Dir. Peter Farrelly · 2026 · 127 min · in cinemas
Sylvester Stallone is a struggling actor in New York with a script he believes in and one condition: he will not sell it unless he plays the lead. I Play Rocky is the story of how Rocky got made, written by Peter Gamble and directed by Peter Farrelly, with Anthony Ippolito as the young Stallone, AnnaSophia Robb, Tracy Letts, Matt Dillon, Stephan James as Carl Weathers, and Jay Duplass as the director John Avildsen. Stallone had no hand in it.
Almost every review starts in the same place: Ippolito. Critics describe a voice and a walk that land, and several say there is real feeling underneath the impression rather than just mimicry. Slashfilm calls the performance uncanny; The Film Stage goes further and calls it star-making. The first stretch, the underdog hustle, gets the warmest notices, along with some playful jokes about how films get made and a screwball-style set piece that suits a director who made his name in comedy. The production history is genuinely good material, and even the film's harsher critics concede that.
The complaints are just as consistent. The tone is broad and sentimental, helped along by a heavy score that includes new Andrew Bird songs. Supporting characters are described as one-note, Stallone himself is written as close to flawless, and the drama runs short of tension as a result. The visuals are called flat, with a streaming-movie look except where the film copies the look of the original. And because it takes liberties with Stallone's own account, people who know the story well may find the dramatisation both familiar and flattering.
Peter Farrelly's broad, mawkish, overlong movie really should have been a documentary.
Simon Crook, Time Out
That is where the critics split. Some read a rousing, light crowd-pleaser; others read a hollow imitation that mostly makes you want to rewatch the film it celebrates. Nick Schager at The Daily Beast is the most hostile, arguing it does the original a disservice. Chase Hutchinson at TheWrap is more measured but lands in a similar place. Aggregate scores reflect a middle: around 83% positive on Rotten Tomatoes but a lukewarm 62 on Metacritic. A score of three out of five sits in that gap: a likeable lead and a good story, told without much risk.
Tick what applies. This is a reading of the reviews, not a promise.
Pick any that sound like you.
Fans who want a friendly night out and a strong central turn will probably be fine. Anyone hoping for something as rough-edged and surprising as the film it is about, or who has already read the making-of stories, may feel the critics' shrug. The runtime is just over two hours.
The film opens in UK and Irish cinemas on 6 November 2026, according to its UK distributor, and has a limited US release the same day before expanding later in the month. Availability and dates vary by country, so check your local cinema listings.