Most boxing movies ask whether their fighter can win. Raging Bull asks what happens when winning doesn't fix anything. Martin Scorsese's film follows Jake LaMotta through championship fights, family arguments, jealousy, violence and eventually the collapse of the life he built around himself. Robert De Niro doesn't play LaMotta as an uncomplicated sporting hero. He's frightening, insecure, funny, stubborn and frequently deeply unpleasant. That's precisely why the boxing works. Every time Jake steps into the ring, we're watching the one place where the rage consuming the rest of his life actually has somewhere legitimate to go. And even there, it eventually isn't enough.
The Story
Inside The Fight
Jake LaMotta is a fiercely determined middleweight boxer whose aggression makes him formidable inside the ring but increasingly destructive outside it. As his career rises, Jake's jealousy, suspicion and violent temper begin poisoning his relationships with his wife Vickie and his brother Joey. Championship success cannot control the anger driving him, and the qualities that make Jake almost impossible to break in the ring threaten to leave him completely alone outside it. Based on the life and memoir of former middleweight champion Jake LaMotta, Raging Bull turns the traditional boxing story inside out.
THE FIGHTER
Jake LaMotta Is Nothing Like The Usual Boxing-Movie Hero
Rocky Balboa makes you want to stand up and cheer.
Jake LaMotta frequently makes you want to look away.
That's what separates Raging Bull from almost every conventional boxing movie.
Jake possesses many of the qualities we'd normally celebrate in a fighter. He's incredibly tough. He's determined. He refuses to stay down.
But Scorsese refuses to separate those qualities from the man carrying them.
The stubbornness that keeps Jake moving forward inside the ropes becomes something darker when he brings it home.
Raging Bull isn't asking us to worship its fighter.
It's asking us to understand what fighting has become to him.
THE RING
Raging Bull Makes Every Boxing Match Feel Different
The boxing scenes don't behave like straightforward sporting coverage.
The camera gets close. Sound changes. Time stretches and contracts. Smoke, flashes, blood and movement turn the ring into something that seems to exist inside Jake's head as much as inside an arena.
That's important because Raging Bull isn't really interested in giving us a neat record of punches landed.
It's interested in how those punches feel.
One fight can feel triumphant.
Another can feel horrifying.
And sometimes Jake appears more comfortable being hit repeatedly in front of thousands of people than he does having an ordinary conversation with somebody who loves him.
THE PERFORMANCE
Robert De Niro Doesn't Let Jake LaMotta Hide Behind The Gloves
Robert De Niro's performance is remembered for its physical transformation, but concentrating only on that misses what makes it so powerful.
The real transformation happens in Jake's behaviour.
Watch the suspicion.
The tiny questions.
The way jealousy starts building before Jake has any evidence that something is wrong.
Then watch how quickly insecurity becomes anger.
De Niro won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the performance, while the film also won for Thelma Schoonmaker's editing.
Jake can absorb punishment almost indefinitely.
What he can't seem to do is trust another human being.
THE BROTHER
Joe Pesci Gives Jake Someone Who Can Actually Stand In His Corner
Joey LaMotta isn't merely Jake's brother.
For much of the movie, he's the person trying to translate Jake to the rest of the world.
Joe Pesci brings a completely different energy alongside De Niro. He's quicker, sharper and capable of challenging Jake in ways other characters can't.
But there's only so much even Joey can absorb.
As Jake's paranoia intensifies, one of the most important relationships in his life becomes another opponent to fight.
That's the tragedy running underneath the boxing.
Jake keeps winning battles while destroying his own corner.
AFI lists Pesci alongside De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Frank Vincent and Nicholas Colasanto among the principal cast.
THE LEGACY
Raging Bull Proved A Boxing Movie Didn't Need A Hero
There are boxing films about underdogs.
There are boxing films about champions.
And then there's Raging Bull.
Its achievement is taking all the familiar ingredients — training, ambition, title fights, defeat and comeback — and refusing to turn them into an inspirational sports story.
The opponent Jake can never properly beat is himself.
More than four decades later, its reputation extends far beyond fighting cinema. In the BFI's 2022 Sight and Sound poll, Raging Bull ranked joint 22nd in the directors' poll and joint 129th among critics.
For Fighter Movie, though, its importance is even simpler.
If we're building a serious library about fighting cinema, this film has to be in it.
Fighting Cast
In The Corner
““Raging Bull isn't really about whether Jake LaMotta can take a punch. It's about what happens when fighting becomes the only language a man truly understands.””