Worst To Best: Sylvester Stallone

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Sly’s hits and misses

Shade (2003)

Cliffhanger (1993)

The Film: Gabe (Stallone) returns to a mountain range where his friend died in order to help a group of stranded people who are hunting for boxes containing $1m in cash.

Stallone Strength: Alright, he had a stunt double for the film, but Stallone also performed plenty of his own impressive feats. They don’t call him an action hero for nothing.

Rocky IV (1985)

The Film: The one where Rocky goes up against Russian giant Drago (played by towering Swede Dolph Lundgren).

Stallone Strength : During his climactic fight with Lundgren, Stallone insisted that they trade blows for real. The result? Sly was rushed to hospital with high blood pressure. The pain was well worth it, however, producing arguably the greatest fights of the series.

Nighthawks (1981)

The Film: Originally planned as The French Connection III , Nighthawks came about when Gene Hackman refused to play Doyle for a third time. The result? Stallone as DaSilva, a cop tasked with bringing down an international terrorist.

Stallone Strength: In one of his most popular roles (and the first time he played a cop), Sly prepared by working night shifts with police officers in New York, then did all his own stunts in the film.

Demolition Man (1993)

The Film: Cop John Spartan (Stallone) is woken up from suspended animation, and finds himself in the future, where he has to take down villain Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes).

Stallone Strength : Stallone plays the bad-ass good guy with a little twinkle in his eye – and shows us what he’s made of by fighting an equally brawny Wesley Snipes.

Rocky III (1982)

The Film: Rocky (Stallone) is trained by former adversary Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) after being defeated by Clubber Lang (Mr. T).

Stallone Strength: Stallone’s body fat was just 2.8 per cent during filming of Rocky III , meaning he was probably the fittest - and strongest - he’d ever been…

Escape To Victory (1981)

The Film: John Huston’s sporting drama sees a team of war prisoners play football against the Nazis during World War II.

Stallone Strength: A sign of Stallone’s growing ego and his own graciousness – the actor insisted his character should score the winning goal as he was the film’s biggest name. After being reminded he was playing a goalie, he politely changed his mind.

The Expendables (2010)

The Film: The Avengers of action movies, as Sly unites Dolph Lundgren, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke and Jet Li in the same film. Mega.

Stallone Strength: It’s an idea made in fanboy heaven. Naturally, only Stallone had the kahunas to take a crack at it, standing atop a pile of Alpha action males as the leader of the (very muscular) pack.

The Prisoner Of Second Avenue (1975)

The Film: Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft star in this ‘70s comedy, in which an executive who gets the boot from his job suffers a nervous breakdown.

Stallone Strength: A pre- Rocky Stallone makes a brief cameo as a man in a park whom Jack Lemmon’s character bumps into. No acting – or muscles – required.

Antz (1998)

The Film: Sly provides the voice of super-soldier Weaver, who just so happens to be an ant, in DreamWorks’ seminal CGI animation.

Stallone Strength: Even though he’s not on-screen, you can practically hear Sly flexing those sinewy arms over the audio track.

Joshua Winning

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.