purcell (Wallace Beery) is the former world heavyweight champion, now down on his luck and living in squalid conditions with his eight-year-old son "Dink" in Tijuana, Mexico. Champ attempts to train and to convince promoters to set up a fight for him, but his efforts are consistently stymied by his alcoholism. Dink is repeatedly disappointed and let down by his father's irresponsible actions and frequent broken promises to quit drinking, but his utter devotion to his father nonetheless never wavers.
Sportswriter Eddie Willis (Humphrey Bogart) is broke after the newspaper he works for goes under. He is hired by crooked boxing promoter Nick Benko (Rod Steiger) to publicize his new boxer, a huge, but slow-witted and untalented Argentinian named Toro Moreno (Mike Lane).
Tommy Riley and his father have just moved to start a new life. Tommy's father has accumulated many gambling debts but has found a new job that requires him to travel extensively, leaving his son alone at home. Tommy also has a hard time fitting in at school, having crossed gang members. He takes a job at a local diner and enters into a romantic relationship with Dawn, the daughter of the owner, but is jumped by the gang members outside the restaurant. Seeing how well Tommy is able to fight, a local boxing promoter by the name of Pappy Jack offers Tommy a chance to fight in an illegal underground boxing operation. When two men arrive announcing that Tommy's father owes a large sum of money to pay off gambling debts, Jack convinces his boss, boxing promoter Jimmy Horn to buy out the debt, which forces Tommy to pay off his father's debts by boxing.
Sarah Wurble's husband Willy is the larceny-inclined manager of an illiterate, and very religious boxer from Tennessee named Danny. Gifted with a powerful punch and a nickname that gives the film its title, Danny mistakenly believes he killed a man defending himself in a street brawl, and goes on the lam as a prizefighter.