What production company made the original Rocky?

Chartoff-Winkler Productions made the original Rocky.

The company was the production partnership of Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, two producers who saw the potential in Sylvester Stallone’s screenplay. They helped develop the project and backed Stallone’s insistence that he play Rocky Balboa, despite the commercial risk of casting a largely unknown actor as the lead.

Rocky was produced on a comparatively small budget of about $960,000 and released in 1976. Its success transformed the film into a major cultural phenomenon, earned the Academy Award for Best Picture, and established Chartoff and Winkler as one of Hollywood’s most successful producing teams.

United Artists is a common alternative answer, but it was the distributor rather than the production company. Balboa Productions belongs to later Rocky-related work, while “Winkler-Avildsen Films” is not the credited company. The official film listings identify Chartoff-Winkler Productions as the studio or production company behind the original film.