The Best Picture winner featuring boxer Rocky Balboa is Rocky.
Released in 1976, Rocky stars Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa, a small-time Philadelphia club fighter who unexpectedly receives a chance to challenge world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed. The contest matters less to Rocky as a likely victory than as an opportunity to prove he can go the distance and earn self-respect.
Stallone wrote the screenplay and insisted on playing the lead. The film was made for an estimated $960,000, a modest budget compared with major studio productions, and was shot extensively in Philadelphia. Its training scenes, including the run up the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps, became defining images of American sports cinema.
Rocky received 10 Academy Award nominations and won three, including Best Picture, Best Director for John G. Avildsen, and Best Film Editing. A common mix-up is treating Rocky as a real championship boxer; Balboa is fictional, and the film’s plot is a character-driven underdog story rather than a documentary about a famous fighter.