Dec. 25 (Christmas Day) gets all the press, so it tends to overshadow its sibling Dec. 26, the second day of Christmas.[1] In traditionally Catholic countries, Dec. 26 is St. Stephen’s Day, honoring the first Christian martyr[2] but in British Commonwealth countries, Dec. 26 is Boxing Day. Traditionally, Boxing Day was a day when servants, tradespeople, and the poor were presented with gifts. Starting in the Victorian Era, the wealthy would distribute boxes of gifts to the needy (in keeping with St. Stephen’s good works for the poor) while the household servants were given the day off to spend with their families (since the servants had to work Christmas Eve and Day). Later, this evolved into a day for giving gifts to people in the service industry, including mail carriers, doormen, porters, and other tradesmen.
We previously examined the controversy surrounding Christmas movies and whether or not Die Hard (1988) is a Christmas movie.[3] To avoid a similar controversy surrounding Boxing Day movies[4] we’ll pivot and go the direction that most people think Boxing Day already celebrates – punching people in the face. To do that, we searched the interwebs for lists of the best boxing movies of all time and found quite a few.[5] We aggregated ten of these “best of” lists to deliver to you the ultimate Boxing Day boxing move list, including the 65 best and most popular[6] pugilism[7]-related motion pictures.
Not surprisingly, Rocky (1976), and Raging Bull (1980) top the list,[8] with Raging Bull taking the lead (with more Number 1 votes than any other movie). Surprising (perhaps only to me) were the appearances of directors Ken Burns, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stanley Kubrick (twice) and actors Danny Kaye and Buster Keaton (both for comedies). The oldest movie on the list, The Gordon Sisters Boxing (1901), is also the shortest (clocking in at just 2 minutes). The longest, Ken Burns’ Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004) is really more of a documentary television mini-series. All 65 of the works, including shorts, features, series, and episodes, are listed in the EIDR Content ID registry, available for your review at ui.eidr.org.
[1] Yes, that 2nd day of Christmas – 2 turtledoves and all.
[2] The first person to die because of his Christian faith. He was a Hellenistic Jew (of Greek descent) living in Jerusalem during the time of the Apostles. Stephen was oldest (and therefore most senior) of the first seven ordained deacons in the Christian church (assigned to care for the daily operations of the church while the Apostles focused on religious matters). He is remembered for his care of the poor and elderly and is now venerated as the patron of bricklayers and stonemasons, somewhat ironically since he was stoned to death in 36 ce.
[3] It does take place during the Christmas season and Christmas elements (decorations, presents, etc.) are featured, but it was released in July and has little to do with peace on earth, goodwill towards men, or finding the true meaning of Christmas – plus it has much more swearing and open gunplay than your traditional Christmas movie.
[4] IMDb lists well over 100 different movies and TV episodes with “Boxing Day” in the title, but few appear to focus on the Boxing Day spirit or the true meaning of Boxing Day, so we won’t attempt to parse which are and which aren’t proper Boxing Day movies.
[5] Including a surprising entry from AARP (the American Association of Retired Persons) – clearly, retirement is not what I expected it would be.
[6] Not always the same thing.
[7] From the Latin pugil (for “fist”) plus the suffix -ism from the Greek -ismós and the Latin -ismus (for “taking side with” or “imitation of”) to mean “fist-fighter” (as opposed to wrestler, etc.). Boxing is also known as “the sweet science,” coined in 1813 by sports journalist Pierce Egan to describe boxers who take a technical approach to boxing by analyzing their opponent and establishing a fight strategy that allows them to finish the fight without suffering significant injury.
[8] The only shows to appear on every “best of” boxing movie list we reviewed.