It tells the true story of heavyweight boxing champion James J. Braddock, who was dubbed "The Cinderella Man" by journalist Damon Runyon.

[7][8][9] James J. Braddock is an Irish-American boxer from New Jersey, formerly a light heavyweight contender, who is forced to give up boxing after breaking his hand in the ring.

As the United States enters the Great Depression, Braddock does manual labor as a longshoreman to support his family, even with his injured hand.

Thanks to a last-minute cancellation by another boxer, Braddock's longtime manager and friend, Joe Gould, offers him a chance to fill in for just one night and earn cash.

When his rags to riches story gets out, the sportswriter Damon Runyon dubs him "The Cinderella Man", and before long Braddock comes to represent the hopes and aspirations of the American public struggling with the Depression.

On June 13, 1935, in one of the greatest upsets in boxing history, Braddock defeats the seemingly invincible Baer to become the heavyweight champion of the world.

An epilogue reveals that Braddock would lose his title to Joe Louis (who would later call Braddock "the most courageous man I ever fought") and later worked on the building of the Verrazzano Bridge, owning and operating heavy machinery on the docks where he worked during the Depression, and that he and Mae used his boxing income to buy a house, where they spent the rest of their lives.

[11] The advertisement, published in The New York Times and other papers and on internet film sites, read, "AMC believes Cinderella Man is one of the finest motion pictures of the year!

AMC had last employed such a strategy (in limited markets) for the 1988 release of Mystic Pizza,[12] while 20th Century Fox had unsuccessfully tried a similar ploy for its 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street.

[5] In the United States and Canada, Cinderella Man opened alongside The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Lords of Dogtown, and ranked fourth for the weekend with $18.3 million, a gross that was lower than expected.

The website's critics consensus reads: "With grittiness and an evocative sense of time and place, Cinderella Man is a powerful underdog story.

[63] The jockstrap was reported missing; however, in the final episode of season 5 of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver revealed that it had been taken back and showed a short heist parody filmed with it.