- “31 Days of Oscar” on TCM – Day 18: On March 2, Turner Classic Movies’ Academy Award-pedigreed primetime lineup consists of five dramas set in the scuzzy world of boxing: Golden Boy, Champion, The Harder They Fall, Somebody Up There Likes Me, and Fat City.
‘31 Days of Oscar’ on TCM – Day 18 (primetime): Golden Boy and Somewhere Up There Likes Me among 5 boxing dramas
Turner Classic Movies’ 2026 edition of “31 Days of Oscar” continues on Monday, March 2, with the primetime/late night showing of five Oscar-winning or -nominated titles set in the dingy world of boxing. (See TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar 2026 – Day 18: Boxing” primetime schedule further below. Most entries should remain available for a while on the Watch TCM app.)
One notable omission: Martin Scorsese’s Best Picture Oscar nominee Raging Bull, starring Best Actor winner Robert De Niro. Some consider this black-and-white Jake La Motta biopic the finest movie of the 1980s. (To each their own, of course – but it’s not.) Note: TCM did present it at last year’s “31 Days of Oscar.”
And what may well be the best movie about a pugilist, Robert Wise’s unyielding 1949 drama The Set-Up, couldn’t have been included in TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” lineup because it didn’t receive a single Academy Award nod. Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter star. Screenplay by Art Cohn, based on Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 narrative poem.
Below is a brief overview of each “31 Days of Oscar – Day 18: Boxing” primetime/late night listing, in chronological order.
Golden Boy (1939)
Based on Clifford Odets’ 1937 play, Rouben Mamoulian’s boxing drama Golden Boy stars newcomer William Holden as the title character: An aspiring violinist who, in order to earn some hard-needed cash in the Land of Plenty, takes to boxing.
As a character named Lorna Moon,* Best Actress Academy Award nominee Barbara Stanwyck (Stella Dallas, 1937)† is the woman tasked with ensuring that the young, talented fighter will not abandon the ring – and those violin strings be damned. Off screen, Stanwyck has been credited with saving Holden’s Hollywood career, as Columbia was reportedly ready to fire him from Golden Boy.
As for the on-screen drama, Golden Boy takes the soap opera route every now and then, but watching William Holden as a young man is enough to arouse one’s interest – his boxing violinist looks like the son of his Sunset Blvd. (1950) screenwriter and the (great-?)grandson of his The Wild Bunch (1969) outlaw – while top-billed Barbara Stanwyck, whenever she finds her way into the narrative, keeps one’s interest alight.
Golden Boy earned Victor Young an Oscar nomination in the Best Original Score category.
Note: Surely it’s no coincidence that Warner Bros.’ 1946 movie version of Humoresque, directed by Jean Negulesco and co-written by Clifford Odets, has a number of elements in common with Golden Boy.
* Lorna Moon was the professional pseudonym of Scottish author and screenwriter Nora Helen Wilson Low (1886–1930), whose big-screen credits include The Affairs of Anatol (1921), starring Wallace Reid; Mr. Wu (1927), starring Lon Chaney; and Love (1927), starring John Gilbert and Greta Garbo.
† Barbara Stanwyck would receive three other Best Actress Oscar nods: Ball of Fire (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). She would take home an Honorary Oscar in 1982, when she dedicated her golden statuette to her Golden Boy costar, who, while intoxicated, had suffered a fall that resulted in his bleeding to death at age 63 in his Santa Monica, California, apartment in November of the previous year.
Champion (1949)
Produced by Stanley Kramer and directed by Mark Robson from soon-to-be blacklistee Carl Foreman’s screenplay – based on Ring Lardner’s* 1924 short story – Champion stars Best Actor Oscar nominee Kirk Douglas as a prizefighter who punches his way to the top by using his opponents in the ring as stand-ins for his inner demons. Warning: There’s a price to pay.
Despite its behind-the-scenes credentials, Champion doesn’t quite reach the heights it should have because of Douglas’ uncontrolled scenery-chewing. But the alluring female cast is well worth checking out: Marilyn Maxwell, Ruth Roman, Lola Albright.
* The sports columnist and short story writer Ring Lardner was the father of Hollywood Ten member Ring Lardner Jr. (M*A*S*H).
