The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
Back to trending 
The Boxer
Drama · Romance · 1997
Nineteen-year-old Danny Flynn is imprisoned for his involvement with the I.R.A. in Belfast. He leaves behind his family and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Maggie Hamill. Fourteen years later, Danny is released from prison and returns to his old working class neighborhood to resume his life as a boxer.
Movie details
The Boxer
“Love is always worth fighting for.”
1997 Drama · Romance 1h 54m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.7 / 10
Community rating
Nineteen-year-old Danny Flynn is imprisoned for his involvement with the I.R.A. in Belfast. He leaves behind his family and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Maggie Hamill. Fourteen years later, Danny is released from prison and returns to his old working class neighborhood to resume his life as a boxer.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Boxer?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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A tough, street-smart kid serving a sentence in a state youth reformatory meets a beautiful, innocent girl studying at a nearby convent. When forbidden love blossoms between them, they must fight the prison authorities, their parents and the law.
The Cut
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A retired boxer intends to return to the ring for one last shot at the title, but first he must make the weight. Holed up in a room in Las Vegas with an unscrupulous trainer, he embarks on an intensive and illegal weight-cutting program.
Maria's Lovers
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A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.
Mandingo
Romance · 1975
Warren Maxwell, the owner of a run-down plantation, pressures his son, Hammond, to marry and produce an heir to inherit the plantation. Hammond settles on his own cousin, Blanche, but purchases a sex slave when he returns from the honeymoon. He also buys his father a new Mandingo slave named Mede to breed and train as a prize-fighter.
Hands of Stone
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The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
The Mustang
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While participating in a rehabilitation program training wild mustangs, a convict at first struggles to connect with the horses and his fellow inmates, but he learns to confront his violent past as he soothes an especially feisty horse.
The Fighter
Drama · 2010
Boxer "Irish" Micky Ward's unlikely road to the world light welterweight title. His Rocky-like rise was shepherded by half-brother Dicky, a boxer-turned-trainer who rebounded in life after nearly being KO'd by drugs and crime.
In the Name of the Father
Drama · 1993
A small-time Belfast thief, Gerry Conlon, is wrongly convicted of an IRA bombing in London, along with his father and friends, and spends 15 years in prison fighting to prove his innocence.
Salvable
Crime · 2025
When a battered boxer past his prime finds his dreams and his relationships on the ropes, he falls back in with a dangerous crowd and has to take the biggest swing of his life to reclaim his hope and his family.
Hunger
Drama · 2008
The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Jim Sheridan
Written by
Jim Sheridan · Terry George
Daniel Day-Lewis
Danny Flynn
Emily Watson
Maggie Hamill
Brian Cox
Joe Hamill
Ken Stott
Ike Weir
Gerard McSorley
Harry
David Hayman
Joe Hamill's Aide
Kenneth Cranham
Matt MaGuire
Court is in session
Put The Boxer on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.