The Karate Kid (1984) follows Daniel LaRusso, who, after having to move to LA, develops a crush on Ali. This makes her ex-boyfriend Johnny unhappy. Unfortunately, Johnny is a black belt in karate and beats up Daniel. Daniel gets saved by Mr. Miyagi, who agrees to teach him karate, so that he can beat Johnny in a karate tournament, in the hopes that this will stop Johnny from beating Daniel up in the future.

With Ralph Macchio as Daniel, Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi, and William Zabka as Johnny, stars and cult figures were born. The fighting in each movie is superb and definitely worth watching, if you somehow haven’t done so already.

1. Rocky Franchise

If you would have the Family Feud question: “Name a fighting movie”, I bet you that the top answer would be Rocky. It is a classic. We all either know it or at the very least know of it.

You’re thinking of Rocky Balboa running up those steps and then pumping his fist up right now, aren’t you? Rocky has led to seven sequels, with the amazing Sylvester Stallone portraying Rocky in all eight movies, writing seven of them and even directing four of them. 

The movies have everything! They have amazing fights between Rocky and his various opponents and, in the later movies, between Donnie Creed and his opponents.  To fight amazingly, they need to train amazingly, so of course you have many, including the aforementioned famous, training scenes.

There are lovable and memorable villains, such as the Russian Ivan Drago, who coined the line: “If he dies, he dies.” And of course, like any good fighting movie, Rocky comes with a great soundtrack.