Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee… (on screen)

Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer ever, made those words immortal. He amost single handedly saved the sport from going into oblivion.

Decades later, two others, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, have managed to once again put the sport back on a pedestral.

On the sidelines of the record-breaking fight, here’s a look at four of the best boxing movies Hollywood has ever produced.

1. Raging Bull

Long before Martin Scorsese directed the iconic Gangs of New York, he made a boxing masterpiece known as Raging Bull, which is ranked among the world’s best sports movies of all times.

Robert de Niro, in an Oscar-winning performance, starred as Jake LaMotta, a boxer whose obsessive rage sent him plummeting down a path of self-destruction.

2. Rocky

Is there one person among you who haven’t watched the iconic Sylvester Stallone movie even once?

The rags-to-riches story of Italian-American Rocky Balboa, or the ‘Italian Stallion,’ a boxer who also doubles up as a loan collector, touched the hearts of millions. Who can forget his training, using makeshift equipment including frozen meat for punching bags? And the iconic fight where he gets pummeled, but simply refuses to go down?

It turned Stallone into an overnight star.

3. Million Dollar Baby

What an actor Clint Eastwood is, and what a revelation he was when he decided to turn director in 1971? Million Dollar Baby was his 25th directorial venture and easily among his best.

It told the story of Margaret ‘Maggie’ Fitzgerald, a waitress played by Hillary Swank. Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) owns a gym, the Hit Pit, where Maggie comes to train. Dunn reluctantly takes her in and she becomes hugely successful.

Just when things start to look sweet, things turn upside down. It’s boxing, and a master storyteller, at their best.

4. Cinderella Man

Russell Crowe takes the characters he represents on screen very seriously. He spent several months in the gym to play James J Braddock, an Irish-American boxer who broke his arm and had to give up the sport he so loved.

America goes into the Great Depression and he is forced to do menial jobs to help sustain the family.

When he knocks out the world’s second best boxer, he suddenly gets a chance to make it big again. He then becomes a mascot of the great American Dream. He soon gets a shot at the world’s best boxer, who has reportedly killed two opponents. What follows is as nail-biting as it’s brutal.