The Harder They Fall (1956)
Another boxing drama directed by Mark Robson, the 1956 Columbia release The Harder They Fall stars Best Actor Oscar winner Humphrey Bogart (The African Queen, 1951), in his final role, as a down-and-out reporter now working as the public relations man of a corrupt boxing promoter (Rod Steiger).
Oscar-nominated black-and-white cinematography by Burnett Guffey.
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Believe it or not, Somebody Up There Likes Me was directed by the same guy – Robert Wise – who had handled The Set-Up back in 1949. But it’s true.
Adapted by Ernest Lehman from middleweight boxer Rocky Graziano’s 1955 autobiography, Somebody Up There Likes Me stars a patently miscast Paul Newman as Graziano, who goes from street hoodlum to boxing champion while finding romance in the form of cute, Italian-accented Pier Angeli, whose name does full justice to her looks and manner.
Somebody somewhere up there may have liked Graziano well enough to show him the way – “Lo! Smash his right eye! Now his left!” – but somebodies down here may find this high-fructose-corn-syrupy Metro-Golwyn-Mayer release hard to digest.
Somebody Up There Likes Me topped two Academy Award categories: Best Black-and-White Cinematography (Joseph Ruttenberg) and Best Film Editing (Albert Akst). Additionally, it was shortlisted for Best Black and White Art Direction (art direction: Cedric Gibbons and Malcolm Brown; set decoration: Edwin B. Willis and F. Keogh Gleason).
Perry Como sings the title song, while future superstar Steve McQueen and others (see cast list further below) have small, mostly uncredited roles.
Note: Eileen Heckart made her big-screen debut as Rocky Graziano’s mother in Somebody Up There Likes Me. That same year, she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nod for Mervyn LeRoy’s blockbuster The Bad Seed. Her outstanding characterization as Edward Albert Jr.’s overly protective mother in Milton Katselas’ 1972 comedy-drama Butterflies Are Free finally earned her an Oscar statuette.
Fat City (1972)
Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Susan Tyrrell* delivers a harrowing portrayal of an alcoholic – vulgar, spiteful, tragic – in veteran director John Huston and screenwriter Leonard Gardner’s unsparing drama Fat City, the story (based on Gardner’s 1969 novel) of two prizefighters (Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges) headed in opposite trajectories: The former is on his way out, the latter, in A Star Is Born style, is on his way up.
Note: While on TCM several years ago, The Big Easy and Sea of Love leading woman Ellen Barkin remarked that Fat City was one of the films that most influenced her decision to become an actress.
* As mentioned further up, the equally deserving winner that year was Eileen Heckart for Butterflies Are Free.
Immediately below is TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar – Day 18: Boxing” schedule.
‘31 Days of Oscar – Day 18: Boxing’: TCM primetime schedule (EST) – March 2
8:00 PM The Harder They Fall (1956)
Director: Mark Robson.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger, Jan Sterling, Max Baer, Jersey Joe Walcott, Mike Lane, Edward Andrews, Jack Albertson.
109m10:00 PM Fat City (1972)
Director: John Huston.
Cast: Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell, Candy Clark, Nicholas Colasanto, Art Aragon, Curtis Cokes.
96m12:00 AM Champion (1949)
Director: Mark Robson.
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Marilyn Maxwell, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart, Ruth Roman, Lola Albright, Harry Shannon, Ralph Sanford, Esther Howard.
99m2:00 AM Golden Boy (1939)
Director: Rouben Mamoulian.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Menjou, William Holden, Lee J. Cobb, Joseph Calleia, Sam Levene, Edward Brophy, Don Beddoe.
99m4:00 AM Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Director: Robert Wise.
Cast: Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Everett Sloane, Eileen Heckart, Sal Mineo, Sammy White, Arch Johnson, Theodore Newton, Steve McQueen, Dean Jones, George C. Scott, Robert Loggia, Frank Campanella.
113m
“Oscar Movies on TCM: Boxing” notes
“31 Days of Oscar on TCM: Boxing” schedule via the TCM website.
Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden, and Adolphe Menjou Golden Boy image: Columbia Pictures.
“Oscar Movies on TCM: Boxing” last modified in March 2026.