Top 10 Wrestling Movies
5. Fighting With My Family (2019)
Fighting with My Family Review
Fighting with My Family, the Stephen Merchant adaptation of the Channel 4 documentary of the same name about the famous East Anglian wrestling family that former WWE wrestler and current AEW wrestler Saraya (AKA Paige) grew up in, was until recently the wrestling film with the most popular appeal.
Chronicling the rise of Saraya Bevis from her family’s wrestling training camps to the WWE training centres and onto the globally broadcasted WWE television shows, Fighting with My Family illuminated the struggles and triumphs that all wrestlers must go through to make it, offering a Rocky-like story for a new generation.
Co-produced by former WWE champion Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and co-financed by WWE Studios, Film4 and MGM, Fighting with My Family captured the energy and passion that is the bedrock of professional wrestling, its grassroots approach to potential superstardom capturing the essence of what the art means to so many people.
With Florence Pugh leading the cast, and a supporting ensemble that includes Vince Vaughn, Jack Lowden, Nick Frost and Lena Headey, and with an inspirational central narrative to latch on to, there’s a bit of something for everyone in Fighting with My Family.
4. The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz’s The Peanut Butter Falcon wasn’t advertised as a professional wrestling movie upon release, but it offered one of the most pure-hearted and credible depictions of wrestling fandom ever presented on the silver screen.
Anchored by outstanding lead performances from down’s syndrome actor Zack Gottsagen as a disabled adult on the run from his care home, Shia LaBeouf as the homeless runaway who takes him in, and Dakota Johnson as Gottsagen’s carer searching for her lost patient, The Peanut Butter Falcon is a moving coming-of-age film about found family.
Gottsagen’s Zak is the core of the movie, and his desire to one day become a professional wrestler is what drives the plot forward. Along his road to fulfilling his dream, Zak encounters all numbers of colourful characters including professional wrestling legends Jake Roberts and Mick Foley. It’s uplifting, it’s warm, it’s moving, and it’s one of the rare great wrestling movies that presents professional wrestling in a positive light.
3. Beyond the Mat (1999)
Sold on the back of clips showing former WWF Champion Mick Foley having his head battered by over 10 steel chair shots from The Rock while his wife and small children cried in the front row, Beyond the Mat (1999) looked to authenticate the pain and sacrifice of wrestling while maintaining a strong respect for the industry. It succeeded.
With hours of backstage footage and a number of interviews so honest it got the wrestlers in real-life backstage trouble for sharing too many industry secrets and making their employers look bad, Beyond the Mat is perhaps the most unflinching and raw portrayal of the ludicrous wrestling circus that there is.
It’s a film that illuminates the very real pain that occurs between the ropes, and one that will shock viewers unfamiliar with how painful wrestling can really be, and yet it never loses touch of the magic that brings fans back to wrestling time and time again.
It’s the most intrusive of all wrestling documentaries, and the very best one to date.
