Sylvester Stallone has made a name for himself as one of the greatest action movie stars of all time, but plenty of highly underrated entries in his filmography need more attention. While Stallone will always be known for characters like Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, he’s far from the kind of one-dimensional performer he’s sometimes made out to be. Throughout his career, Stallone surprised viewers with incredible performances in heartfelt dramas, screwball comedies, and intense neo-noir thrillers.
Many of the best Sylvester Stallone movies have become touchstones in modern popular culture, while other fantastic films have been doomed to obscurity. While some maligned movies, such as comedies like Oscar, have failed to gain the reappraisal they so rightfully deserve, other underrated entries have been recognized by cinephiles yet remain woefully unknown by mainstream audiences. Across his vast and varied catalog, there were plenty of underrated Stallone movies that viewers should give a second chance.
| Movie | RT Critics Score | Audience Score |
|---|---|---|
| Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) | 14% | 21% |
| Daylight (1996) | 26% | 37% |
| Escape Plan (2013) | 50% | 55% |
| Bullet To The Head (2012) | 45% | 39% |
| Demolition Man (1993) | 63% | 67% |
| Cobra (1986) | 17% | 43% |
| Oscar (1991) | 11% | 63% |
| Paradise Alley (1978) | 40% | 44% |
| Nighthawks (1981) | 71% | 55% |
| Cop Land (1997) | 75% | 67% |
10 Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)
Sylvester Stallone as Sergeant Joe Bomowski
Let’s be absolutely clear here, describing Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot as one of Sylvester Stallone’s most underrated movies does not mean it’s some forgotten cinematic masterpiece. This was a movie littered with issues, but the truth must be faced, and looking back on it more than 30 years later, it’s not nearly as bad as its maligned reputation suggests. In truth, there was strong comedic chemistry between Stallone and his co-star Estelle Getty as his overbearing mother and plenty of laughs throughout this overly criticized movie.
Stallone himself may disagree with this reappraisal of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, as he described it as “maybe one of the worst films in the entire solar system, including alien productions we’ve never seen” (via Ain’t It Cool News.) Both Stallone and Getty took home Worst Actor Golden Raspberry awards for their performances, which felt like unfair overkill against a comedy movie that, at its worst, could be described as mediocre. The truth should be faced, as critics must admit this was a fun Stallone comedy that doesn’t deserve its bottom-of-the-barrel bad reputation.
9 Daylight (1996)
Sylvester Stallone as Chief Kit Latura
As one of Sylvester Stallone’s greatest 1990s movies, Daylight rarely gets spoken about in the conversation surrounding the actor’s best work. As an engaging, tense, and well-paced look at a serious crisis situation, Daylight saw Stallone play Kit Latura, a disgraced former New York City Emergency Medical Services chief trying to save survivors trapped in a tunnel. After an explosion caused a Manhattan tunnel to collapse from both sides, Kit pulled out all the stops and put his life on the line to try and get the trapped citizens out alive.
Stallone delivered an earnest and sympathetic performance that powerfully showcased his dramatic acting chops.
While Daylight received negative reviews upon release, Stallone delivered an earnest and sympathetic performance that powerfully showcased his dramatic acting chops. Even though the story was predictable and Daylight was full of disaster action movie tropes and clichés, there were also strong visuals and a surprisingly poignant story. This was the perfect vehicle for its star in the 1990s, and this unloved Stallone movie deserves far more praise than it ever got.
8 Escape Plan (2013)
Sylvester Stallone as Ray Breslin
The fact that Escape Plan has been so slept on truly boggles the mind, as seeing its two lead stars sharing the screen would have been an action movie lover’s dream in the 1980s. This movie paired Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger for an epic prison break story about a security tester incarcerated in the world’s most secure and secretive facility. With solid chemistry between its two leads, Escape Plan was a firm indication that the Stallone and Schwarzenegger feud was well and truly in the past.
