Raging Bull (1980)
★★★★ — Raging Bull (1980)
My favourite sports film isn't about triumph. It isn't about heart, or grit, or the underdog clawing his way to glory while the crowd roars and the horns swell. It's about a man who gets in his own way at every turn, who poisons every relationship he touches, who takes more punishment from his own demons than any opponent ever managed to land on him. That's Raging Bull, and I genuinely think it's one of the greatest films ever made.
Robert De Niro gives what might be the greatest performance of his career here, and I don't say that lightly. The physical commitment alone is staggering. He trained under Jake La Motta himself to get the boxing right, then put on well over sixty pounds to play the older, broken-down version of the man. But it's not the body transformation that floors you. It's the eyes. There's a coiled, watchful menace to his La Motta that never quite relaxes, even in the quieter domestic scenes. You're always waiting for the next explosion, and when it comes, it comes hard. That's not acting in the conventional sense. It's closer to possession.
Martin Scorsese directs with the same furious energy his subject brings to the ring. The decision to shoot in black and white is one of the great choices in modern cinema. It strips everything back, removes any glamour that might soften the edges, and gives the film the feel of something documentary and inevitable. The boxing sequences are extraordinary, genuinely unlike anything else I've seen, all sweat and slow motion and the sickening crack of leather on bone. But the scenes outside the ring hit just as hard. The domestic violence, the jealousy, the paranoia. That's where the real damage gets done.
What makes Raging Bull so powerful is what it refuses to do. It refuses to excuse La Motta. It refuses to romanticise him. It doesn't ask you to root for him in any simple way, and it doesn't offer a redemptive arc in the Hollywood sense. He was brilliant in the ring and a wreck outside of it, volatile and self-destructive and almost impossible to love. The film shows you that clearly, honestly, without flinching. Dissecting its subject rather than celebrating him takes a kind of courage that you don't always find in biographical pictures.
I've spent a fair bit of time with Scorsese's work across this blog, from his next film to Gangs of New York (2002), and the range is remarkable. But for my money, this is the peak. Shot for shot, scene for scene, there's very little in his filmography that matches it. And De Niro, who also turns up memorably in a film that also stars De Niro from a few years later, would never quite reach these heights again, which tells you something about just how singular this performance is.
The fact that it didn't sweep the Oscars the year it was released still baffles me, if I'm honest. History has been kinder than the Academy was. Most serious conversations about the form eventually come back to Raging Bull, and rightly so. It's bleak, uncomfortable, and at times genuinely painful to watch. It's also, in its own bruised and battered way, extraordinary.
Four and a half stars. A knockout on every level.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 1980 | Watched: 2025-05-14
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Martin Scorsese: Italianamerican (1974) · The King of Comedy (1982) · Gangs of New York (2002) · Cape Fear (1991)
More with Robert De Niro: The Untouchables (1987) · The King of Comedy (1982) · Shark Tale (2004) · Little Fockers (2010)
More from the 1980s: Nightmare City (1980) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Style Wars (1983) · Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
More history: Apocalypto (2006) · Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury (2013) · Harakiri (1962) · Night and Fog (1956)
