From Tommy Gunn to two great origin stories, we look at the ’Rocky’/’Creed’ franchise and try to put the films in order.
The craziest thing about the Rocky / Creed franchise is the range. There are notable Oscar wins (Best Picture for the original), and appearances by Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, and franchise-killing abominations that shut the whole thing down for over a decade. There is an unlikely spinoff that rebooted the franchise in a fresh way, and there’s a movie about a fight with an indestructible Russian that should be shown in college courses about the Cold War. It’s really pretty wild. Stallone has been playing this character for something like 40 years now over eight films. Think about that for a few minutes sometime.
Below, please find an attempt at ranking all eight films. This ranking is fluid and based on a number of factors, some of which I may value more than you. That’s okay. You can make your own list or yell at me or do both. Or neither. You really have a lot of options here. Pretty big opportunity for you. I wish you the best.
Rocky V is almost universally regarded as the worst film in the franchise. There’s a pretty decent reason for this: It is bad. It’s frustrating that it’s bad, too, because it was the first movie to really tackle the consequences of being Rocky.