Although Stallone and Schwarzenegger had already appeared in
The Expendables
together in 2010,
Escape Plan
was their first true feature-length pairing.
It’s true that Escape Plan failed to match the heights of either Stallone or Schwarzenegger’s best work, but it’s still a lot of fun and a highly underrated entry in both of their catalogs. As the world’s best escape artist, Stallone befriended Schwarzenegger’s character while imprisoned, and the two concocted a thrilling plan to make their escape. Not only did Escape Plan lead to a brand new Stallone franchise, but it also felt like a love letter to the star’s glory days and a showcase that they still had the skills needed to pull off one last big job.
7 Bullet To The Head (2012)
Sylvester Stallone as Jimmy Bobo
From legendary action director Walter Hill, Bullet to the Head was an incredible, underrated Stallone movie about a hitman and a cop forced to work together to bring down a corrupt businessman and save their doomed lives. Based on the French graphic novel Du plomb dans la tête by Matz and Colin Wilson, Stallone embodied his 1980s action-hero persona in a trashy thriller that echoed some of his greatest work. With fantastic supporting roles from Jason Momoa and Christian Slater, it’s a shame that Bullet to the Head isn’t far better known by those not following Stallone’s career.
As a film packed with punching, shooting, explosions, and one-liners, Bullet to the Head more than delivered on its promise of Stallone-style action movie carnage. Similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Last Stand the following year, Bullet to the Head represented Stallone embracing his role as an elder statesman of action movies and choosing appropriate roles of an aging hero being forced to contend with much younger adversaries. Although it bombed at the box office, Bullet to the Head deserves a second look.
6 Demolition Man (1993)
Sylvester Stallone as John Spartan
Demolition Man has only become more relevant over the years, as its futuristic world of 2032 was categorized by virtual meetings, self-driving cars, and non-contact social greetings. Although things have not yet gone far enough that foul language has become a criminal offense, Demolition Man’s overly progressive imagined crimeless future was a fascinating contrast with so many dystopian stories of stilted humanity. Out of this context, two cryogenically frozen men from 1996, a risk-taking cop (Sylvester Stallone) and a deranged crime lord (Wesley Snipes), were thawed in the future and must face off against each other once again.
While Demolition Man was a commercial success, it has not had the kind of lasting power of Stallone’s best work and has failed to receive proper recognition for the prophetic nature of the world it envisioned. With Sandra Bullock in one of her earliest roles, Demolition Man featured great onscreen chemistry between herself and Stallone. Overall, Demolition Man was a terrifically fun movie that holds up incredibly as society shockingly creeps ever closer to the year it was set.
5 Cobra (1986)
Sylvester Stallone as Lieutenant Marion “Cobra” Cobretti
Sylvester Stallone gave one of his greatest action movie performances of the 1980s as the no-nonsense cop Lt. Marion Cobretti in Cobra. This story about a trigger-happy police officer investigating a string of crimes, including a mass shooting and hostage situation at an L.A. supermarket, was packed with violent spectacles of serious carnage. With a shockingly low critics score of just 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, Cobra was pure action movie fun that’s been misunderstood by reviewers and, when enjoyed on its own merits alone, was an astounding success.
With
Cobra
, Stallone distilled everything great about action movies during the 1980s into its purest form.
While there’s an argument that Stallone’s character in Cobra was one-dimensional, the lack of nuance was part of the point, as this outrageous action movie focused on non-stop thrills over narrative heft. With Cobra, Stallone distilled everything great about action movies during the 1980s into its purest form, resulting in a mess that was impossible to look away from. Cobra may not have been Citizen Kane, but it never pretended to be.
4 Oscar (1991)
Sylvester Stallone as Angelo “Snaps” Provolone
Oscar received overwhelmingly negative reviews when it was first released and stood among the most maligned movies in Sylvester Stallone’s entire filmography. However, this reputation was not fair, and watching the movie today, it’s hard to see what critics had such a problem with as Stallone gave an impressive comedic performance in a hilarious film that had more in common with screwball comedies of the past than the usual action fare he was known for. This was likely part of the problem, as Stallone strayed so far from his action-hero persona in Oscar that contemporary viewers had trouble accepting it.
