The 10 Best Films About Wrestling. In this series of sports-themed articles, we’ll be reviewing the best sports films from auto racing and baseball to tennis and surfing. These Best Of lists will include both popular and lesser-known films from a specific sports film subgenre and our plan is to release each list monthly near a major sporting event.
The sport of wrestling can be traced back to prehistoric times with modern wrestling becoming popular in the 19th century with its debut as an Olympic sport in 1896 in the Athens Summer Olympics. Though wrestling would not become as popular as other international sports such as soccer or basketball, it did see its popularity rise in the 1980s with the rebranding and launch of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979. Though labeled as professional wrestling, the WWF and it’s scripted and often bloody matches were in stark contrast to the amateur, Greco-Roman style of wrestling that would be a cornerstone of high school and collegiate sports in America as well as the Olympics.
In sports films, various forms of wrestling have appeared from amateur wrestling in Vision Quest (1985) to Unstoppable (2024) and professional WWF-style wrestling in No Holds Barred (1989) to The Iron Claw (2023). Other films in this sports subgenre have also focused on female wrestlers in All the Marbles (1981) and Queen of the Ring (2025) to Lucha Libre Mexican-style wrestling in Nacho Libre (2006) and Cassandro (2023).
Once we’ve completed the list of best films by individual sport, we’ll have a cumulative article with the absolute 50 best sports films. For now, you can view our tentative schedule below and we’ll try to fit in some articles for some other sports such as Volleyball and Rowing that aren’t typically depicted in many films:
- Best Films About Football
- Best Films About Baseball
- Best Films About Surfing
- Best Films About Basketball
- Best Films About Summer Olympic Sports
- Best Films About Soccer
- Best Films About Running
- Best Films About Tennis
- Best Films About Auto Racing
- Best Films About Hockey
- Best Films About Wrestling
- Best Films About Boxing, MMA & Competitive Martial Arts
- Best Films About Winter Olympic Sports
- The 50 Best Sports Films
For our rankings we’re going to use some criteria to help define and refine our list. First, the film must primarily be about wrestling. This can include everything from amateur and WWF/WWE professional wrestling to sumo wrestling. However, we won’t include arm wrestling as it doesn’t quite fit within this sports subgenre.
Second, though MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) does include forms of wrestling within the sport, films featuring MMA have grown in popularity over the past decade and we will create a separate article outlining all the best films about MMA such as Warrior (2011), Here Comes the Boom (2012) and others. So, MMA films won’t be included on this list.
Third, we’ll give higher priority and ranking to films about amateur wrestling vs. professional wrestling.
Fourth, we’re also only going to include film where wrestling is the main theme or focus. This will exclude films such as Rocky III (1984) and Man on the Moon (1999) which have scenes of wrestling, but are not pure wrestling films.
Fifth, like other sports film lists, we won’t be listing documentaries. However, we would recommend wrestling documentaries such as Beyond the Mat (1999), Team Foxcatcher (2016) and André the Giant (2018) which cover different forms of wrestling mentioned above.
And sixth, we had to follow our rule for all of KBZ’s film listings where we only list films that have a 4.0/10 or higher rating and were released after 1970.
Our complete list of Sports Dramas features over 587+ films from 1942 – 2024 and our complete list of Sports Comedies features over 254+ films from 1968 – 2024. Though we don’t yet break down films by sports discipline, we will list every individual sport-related film in their respective articles. You can also subscribe to our newsletter to get updated as we release future articles on each sport and add the latest and greatest subgenre films to our collection.
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The 10 Best Films About Wrestling
Films that didn’t make our list (and only for completists): Mad Bull (1977), Paradise Alley (1978), Below the Belt (1980), Grunt! The Wrestling Movie (1985), Body Slam (1986), No Holds Barred (1989), Sumo Do, Sumo Don’t (1992), Ready to Rumble (2000), Wrestlemaniac (2006), Win By Fall (2012), Russell Madness (2015), The Masked Saint (2016), The Main Event (2020), Opponent (2023), Grace by Night (2024) and Dark Match (2024).
Honorable Mentions: All the Marbles (1981), Take Down (1979), Spooner (1989), The Foul King (2000), Going to the Mat (2004), Personal Effects (2009), Legendary (2010), The Hammer (2010), First Match (2018), The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019), Fighting With My Family (2019), The Legend of Baron To’a (2020), The Last Champion (2020), Triumph (2021), Cassandro (2023) and Queen of the Ring (2025).
Plot: In 1980, a teenage boy escapes the unrest in Iran only to face more hostility in America, due to the hostage crisis. Determined to fit in, he joins the school’s floundering wrestling team.
KBZ’s Take: American Wrestler: The Wizard is one of the surprising films of the subgenre and we listed it here above other well known films. Though it’s formulaic and you’ve likely seen the plot in a variety of other sports films, we’re ranking it here due to its well done and exciting scenes of amateur wrestling.
Though it’s not on the level of Vision Quest (1985) and Foxcatcher (2014), we would recommend the film to fans of those films or amateur wrestling in general.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
Plot: A would-be actor (Henry Winkler) brings his girlfriend (Kim Darby) to 1950’s New York and becomes a garish pro wrestler.
KBZ’s Take: The One and Only is one of the earliest films about professional wrestling and elicits very divided opinions. Some people don’t get the comedy in the film while others enjoy the film’s offbeat humor, romance and a surprisingly well done look at life on the road during the early days of professional wrestling.
