While at its core, The Fighter does become a predictable boxing comeback film building to that Hollywood ending, the performances and acting clinic in action are worth your attention and audience.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 13, 2024

Bale, Leo, and Adams are exceptional, and Russell’s ability to imbue a conventional underdog premise with his high-strung eccentricities gives the film a unique texture.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 11, 2024

The film falls somewhere between bare-knuckle and blue collar, brought to the screen with that docu-style handheld-camera that indie filmmakers so love to use for bracing reality, and Irish family melodrama...

| Aug 19, 2023

Russell displays incredible versatility with The Fighter, leaving his signatures on a film that didn’t start out as his project, but turned into one of the best films of 2010.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 3, 2023

"The Fighter" isn’t bad, but it’s disappointingly conventional coming from the mercurial talent David O. Russell.

| Original Score: B- | Oct 4, 2022

Has the instinctive ardor of a defiant fighting rooster. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jul 15, 2022

Wahlberg's ripped physique look right, and he acts his part well.

| Aug 10, 2021

You may come to see The Fighter expecting fighting. If you can overlook that primal disappointment, chances are you'll leave feeling emotionally punch-drunk on a better film than you expected.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 25, 2021

While The Fighter is in some ways more conventional than the filmmaker's previous efforts, its heart lies, as Russell puts it, with the "tough people" of Lowell.

| Mar 1, 2021

Populated by quite a few impressive performances and an equal assemblage of dislikable characters.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 29, 2020

A conventional boxing flick where boxing isn't so much a plot device as it is the world in which these people live.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 7, 2020

A story of comebacks, in life, love, family, and boxing. At times it can be kind of a mess, where you're not entirely sure what the real story is, but the strength of the acting carries you through the rough patches.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 14, 2020

Based on a true story, The Fighter runneth over with raw energy, crazy action, and the highly seductive, brainless gallop of people dashing toward the brick wall of their own vanities and fears. It couldn't be more fun.

| Jan 22, 2020

Boxing fans, yes, there are plenty of wonderful boxing scenes in the movie, and for those not so interested in boxing, the movie is filled with so much more. It is full of family drama and emotional turmoil, with a touch of a love story.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 15, 2020

The performances from Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, and Amy Adams in The Fighter are the very definition of a masterclass in acting.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 3, 2020

It's pretty obvious which is more interesting.

| Original Score: 3.8/5 | Nov 5, 2019

Russell has taken something tired and familiar and made it rich and exciting once again.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 7, 2019

Bale is the real star of The Fighter -- giving a career performance as a man still living off past glory.

| Original Score: A- | May 8, 2019

This is Bale's movie. The film is at its very best when the Russell's camera is trained upon his hyperactive, ego centric muse.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 6, 2018

The Fighter is, if not a champion film for all time, a very good, poignant, and commendable expression of its era-postindustrial working-class urban America, bereft of history as it is bereft of jobs, strong unions, pride in one's work.

| Nov 5, 2018