The 13 best Sylvester Stallone roles
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Sylvester Stallone —the artist colloquially known as Sly — is the only American actor to have a number one box office hit in each of the last six decades. A three-time Academy Award nominee, the actor, writer, director, and producer wrote his own ticket to the big time with 1976's Best Picture Oscar winner, Rocky, and quickly proved he was more than just a pair of bulging biceps.
With recent releases including his latest actioner — the dark superhero film Samaritan — on Amazon Prime Video, a returning role in the upcoming Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and his new starring role in Tulsa King on Paramount+, the 76-year-old icon shows no signs of slowing down. Below, EW takes a look at 13 of Stallone's best roles, in no particular order. Read on to find out which contenders made it to the final round.
John Spartan - <i>Demolition Man</i> (1993)
The year is 1996. Los Angeles is a dystopian hellscape terrorized by the nefarious super villain Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes). When LAPD Sgt. John Spartan (Stallone) botches an operation to rescue hostages from Phoenix's clutches, both men are sentenced to suspended animation and subliminal rehabilitation in California's Cryo-Penitentiary. Awakened in 2032, "the 21st century's most dangerous cop" and "most ruthless criminal" will face-off once again to determine the future of the utopian mega city of San Angeles.
The 1993 sci-fi hit allowed Stallone to show off not only his action movie chops, but his comedic ones as well. As former EW critic Owen Gleiberman wrote, "He's a winning comedian in this movie, rolling his eyes at a world that no longer places any value on testosterone." With a charming supporting performance by a then-unknown Sandra Bullock as his wide-eyed sidekick, Lt. Lenina Huxley, Demolition Man is a must-watch for fans of Stallone's action movie oeuvre.
Marion Cobretti - <i>Cobra</i> (1986)
Lieutenant Marion Cobretti is an LAPD cop who doesn't play by the rules. "Crime is the disease" and he's "the cure;" the type of rogue toothpick-chewing, beer-chugging policeman who gets results — firing off one-liners as easily as he does bullets. Sound familiar? While, yes, this could be the plot of any high-octane extravaganza from the '80s and '90s, the sheer lunacy of this script makes this one of the most enjoyable entries in Stallone's action hero career.
A social Darwinist cult seeds chaos throughout Los Angeles to separate the weak from the strong. When model Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielsen) witnesses their leader — the serial killer "The Night Slasher" (Brian Earl Thompson) — commit murder, Cobretti is tasked with keeping her safe. The screenplay for Cobra — written by Stallone — is based on ideas the star originally had for Beverly Hills Cop before exiting that film over creative differences. While the script didn't lead to a second Best Original Screenplay Oscar nom, the mix of slasher and action movie elements has made it a cult classic of the genre.
Deke DaSilva - <i>Nighthawks</i> (1981)
Stallone's first lead action-thriller role finds him partnered up with a post-The Empire Strikes Back Billy Dee Williams as they chase international terrorist Wulfgar (Rutger Hauer) through the streets of New York. Sly's Sergeant Deke DaSilva is introduced in drag in one of the film's most memorable scenes, when he goes undercover to entrap a couple of muggers.
Featuring several exciting cat-and-mouse chase sequences, Nighthawks' gritty aesthetic is a bridge between Stallone's more grounded earlier work and his later transformation into an untouchable cinematic warrior.
Gabe Walker - <i>Cliffhanger</i> (1993)
National Parks Service ranger Gabe Walker is haunted by his failure to save his best friend's (Michael Rooker) girlfriend (Michelle Joyner) after her harness breaks during a climb in the Colorado Rockies. Eight months later, he receives a fake distress call from a group of thieves — led by a scenery-chewing John Lithgow — and is forced to help them recover $100 million dollars from a crashed U.S. Treasury cargo jet — or die trying.
The star told EW in 1993 he had to overcome his own acrophobia to complete the death-defying, vertigo-inducing stunts. The gamble paid off, as the Renny Harlin-directed Cliffhanger was the beginning of a box office comeback for the leading man after a string of disappointments. In his review of the film, EW critic Owen Gleiberman wrote Sly "has a wonderfully expressive face…it's exhilarating to behold the speed and sheer balletic confidence with which Stallone swings his overly-muscled body around."
Lincoln Hawk - <i>Over the Top</i> (1987)
This appropriately titled arm-wrestling drama — scored by, of all people, disco legend Giorgio Moroder — may have been pinned by audiences at the time of its release, but it has gone on to become a cult classic in the years since. Stallone plays Lincoln Hawk, a truck driver who enters the World Arm Wrestling Championship in Las Vegas to win the cash needed to start his own trucking company — and win back his estranged son, Michael (David Mendenhall).
As he journeys cross-country to the competition, Hawk also contends with his father-in-law (Robert Loggia), who seeks to drive a wedge between the pair and gain custody of Michael. Billed as a sports spectacle, Over the Top is actually a heartwarming family drama about a father reconnecting with his son, and features one of Stallone's most touching performances.
King Shark - <i>The Suicide Squad</i> (2021)
James Gunn's sequel/soft reboot of the DC universe franchise finds government agent Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) once again assembling a ragtag team of supervillains to save the world. In this installment, Sly is the voice of squad muscle King Shark, a giant humanoid predator with a taste for destruction.
