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Professional wrestling has led to its share of movies, whether it’s a matter of movies about wrestling, movies with a wrestling subplot, or movies that just happen to have wrestlers cast in major roles. A prime example is the forthcoming Paige biopic, which benefits from a unique story, and collaboration between WWE itself and The Rock as a producer. Similarly, there are extensive rumours out about a film centred on Vince McMahon and a fanciful take on him launching WWE nationally in the 1980s.
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Not all films related to wrestling are created equally. Like wrestling itself, though, some of the fun of encountering a wrestling movie is distinguishing between those that are good, those that are bad, and those that are so bad they wind up good in spite of themselves.
This article takes a look at five particularly noteworthy wrestling movies that every fan ought to see at least once.
#5 No Holds Barred
Before WWE Studios was a proper entity, WWE took its first shot at producing a movie with No Holds Barred. The film starred Hulk Hogan as Rip in a world in which wrestling is more real, more popular, and more dangerous than the WWE we know and love from the real world.
This film is largely nonsensical, and as discussed on the How Did This Get Made? podcast, it was reportedly subject to serious rewrites late in the game by Vince McMahon and Hogan himself. Between the oddball plotting and Hogan’s laughably bad acting, the film arrives as something of a cult classic for capturing what WWE thought its fans wanted at the time, and why it was Hogan never made the transition to movie stardom that he and McMahon had originally hoped for.
Add on the historical novelty of WWE spinning the film off into an actual wrestling storyline between Hogan and Zeus and you have a special piece of unintentionally comedic wrestling gold.
#4 The Wrestler
The Wrestler is not a feel-good movie that inspires folks to pursue careers in wrestling, or even, necessarily, makes fans want to go back and watch more sports entertainment. It is, however, a beautiful, heartbreaking portrait of the wrestler in decline. Mickey Rourke portrays Randy the Ram, a star of the 1980s working the independent wrestling scene.
He keeps wrestling ostensibly to make ends meet, but as we learn as the film goes on, much more so reclaim past glory and drink in the adrenaline of a live crowd, even as the business is bleeding him dry.
Few wrestling films can touch the profundity or artistry of this masterpiece that justifiably drew terrific reviews and awards buzz.
#3 The Marine
It’s telling that John Cena was cast as the lead for The Marine, as WWE Studios launched its flagship franchise. Cena was the face of the company at the time, and it’s fitting he’d star in the film the fledgeling Studios pinned its early hopes on. The Marine series has very little to do with wrestling in terms of movie content, but has consistently featured a current WWE star in the title role, and often other wrestlers in the supporting cast.
There’s little to write home about in regards to The Marine itself—it’s largely a cliché action movie, focused more on fight scenes and stunts than meaningful plot development or artful film technique.
Just the same, it distills what WWE expects its core audience to like in a film, with sleek production and an honest stab at making Cena look like a grade A action hero—a role he quite arguably pulls off better than Ted Dibiase or The Miz in the five (to date) movies to follow in this series.
#2 Beyond the Mat
While The Wrestler is widely credited as the best modern movie about wrestling, Beyond the Mat deserves its share of credit as well. Unlike the other entries in this article, it’s a documentary, and the success of it arguably responsible for the proliferation of wrestling documentaries to follow over the years.
Beyond the Mat follows Mick Foley, Terry Funk, and Jake Roberts, capturing the three in the twilight of their time in the business, and depicting what the business has left of them. Roberts’s leg of the film may be the most difficult to swallow, for how heartbreaking it is to see him try to suppress his personal demons to redeem estranged familial relationships and rebuild a life outside the squared circle.
For anyone who questions the sacrifices wrestlers make or the reality of how hard their lives can be after leaving the business, this documentary demonstrates the harsh realities like none other.
#1 Ready to Rumble
Wrestling was quite arguably at the peak of its mainstream popularity when Ready to Rumble came out in 2000. Produced in cooperation with WCW, the film stars legitimate movie actors Oliver Platt, David Arquette, and Scott Caan alongside a cast of WWE luminaries that included top-shelf stars like Goldberg and Diamond Dallas Page.
Rarely has a movie about wrestling been as overtly illogical in its storytelling than this mess of a major motion picture. The film readily blurs the line between understanding wrestling as a form of entertainment and as a legitimate sport, casting Arquette and Caan as morons for being marks, while also ultimately coming down to legitimate fights in the wrestling ring to reestablish their hero.
The film sees popular wrestling stars recast as generic villains, and the actual actors left to try to make sense of a profoundly dumb movie.
This film makes the list because it’s just over the top enough to register as historically bad, and indirectly important to wrestling history for laying the groundwork for Arquette to get in the ring and have his infamous reign as WCW Champion.
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