Creed II is the 2018 film that serves as the eighth installment in the Rocky franchise.
Directed by Steven Caple Jr., Creed II continues the story of Adonis Creed, the son of Apollo Creed, as he prepares to face Viktor Drago. Viktor is the son of Ivan Drago, the Soviet boxer who fatally injured Apollo in Rocky IV, so the film connects Adonis's personal struggle to one of the series' most important earlier rivalries.
The film is a sequel to Creed (2015), which revived the franchise around Adonis and brought Rocky Balboa back as his trainer and mentor. Creed II also functions as a direct follow-up to Rocky IV because it revisits the consequences of Apollo's death and the Drago family's place in boxing history.
The numbering can cause confusion. Rocky Balboa was the sixth film, Creed was the seventh, and Creed II was the eighth. Creed III followed in 2023 and became the ninth film in the overall Rocky series, although Rocky himself does not appear in that installment.