Level 1 — Absolute Beginner

There is a new film in cinemas. The name of the film is I Play Rocky. It opened on November 6, 2026.

The film tells a true story. Fifty years ago, a young actor wrote a film about a boxer. The actor was Sylvester Stallone. The film was Rocky.

Stallone was poor. He had no money. He sold his dog because he could not buy dog food. But he was brave. He said no to a big offer because he wanted to act in his own film.

A young actor called Anthony Ippolito is Stallone in the new film. Critics like him very much. The film is 127 minutes long.

a film

A story you watch on a screen; also called a movie.

a cinema

A building where people go to watch films.

an actor

A person whose job is to act in films or plays.

a boxer

A person who fights with their hands as a sport.

poor

Having very little money.

brave

Not afraid to do something difficult.

a critic

A person whose job is to say if a film or book is good.

true

Real; something that really happened.

Level 2 — Elementary

A new film about one of Hollywood's most famous success stories arrived in American cinemas on Friday, November 6, 2026. It is called I Play Rocky, and it was released by Amazon MGM Studios in a small number of cinemas first. It will open across the whole country on November 20.

The story goes back to 1975. Sylvester Stallone was a struggling young actor in New York. He could not get auditions, he worked as an usher in a cinema, and at one point he sold his dog because he could not afford to feed it. In his free time he wrote a screenplay about a boxer from Philadelphia who gets one chance at the world title.

Two producers, Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, wanted to buy the script. But Stallone made one condition: he had to act in the main role himself. Nobody knew him, and the studio wanted a star. Stallone refused to change his mind, and in the end he won. Rocky came out in 1976 and became one of the most loved films ever made.

Peter Farrelly directed the new film and Peter Gamble wrote it. Anthony Ippolito plays Stallone, AnnaSophia Robb plays his wife Sasha Czack, and Matt Dillon plays his father. Reviews have been largely positive. The film has 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 62 out of 100 on Metacritic. Interestingly, Stallone himself said he was never contacted about the project and only learned about it by reading the news.

a release

The act of making a film available for people to watch.

struggling

Having a lot of difficulty, especially with money or work.

an audition

A short performance an actor gives to try to win a role.

an usher

A person who shows people to their seats in a cinema or theatre.

a screenplay

The written script of a film, with dialogue and scene directions.

a producer

A person who organises the money and the people needed to make a film.

a condition

Something that must happen before you agree to something else.

a review

A written opinion about how good a film, book or product is.

Level 3 — Intermediate

Hollywood has always been fond of stories about itself, but few are as irresistible as the one that opened in American cinemas on Friday, November 6, 2026. I Play Rocky, directed by Peter Farrelly from a screenplay by Peter Gamble, recreates the eighteen months in which a broke and largely unemployable actor named Sylvester Stallone talked his way into playing the lead in a film he had written himself. Amazon MGM Studios released it in limited cinemas, with a nationwide expansion scheduled for November 20.

The first half of the film is a portrait of genuine desperation. Stallone, played by Anthony Ippolito, ushers at a cinema, parks cars, takes softcore work to pay rent, and famously sells his dog because he cannot afford to feed it. He meets Sasha Czack, a fellow usher played by AnnaSophia Robb, who types his handwritten scripts and later becomes the set photographer on Rocky at his insistence. His father Frank, played by Matt Dillon, makes no secret of his disapproval.

The turning point arrives when Stallone leaves his script at the offices of producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, played by P. J. Byrne and Toby Kebbell. They see the commercial possibility immediately and take it to studio executive Sandy Maddox, played by Tracy Letts, who in Farrelly's telling is still sore about losing The Godfather to a rival studio. The producers want the script; they do not want its author in the starring role. Stallone's refusal to separate the two is the hinge on which his entire career turned.

The second half shifts gear into a recreation of the 1976 production itself, with Stephan James as Carl Weathers, Kiki Seto as Talia Shire, Robert Morgan as Burgess Meredith, and Jay Duplass as director John G. Avildsen. Even the invention of the Steadicam by Garrett Brown finds a place in the narrative. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2026, where it finished first runner-up for the People's Choice Award. It holds 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 41 reviews and 62 out of 100 on Metacritic. Variety's Owen Gleiberman praised the way it understands how the story of Rocky echoed Stallone's own struggle to get the film made; ScreenDaily's Robert Daniels was less convinced, calling it a walking piece of pastiche. Stallone, for his part, says he was never approached about the project, though he has indicated he would have been open to consulting.

irresistible

So attractive or appealing that it cannot be refused or ignored.

unemployable

Unable to find work, usually because nobody will hire you.

desperation

A state of having almost no hope, which can drive people to extreme action.

at one's insistence

Because that person demanded or firmly requested it.

a turning point

The moment at which a situation changes decisively.

a hinge

The single point on which something else depends or turns.

Level 4 — Advanced

The making-of film occupies a peculiar niche in American cinema: it flatters the industry that produces it while purporting to examine the industry's indifference to talent. I Play Rocky, which opened in limited release on Friday, November 6, 2026, ahead of a nationwide expansion on November 20, is unusually well served by its subject. Peter Farrelly's account of how Sylvester Stallone extracted a starring role from producers who wanted only his screenplay is, in structural terms, the same story as Rocky itself, and the film is clear-eyed enough to know it.

Anthony Ippolito, previously cast as a young Al Pacino in The Offer and now entrusted with a second mid-century icon, carries the picture without recourse to prosthetics or impersonation. Stallone had reportedly asked that an unknown play him, a request whose aptness is self-evident. The screenplay by Peter Gamble organises the material into two distinct movements. The first catalogues the grinding indignity of pre-Rocky Stallone: the ushering, the car-parking, the softcore work, the sale of his dog, the handwritten pages typed up by Sasha Czack, played with considerable weight by AnnaSophia Robb, and the steady disapproval of his father Frank, rendered by Matt Dillon. The second reconstructs the 1976 shoot with a supporting cast that includes Stephan James as Carl Weathers, Kiki Seto as Talia Shire, Robert Morgan as Burgess Meredith, and Jay Duplass as John G. Avildsen.

The dramatic fulcrum is a negotiation rather than a fight. Producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, played by P. J. Byrne and Toby Kebbell, recognise the script's commercial logic and bring it to studio executive Sandy Maddox, whom Tracy Letts invests with the specific bitterness of a man who let The Godfather go to a competitor. The studio's position was entirely rational: an unproven lead on an untested property is a compounding of risks. Stallone's position was not rational at all, and it prevailed. Farrelly's film is at its most interesting when it resists treating that outcome as inevitable.

Critical response has been warm rather than ecstatic, which seems about right. The film carries 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 41 reviews with an average of 7.1, and 62 on Metacritic from 19 critics. Owen Gleiberman in Variety credited it with grasping the karmic symmetry between Rocky's narrative and its author's circumstances. Robert Daniels in ScreenDaily dismissed it as an uninventive crowd-pleaser and a walking piece of pastiche, a charge the second half does rather invite. Monica Castillo at The A.V. Club graded it B-minus while suggesting it may be Farrelly's strongest solo feature, and Billy Penn's Davis Cuffe awarded three stars out of five, noting that Philadelphia audiences were audibly out of their seats during the recreated sequences while the cinematography resembled a streaming production. Premiering at Toronto on September 12, 2026, it finished first runner-up for the People's Choice Award. The film's most telling production detail may be extratextual: Stallone has said he was never contacted and learned of the project from press coverage, though he remained willing to consult. A film about an artist fighting for ownership of his own story was assembled, with evident affection, without him.