From director John Landis, this lighthearted comedy featured Stallone as a gangster trying to keep the promise he gave his dying father to give up his life of crime while also dealing with the challenges of his wayward, promiscuous daughter, played by Marisa Tomei. As a pure farce, Oscar showcased a new dimension to Stallone’s skills as a performer and highlighted his talents as a comedian outside of tongue-in-cheek action movie one-liners. While Oscar ironically didn’t deserve any Academy Awards, it’s certainly in need of reappraisal by modern viewers.
3 Paradise Alley (1978)
Sylvester Stallone as Cosmo Carboni
Following Rocky’s smash success and Best Picture win in 1976, Sylvester Stallone truly had the world at his feet and could pursue whatever passion project he wanted. With this level of creative freedom, Stallone returned to his previously unproduced script and made the sports drama Paradise Alley. This story of three Italian American brothers in Hell’s Kitchen in the 1940s getting involved in the world of professional wrestling was an ambitious swing by Stallone, and although it crumbled under the weight of its lofty goals, it’s still a highly underrated and often forgotten Stallone movie.
Vincent Canby of the New York Times called Paradise Alley “a phony, attitudinizing, self-indulgent mess,” which, looking back, feels like a harsh takedown of a new movie star and first-time director attempting to spread his wings. Stallone put his heart and soul into Paradise Alley, and it was packed with interesting characters and an effective 1940s aesthetic. There was a lot to love in Paradise Alley, and more so than any other film, it was a showcase that Stallone was a true creative with ambitions to make movies of real depth and pathos.
2 Nighthawks (1981)
Sylvester Stallone as Sergeant Deke DaSilva
Before Rambo or Cobra, Sylvester Stallone’s first true action movie role was the highly underrated thriller Nighthawks. As a well-written, well-acted, and more grounded story of an undercover cop attempting to take down one of Europe’s most lethal terrorists, Nighthawks was an early indication of Stallone’s future as a major 1980s action movie star that was categorized by a brooding atmosphere and a unique sense of style. With incredible pacing and impressive character development, Nighthawks was a tense thriller that stands out as one of the most accomplished movies in Stallone’s entire back catalog.
As the NYPD detective DaSilva, Stallone’s compelling performance saw him chasing a vicious terrorist, played by Rutger Hauer, in an effective thriller that was truly ahead of its time. As only a modest hit upon release, looking back at Nighthawks now, it’s easy to see it as a forebearer to future tense and atmospheric thrillers, as its battle of the wits between a cop and terrorist narrative can be felt in everything from Die Hard to The Dark Knight. While Nighthawks does get its due from Stallone fans and cinephiles, it deserves more attention from mainstream viewers.
1 Cop Land (1997)
Sylvester Stallone as Sheriff Freddy Heflin
Sylvester Stallone gave his greatest dramatic performance in the criminally underrated neo-noir Cop Land, where he impressively held his own opposite cinematic greats like Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, and Ray Liotta. Even more impressive was that Stallone’s performance acted as the story’s beating heart and emotional core among such an all-star cast. Cop Land starred Stallone as a small-town sheriff in over his head in a conspiracy of corruption that was dense and tense and harkened back to some of the greatest crime classics ever made.
Cop Land slowly built up its richly imagined characters for a volatile story that rose above the average crime drama and was truly elevated by Stallone’s performance. With a much darker tone than almost anything else Stallone had ever attempted, Cop Land proved his credentials as a major star after the recent failures of Stop! Or My Will Shoot and Oscar. With plenty of underrated performances across his career, Cop Land was the movie that best encapsulated Stallone’s untapped potential and serious skills as a dramatic actor.
Source: Ain’t It Cool News, Rotten Tomatoes, New York Times