The Suicide Squad standout eats a few bad guys, and makes a few friends, along the way — and becomes a fan favorite in the process. Stallone gives a winning comedic performance, and imbues the scene-stealing maneater with what EW critic Leah Greenblatt called "monosyllabic meathead longing."
Barney Ross - <i>The Expendables</i> (2010)
In The Expendables, Stallone returns to the director's chair to bring together some of the biggest stars of the action genre for a Dirty Dozen-style team-up. Their mission: take down the dictator of a fictional South American country while kicking as many butts, and taking as many names, as humanly possible.
Sly reunites with his Rocky IV co-star, Dolph Lundgren, alongside a dream team of cinematic warriors such as Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Terry Crews, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 2010s hit was a return to box office success for the star, and showed that 30 years after his action debut, he's still got it.
Stanley Rosiello - <i>The Lords of Flatbush</i> (1974)
The Lords of Flatbush tells the tale of the titular leather-clad foursome as they rumble in the streets of Brooklyn, fall in and out of love, and come of age. In his leading man debut, Stallone plays Stanley Rosiello, the muscle of the group, who is forced into maturity when his girlfriend, Frannie (Maria Smith), reveals they are going to have a baby.
This low-budget independent film — distributed by Columbia Pictures — was part of a wave of '50s greaser-inspired nostalgia in the 1970s that included American Graffiti, Grease, and Happy Days. The film's most lasting impact, however, may be the influence it had on co-star Henry Winkler, who used Stallone as inspiration for his iconic portrayal of the Fonz on the classic ABC sitcom.
Johnny Kovak - <i>F.I.S.T.</i> (1978)
As Johnny Kovak, Stallone plays a 1930s Jimmy Hoffa-esque figure who rises from the working class of Cleveland to become a national union leader. After he unfairly loses his job, Kovak joins the Federation of Inter-State Truckers (F.I.S.T.), and makes a series of moral compromises on his road from exploited loading-dock worker to powerful labor president.
F.IS.T. was Sly's follow-up to his Oscar-nominated turn in Rocky, and while it didn't set the box office on fire, he received strong reviews for the Norman Jewison (Moonstruck)-directed, Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct)-penned film. Stallone would spend the next decade-plus in oiled-up action poses, but this historical drama is a peek at the career path that could've been.
Freddy Heflin - <i>Cop Land</i> (1997)
In this gritty neo-noir helmed by Logan director James Mangold, Stallone covered his trademark muscles and gained 40 pounds to portray Freddy Heflin, the lame duck sheriff of a New Jersey town inhabited by corrupt NYPD cops. After years of turning a blind eye to the duplicity around him, he chooses to take a stand and investigate the men he once idolized.
The actor anchors Cop Land's stellar ensemble — which features Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Annabella Sciorra, and the late Ray Liotta — and delivers one of the most understated, affecting performances of his career.
Rocky Balboa - <i>Creed</i> (2015)
While technically the same character from Rocky, Stallone's role in the Creed series is a different iteration of the Pride of Philadelphia. No longer the world-famous pugilist at the center of the ring, he is a retired widower running a small Italian restaurant named after his late wife, Adrian (Talia Shire). Having suffered a series of devastating personal losses, and estranged from his son, Bobby (Milo Ventimiglia), he is a shadow of his former self, unwilling to fight the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma spreading through his body.
When Apollo Creed's son from an extramarital affair, Adonis (Michael B. Jordan), comes out of the woodwork looking for a coach to help him fulfill his dreams of becoming a boxer, the one-time champ steps into the role of trainer and finds a reason to keep fighting. This reinvention of the beloved character garnered Sly his second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and his first Golden Globe win.
John Rambo - <i>First Blood</i> (1982)
Spanning 37 years, five films, video games, comic books, and even a 1986 animated series — Rambo: The Force of Freedom — John Rambo is not only one of Stallone's most famous roles, but one of the most famous action heroes of all time. Before Rambo morphed into a human terminator in later installments, however, he started out as a Vietnam veteran struggling with PTSD.
When the Green Beret is tormented by a corrupt police force in the Pacific Northwest, it triggers a flashback to his time as a POW, and a violent confrontation in the mountains ensues. Sly's depiction of the one-man army is an explosive mix of his trademark physicality and a slowly escalating rage at a country that turned him into a killer, and then turned its back on him.
Rocky Balboa - <i>Rocky</i> (1976)
Is there a more iconic Sylvester Stallone character than Rocky Balboa? While the popularity of Rambo certainly gives the Italian Stallion a run for his money, the underdog from Philly is the role that catapulted him onto the A-list. One of EW's 25 best inspirational movies, this working-class fable of a small-time boxer who gets a shot at the big time brought him multiple Academy Award nominations (and a win for Best Picture), and launched not one, but two franchises.
The title fight with heavyweight champ Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) remains the most thrilling, edge-of-your seat sequence in his filmography. Add in the iconic run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the most famous training montage in film history, and his classic "Yo, Adrian" catchphrase, and it's easy to see why Rocky knocks out the competition. No matter how many cliffs he hangs from or villainous goons he violently dispatches, Stallone will always be Rocky Balboa in the minds of moviegoers. His contributions to the sport through the Rocky franchise even landed him a spot in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
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