We would recommend giving the film a shot – especially if you’re a fan of Henry Winkler and quirky romantic comedies.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#8
Nacho Libre
Plot: Ignacio (Jack Black), or Nacho to his friends, works as a cook in the Mexican monastery where he grew up. The monastery is home to a host of orphans whom Nacho cares for deeply, but there is not much money to feed them properly. Nacho decides to raise money for the children by moonlighting as a Lucha Libre wrestler with his partner Esqueleto (Héctor Jiménez), but since the church forbids Lucha, Nacho must disguise his identity.
KBZ’s Take: There’s a few films on our list that focus on the Mexican form of professional wrestling – lucha libre. Though most of these lucha libre films focus on horror and don’t fall within this subgenre, there are a few lighthearted films that focus on wrestling specifically including Nacho Libre and Cassandro (2023).
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
Plot: A glum teenager (Griffin O’Neal) from rural Georgia goes out for wrestling at a California prep school.
KBZ’s Take: There’s a few obscure TV movies focused on amateur wrestling from the late 1970s through late 1980s including Take Down (1979), Hadley’s Rebellion and Spooner (1989). Most of these films are formulaic and focus on varying themes from coming-of-age issues to fraud.
We chose Hadley’s Rebellion for this list as it has the best choreographed wrestling scenes and a decent (though formulaic) coming-of-age story.
Where to Stream / Buy: YouTube
#6
Win Win
Plot: When down-on-his-luck part-time high school wrestling coach Mike agrees to become legal guardian to an elderly man, his ward’s troubled grandson turns out to be a star grappler, sparking dreams of a big win — until the boy’s mother retrieves him.
KBZ’s Take: Of all the films we had to review for this list that we hadn’t seen before, Win Win was one of the biggest surprises. This is a very quirky (and sometimes dark) comedy with exceptional performances from Paul Giamatti and Alex Shaffer.
There are also some great scenes of amateur wrestling in the film that make it highly recommended for fans of the subgenre.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#5
Unstoppable
Plot: Born with one leg, Anthony Robles defies expectations to become a champion wrestler in college, competing against the very school that rejected him.
KBZ’s Take: Based on the real-life story of Anthony Robles, Unstoppable is one of the most inspiring films of the subgenre and has some of the best choreographed amateur wrestling scenes on our list. This is a great, recent film that will very likely, over time, stand by Vision Quest (1985) as one of the best overall films about amateur wrestling.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#4
Foxcatcher
Plot: The greatest Olympic Wrestling Champion brother team joins Team Foxcatcher led by multimillionaire sponsor John E. du Pont as they train for the 1988 games in Seoul – a union that leads to unlikely circumstances.
KBZ’s Take: One of the few films on our list that is also a Psychological Thriller, Foxcatcher is another biopic about the U.S. Men’s Wrestling Team brothers, Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) and the younger Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum), and their encounter with wrestling enthusiast and multimillionaire John du Pont (Steve Carrell).
We wouldn’t advise watching this film if you’re looking for an inspirational sports film or one filled with sports action (though the film does have some of the better scenes of real wrestling as a sport). But it is a film we would still recommend that shows the inner workings and paths athletes take to the Olympics with some amazing performances by Carrell, Ruffalo and Tatum.
Additional Lists: The 20 Best Films About the Summer Olympics #6
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
Plot: Tells the story of the Von Erich brothers as they make history in the highly competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980’s. Through tragedy and triumph, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports.
KBZ’s Take: Even though we’re favoring amateur wrestling over professional wrestling films for this list, Iron Claw is one of the best, and most heartbreaking, films of the subgenre. There’s a lot to unpack from this film from the amazing performances by Zac Efron (Kevin Von Erich), Jeremy Allen White (Kerry Von Erich) and Harris Dickinson (David Von Erich) to some of the best choregraphed scenes of professional wrestling.
The film is ultimately about family, and though very heartbreaking and difficult to watch at times, it remains one of the must-see films from the subgenre.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#2
The Wrestler
Plot: Aging wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) is long past his prime but still ready and rarin’ to go on the pro-wrestling circuit. After a particularly brutal beating, however, Randy hangs up his tights, pursues a serious relationship with a long-in-the-tooth stripper (Marisa Tomei), and tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood). But he can’t resist the lure of the ring and readies himself for a comeback.
KBZ’s Take: If we weren’t putting a focus on amateur wrestling films for this list, The Wrestler would easily be number one. It’s the best movie about professional wrestling and the extreme lengths one performer will take to remain in the spotlight. It’s also the best film about wrestling that shows the grittier side to life on the road for a professional wrestling performer.
This is a tragic, yet special film buoyed by perhaps the best performance of Mickey Rourke’s decades-long career.
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
#1
Vision Quest
Plot: After deciding he needs to do something meaningful with his life, high school wrestler Louden Swain sets out on a mission to drop weight and challenge the area’s undefeated champion, which creates problems with his teammates and health. Matters are complicated further when Louden’s father takes in an attractive female drifter who’s on her way to San Francisco.
KBZ’s Take: When it comes to amateur wrestling, Vision Quest still remains The Karate Kid (1984) of the subgenre. This is the most well-known film about amateur wrestling and one of the better coming-of-age dramas of the 80s. And while the film is centered around the romance between the younger Louden Swain (Matthew Modine) and older Carla (Linda Fiorentino), it still has some of the best choreographed scenes of wrestling as well as one of the most memorable antagonists of the entire sports subgenre in Shute (Frank Jasper).
Additional Lists: Best Coming-of-Age Films – Younger Men with Older Women #9
Where to Stream / Buy: Amazon
