Rocky is a film directed by John G. Avildsen and both written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It tells the rags to riches American Dream story of Rocky Balboa, an uneducated but kind-hearted debt collector for a loan shark in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Rocky starts out as a club fighter who later gets a shot at the world heavyweight championship. It also stars Talia Shire as Adrian, Burt Young as Adrian's brother Paulie, Burgess Meredith as Rocky's trainer Mickey Goldmill, and Carl Weathers as the champion, Apollo Creed.

The film, made on a budget of $950,000  and shot in 28 days, was a sleeper hit; it made over $225 million, the highest grossing film of 1976, and won three Oscars, including Best Picture. The film received many positive reviews and turned Stallone into a major star. It spawned five sequels: Rocky II, III, IV, V and Rocky Balboa.

Plot
On November 25, 1975, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is introduced as a small-time boxer and collector for Anthony Gazzo (Joe Spinell), a loan shark, living in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. The World Heavyweight Championship bout, with undefeated heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) defending against Mac Lee Green, is scheduled to take place at the Philadelphia Spectrum on New Year's Day 1976, the year of the United States Bicentennial. When Green drops out because of an injured hand, Creed comes up with the idea of giving a local underdog a shot at the title and, because he likes Rocky's nickname "The Italian Stallion," he selects the relatively unknown fighter. He puts it in lights by proclaiming "Apollo Creed Meets The Italian Stallion." The fight promoter George Jergens (Thayer David) says the decision is "very American"; but Creed says, rather, that it is "very smart."

To prepare for the fight Rocky trains with a 1920s-era ex-bantamweight fighter and gym owner, Mickey Goldmill (Burgess Meredith). Mickey always considered Rocky's potential to be better than his effort—telling him he had heart but also calling him a "tomato" and "leg breaker for some cheap second-rate loan shark" among other endearments, and putting Rocky out of his gym locker preceding the "freak luck" opportunity that comes Rocky's way, and Rocky is initially skeptical of Mickey's motives and timing for wanting to train Rocky for the big fight. Rocky's good friend Paulie (Burt Young), a meat-packing-plant worker, lets him practice his punches on the carcasses hanging in the freezers.

A significant and prominent sub-plot has Rocky courting and eventually dating Paulie's shy, quiet, ostensibly librarian-like and potentially spinster sister, Adrian (Talia Shire), who works as a clerk in a local pet store. He draws Adrian out of her shell and, as Rocky's girlfriend, she begins to transform into a womanly, wifely figure. The night before the fight, Rocky confides to Adrian that he does not expect to beat Creed, and that all he wants is to go the distance because no one had ever gone the distance with Creed.

On New Year's Day, the climactic boxing match begins. Apollo Creed does not initially take the fight seriously, and Rocky unexpectedly knocks him down in the first round (no fighter had yet floored Creed during Creed's professional career), embarrassing Creed, and the match turns intense. The fight indeed lasts 15 rounds, with both fighters sustaining many injuries; Rocky suffers his first broken nose and debilitating trauma around the eye, and Creed sustains brutal blows to his ribs with substantial internal bleeding. As the match progresses, Creed's superior skill is countered by Rocky's apparently unlimited ability to absorb punishment, and his dogged refusal to be knocked out. As the final round bell sounds, with both fighters locked in each other's arms, an exhausted Creed vows "Ain't gonna be no re-match," to which an equally spent Rocky replies "Don't want one." After the fight, multiple layers of drama are played out: sportscasters and audience are going wild; the promoter/ring announcer George Jergens announces over the loudspeaker that the match was "the greatest exhibition of guts and stamina in the history of the ring"; Rocky calls out repeatedly for Adrian, who runs down and comes into the ring as Paulie distracts the security personnel. As Jergens declares the fight for Apollo Creed by virtue of a split decision (8:7, 7:8, 9:6), Adrian and Rocky embrace while they profess their love to one another, not caring about the result of the fight.

Critical reception
Rocky received mixed to positive reviews at the time of its release. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, however, gave Rocky 4 out of 4 stars and said that Stallone reminded him of "the young Marlon Brando.  " Box Office Magazine claimed that audiences would be "touting Sylvester 'Sly' Stallone as a new star".  The film, however, did not escape criticism. Vincent Canby, of the New York Times, called it "pure '30s make believe" and dismissed both Stallone's acting and Avildsen's directing, calling the latter "none too decisive".  Frank Rich liked the film, calling it "almost 100 per cent schmaltz," but favoring it over the cynicism that was prevalent in movies at that time, although he referred to the plot as "gimmicky" and the script "heavy-handed". He attributed all of the film's weaknesses to Avildsen, describing him as responsible for some of the "most tawdry movies of recent years", and who "has an instinct for making serious emotions look tawdry" and said of Rocky, "He'll go for a cheap touch whenever he can" and "tries to falsify material that was suspect from the beginning. ... Even by the standards of fairy tales, it strains logic." Rich also criticised the film's "stupid song with couplets like 'feeling strong now/won't be long now.'"

Several reviews, including Richard Eder's (as well as Canby's negative review), compared the work to that of Frank Capra. Andrew Sarris found the Capra comparisons disingenuous: "Capra's movies projected more despair deep down than a movie like Rocky could envisage, and most previous ring movies have been much more cynical about the fight scene," and, commenting on Rocky's work as a loan shark, says that the film "teeters on the edge of sentimentalizing gangsters." Sarris also found Meredith "oddly cast in the kind of part the late James Gleason used to pick his teeth." Sarris also took issue with Avildsen's direction, which he described as having been done with "an insidious smirk" with "condescension toward everything and everybody," specifically finding fault, for example, with Avildsen's multiple shots of a chintzy lamp in Rocky's apartment. Sarris also found Stallone's acting style "a bit mystifying" and his character "all rough" as opposed to "a diamond in the rough" like Terry Malloy.

More than 30 years later, the film enjoys a reputation as a classic and still receives positive reviews; Rocky holds a 92% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus stating: "This story of a down-on-his-luck boxer is thoroughly predictable, but Sylvester Stallone's script and stunning performance in the title role brush aside complaints."  Another positive online review came from the BBC Films website, with both reviewer Almar Haflidason and BBC online users giving it 5/5 stars.  In Steven J. Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Schneider says the film is "often overlooked as schmaltz."

In 2006, Rocky was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Rocky was acknowledged as the second-best film in the sports genre, after Raging Bull.

In 2008, Rocky was chosen by Empire magazine as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.