With Sean Durkin’s much-anticipated biopic on the Von Erich tragedy, The Iron Claw, about to hit theaters, it’s a good time to recommend more wrestling movies centered around pro wrestling, an often misunderstood art that’s complexity goes beyond strikes, spectacular moves, and drama.
Pro wrestling is a form of entertainment where athletes put their bodies on the line to tell a story inside a squared circle through moves, psychology, and crowd feedback. Due to the blurring of the lines between fiction and reality, a wrestling match can connect like few other art forms when done right. However, the sport also has a dark side: as you will see in the Zac Efron-led biopic, wrestling can take a heavy physical and psychological toll on the athletes; it’s no coincidence that, historically, there have been many shocking deaths of young pro wrestlers.
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The following list of wrestling movies is a reflection of this light/dark duality, as well as its unique power to connect with people. And no, there’s no Aronofsky’s The Wrestleron this list (we all know that one!).
Fighting with My Family
Before her career really took off with Midsommar and Little Women, Florence Pugh showcased her immense acting talent as well as her range by playing British wrestler Paige in Fighting With My Family, a feel-good biopic about dreams, conviction, family, and the sacrifices many wrestlers have to go through to make it in the business. Although at times it looks like WWE propaganda, this underdog story is rich with humor, heart, and great performances.
My Dad is a Heel Wrestler
Starring NJPW legend Hiroshi Tanahashi, one of the best and most important wrestlers in the history of the sport, My Dad is a Heel Wrestlers is a sweet underdog tale that uses the good vs. evil dynamic of pro wrestling to tackle issues of parenthood. It’s also a showcase of the pureness of the sport when seen through eyes of innocence.
The film follows Shota (Kokoro Terada), a sweet nine-year-old wrestling fan whose life changes when he discovers that his gentle dad, Takashi Omura (Tanahashi), is actually a dastardly wrestling heel (the villain in wrestling) called Gokiburi Mask (“Cockroach Mask”). Unable to understand that his father is playing a role, Shota lashes out against him and lies about his identity at school. Now, poor Omura must decide between continuing his cheating antics or returning to his spectacular hero persona even if that means risking a career-ending injury.
Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows
This revolutionary wrestling documentary follows Bret “Hitman” Hart, one of the all-time greats. Throughout one year leading up to his departure from WWF and the Montreal Screwjob, this wrestling movie explores one of the most controversial and important events in pro wrestling history.
In the latter half of the 90s, a ratings battle between the WWF and Ted Turner’s WCW spurred all sorts of changes in the industry: wrestlers were jumping from one company to the other, all sorts of juicy contracts were being thrown around like candy, and wrestling crowds were starting to veer toward edgier characters. On top of that, you had big egos in the WWF locker room and the rise of new antihero wrestlers. Bret Hart was caught in the middle of this whirlwind and soon found himself having to choose between being loyal to WWF, a company for which he was the top star for many years, or a big WCW paycheck that would assure his and his family’s future.
Even if you don’t care about pro wrestling, you won’t be able to look away from Wrestling With Shadows, a film that has it all: action, drama, betrayals, family, heroes, antiheroes, villains, hypocrisy, and so much more. Furthermore, it provided a truly unprecedented look behind the scenes of the wrestling industry that even to this day is astonishing. Big moves, holds, jumps, promos, cartoon characters, and spectacular action are only a small part of the wrestling industry: the political side plays a huge part in the career of many wrestlers, something that you will learn by watching this masterful documentary.
Nail in the Coffin: The Fall and Rise of Vampiro
With a gothic look, long hair, and rebellious attitude, Vampiro Canadiense (real name Ian Hodgkinson) was one of the coolest wrestlers in the 90s Mexican lucha scene. His meteoric rise to fame came with a cost though and now, at age 50, Vampiro struggles coming to terms with his broken body and deteriorating mental health.
Besides going through Vampiro’s childhood, his work as Milli Vanilli’s bodyguard, and his successful career in México, Nail in the Coffin is a melancholic look at the physical and emotional toll that wrestling can take on an athlete. Director Michael Paszt focuses on the clash between Vampiro’s turbulent personality, his passion for wrestling, and his desire to be with his daughter Dasha. Plus, the film has some astonishing access to the behind-the-scenes drama that unfolded during Triplemania XXV, one of the worst major PPVs in pro wrestling history.
The Peanut Butter Falcon
A man with Down syndrome (Zack Gottsagen) escapes from a residential nursing home to pursue his dream of becoming a professional wrestler. While on the run from his caregiver (Dakota Johnson), he befriends an impatient outlaw (Shia LaBeouf) who promises to help him fulfill his mission.
