Rocky

When we first meet Rocky Balboa, there are no screaming crowds waiting for him.

He's fighting in small clubs for modest purses, working as an enforcer for loan shark Tony Gazzo and returning each night to an apartment shared with his turtles, Cuff and Link.

Rocky possesses talent, but somewhere along the way he stopped expecting very much from it.

Mickey Goldmill, the ageing trainer who runs Rocky's gym, sees that wasted potential clearly. Rocky has heart and toughness, but those qualities haven't translated into the career he might once have had.

That's what makes Rocky such an effective protagonist.

The film doesn't begin with a future champion waiting to be discovered.

It begins with a man who fears his opportunity may already have passed.

For all the boxing associated with Rocky, some of its most important scenes happen nowhere near a ring.

Rocky's relationship with Adrian gives the film its emotional centre.

Adrian is quiet, withdrawn and uncomfortable with attention. Rocky is awkward in an entirely different way — endlessly talking, joking and trying to make her smile whenever he visits the pet shop where she works.

Neither fits comfortably into the world around them.

Together, they begin to.

Their relationship develops gradually, including the wonderfully understated sequence at an almost empty ice rink. As Rocky's impossible fight approaches, Adrian becomes the person whose belief matters more to him than the thousands who will eventually chant his name.

The film's final moments make that perfectly clear.

Apollo Creed is everything Rocky isn't.

He's wealthy, confident, charismatic and the reigning heavyweight champion of the world.

When Apollo's scheduled opponent can't fight, finding a suitable replacement at short notice becomes difficult.

Apollo turns the problem into entertainment.

To celebrate America's bicentennial, he decides to give an unknown Philadelphia fighter the opportunity to challenge for the heavyweight championship.

Then he sees a name he likes.

The Italian Stallion.

Rocky Balboa suddenly finds himself offered a fight nobody believes he can win.

Apollo views the bout as a spectacle.

For Rocky, it becomes something much bigger.

One of the smartest things Rocky does is redefine victory.

Rocky understands the difference between himself and Apollo Creed.

He's under no illusion that he's suddenly become the greatest boxer alive simply because somebody handed him a championship opportunity.

What he wants is more personal.

He wants to go the distance.

Nobody has lasted fifteen rounds with Apollo, and Rocky decides that if he can still be standing when the final bell sounds, he'll know for the first time that he wasn't just another nobody from the neighbourhood.

That transforms the fight.

The championship belt is almost secondary.

Rocky is fighting to prove he mattered.

Mickey Goldmill initially appears to have little patience for Rocky.

He criticises the younger fighter for wasting his ability and eventually gives Rocky's gym locker to another boxer.

Then they announce the Apollo Creed fight.

Mickey arrives at Rocky's apartment and asks to become his manager.

The scene is uncomfortable because years of frustration hang between them. Rocky finally unleashes his anger after Mickey leaves, confronting the old trainer outside.

But underneath that anger is recognition.

Rocky needs Mickey.

And Mickey needs Rocky.

Their partnership becomes one of the franchise's defining relationships, beginning with two men who realise they may have been handed one final opportunity to do something worthwhile.

Rocky doesn't simply take place in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia feels like another character.

Rocky walks its streets, trains through its neighbourhoods, visits local shops and runs through the Italian Market while preparing for Apollo.

Then comes the image that would become inseparable from the entire franchise.

Rocky charges up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Earlier in his training, simply reaching the top exhausted him.

Now he reaches the summit, turns towards the city and raises his arms.

There isn't a championship belt anywhere in sight.

He hasn't even fought Apollo yet.

But for a few seconds, Rocky already feels like a winner.

The training sequences would not have become nearly as iconic without Bill Conti's score.

As Rocky's confidence grows, the music grows with him.

The combination of Philadelphia locations, physical training and Conti's soaring theme transforms what could have been a simple montage into one of cinema's most recognisable expressions of determination.

Decades later, the opening notes still communicate the same idea almost instantly:

Get up.

Keep moving.

Try again.

Few film scores have become so completely connected to the character they accompany.

When Rocky finally enters the ring with Apollo Creed, almost everyone expects the same thing.

A quick exhibition.

Apollo arrives surrounded by spectacle and showmanship. Rocky arrives knowing this might be the only chance he'll ever receive.

Then Rocky knocks Apollo down.

Suddenly, the champion realises the man standing opposite him isn't playing along.

What follows is brutal.

Both fighters absorb extraordinary punishment as the contest stretches far beyond Apollo's expectations.

Rocky's face swells. His body begins to fail. Mickey tries desperately to keep him functional between rounds.

Still Rocky refuses to stay down.

Because the objective hasn't changed.

He wants to hear the final bell.

The judges determine the official winner, but the film barely seems interested.

Neither is Rocky.

As the arena erupts around him and reporters attempt to capture his reaction, Rocky searches through the crowd for one person.

Adrian.

He calls her name.

She fights her way towards the ring.

And when they finally reach one another, the championship result becomes background noise.

Rocky didn't need the belt to prove himself.

He needed to know he could stand alongside the best fighter in the world and refuse to quit.

He did.

The story behind Rocky became almost as famous as the movie.

Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay after being inspired in part by the 1975 heavyweight fight between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner. AFI records that Stallone produced an initial draft in only a few days and later refused screenplay offers unless he could play Rocky himself.

That insistence changed his life.

John G. Avildsen directed the production on a comparatively modest budget and tight schedule, using Philadelphia locations and a grounded visual approach that complemented Stallone's story.

The result didn't look like an expensive Hollywood spectacle.

It looked like Rocky's world.

And that was exactly what it needed.

Rocky became much larger than the modest story from which it began.

It launched Sylvester Stallone into international stardom, won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and created characters audiences would follow across generations.

But the original film remains special precisely because it isn't really about becoming heavyweight champion of the world.

It's about dignity.

Rocky begins the movie believing people see him as another bum from the neighbourhood.

Apollo Creed unexpectedly gives him an opportunity, but nobody can determine what that opportunity means except Rocky himself.

He doesn't need to conquer the world.

He needs to prove something to himself.

And sometimes going the distance is enough.