Supported by three excellent performances, The Peanut Butter Falcon is a moving buddy road movie with fairy tale vibes where the fantastical world of pro wrestling is used as a catalyst to break out of the oppressive and ableist treatment of society. Given that we’re talking about an art form that allows you to be anything, wrestling is a perfect track to tell this heart-warming story.
The Resurrection of Jake the Snake
If you ask any old-school WWF fan about Jake “The Snake” Roberts, odds are that they will agree on two things: he was one of the most charismatic and unique wrestlers of the time, and it’s a miracle that he is alive. Jake Roberts’ long history of alcohol and substance abuse is well documented and many thought his fight was a lost one, but not his pupil and former wrestler turned yoga instructor Diamond Dallas Page, who took him in and helped him battle addiction.
The Resurrection of Jake the Snake is a tale of friendship, love, and resilience, a heartbreaking film about addiction that showcases the rocky road faced by many wrestlers, particularly those who rose to fame in the 80s and 90s. During a pro wrestling match, it’s your duty to take care of your opponent’s safety and vice versa, and this bond can extend outside the ring, which is something we see as DDP does everything in his power to save his friend’s life, not from a dangerous bump or move, but from the demons of substance abuse.
The Foul King
Song Kang-ho’s first leading role was as an underperforming financial advisor turned pro wrestler in this comedy wrestling movie that also touches on South Korea’s tough work culture. The Foul King features black humor, Song Kang-ho dressed as Elvis, crowd-pleasing moments, and some of the finest wrestling sequences I’ve seen in a fiction film. And for those not familiar with the sport, this movie is a reminder that, for a wrestling ecosystem to succeed, a roster must have many types of wrestlers: from the handsome heroic guy and the dastardly heel to the comedic buffoon and the cheating villain.
Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters
Masked luchador El Santo is a cultural icon in Mexico. Besides being a huge ticket-selling star in the squared circle, Santo was key in the rise in popularity of luchador films during the 1960s and 1970s. This subgenre mixes action, adventure, sci-fi, and horror, and, of course, stars a lucha libre star.
Throughout his illustrious movie career, El Santo starred in over 50 movies where he fought zombies, criminals, crazy scientists, mummies, werewolves, and even Drácula. In Santo y Blue Demon contra los Monstruos he teams up with fellow lucha star Blue Demon to take on a group of classic monsters: Frankenstein, a mummy, a werewolf, a cyclops, and a vampire. As you might have guessed this movie is cheesy as hell, the costumes are hilariously bad, and the plot is a mess, but all of this makes it a unique B-movie spectacle as well as a charming representative of the luchador subgenre and the goofy side of wrestling.
The Sheik
Another wrestling superstar who barely avoided tragedy was The Iron Sheik (real name Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri). The first half of this documentary covers his career, his involvement in Hulk Hogan’s rise to the top, and his flag-welding evil foreigner cartoon character, while the latter half is all about his fight against addiction, his path toward recovery, and his surge in social media popularity thanks to his larger-than-life personality. Although The Sheik isn’t exactly the best-directed documentary you’ll find, its subject matter is an example of the hardships that many professional wrestlers faced plus the history of how Vaziri became a wrestling phenomenon is worth the watch alone.
You Cannot Kill David Arquette
A wrestling film that is not on this list is Ready to Rumble which brought actor David Arquette closer to the wrestling industry, maybe a little too close: in a desperate marketing strategy, flailing promotion WCW made Arquette its actual World Heavyweight Championship shortly after the movie premiere in April of 2000. Although poor David had barely anything to do with this controversial decision, he quickly became a target of spite by many fans who unfairly labeled him as one of the culprits behind WCW’s downfall.
Eighteen years later, David Arquette was still reeling from the incident, so he did what any healthy man would do: he orchestrated a comeback to wrestling, this time for real. You Cannot Kill David Arquette documents this journey: from doing lucha libre on street corners in Tijuana to the now infamous death match with Nick Gage where he almost bled to death. This is a funny, heartfelt, and fascinating redemption story as well as a portrait of the hardships indie wrestlers have to go through in an industry where toxic fans are in abundance.
From a monster extravaganza that depicts the traditional lucha culture in México to a documentary that showcases levels of behind-the-scenes drama that could never be matched by a wrestling storyline, these movies are a testament to the different forms the language of pro wrestling can take. It’s an art in constant change whose performers face a unique challenge in and outside the squared circle.
The Iron Claw is available now on VOD.
