Paradise Alley is a 1978 American sports drama film written, directed by, and starring Sylvester Stallone (in his feature directorial debut).

Kevin Conway, Anne Archer, Joe Spinell, Armand Assante, Lee Canalito, Frank McRae, Joyce Ingalls and Tom Waits co-star in the film.

A number of professional wrestlers appeared portraying supporting characters and in cameos, including Terry Funk, Ted DiBiase, Bob Roop, Dick Murdoch, Dory Funk Jr., Don Leo Jonathan, Don Kernodle, Gene Kiniski, Dennis Stamp, Ray Stevens and Uliuli Fifita.

Victor is a gawky, strong, dumb yet sincere hulk of a man, who leaves his job hauling ice up tenement stairways once he is persuaded to become a wrestler.

[4]In an interview with Roger Ebert in 1980, Stallone mentioned that Paradise Alley was originally a much longer film before he was forced by Universal Pictures to cut it down.

In the Philippines, the film was released on December 5, 1990, with the song "U Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer included in the soundtrack.

Vincent Canby of The New York Times (who had also written one of the harshest reviews of Rocky) called it "a phony, attitudinizing, self-indulgent mess ...

If there had been just a tiny bit of wit involved, or a consistent point of view, or genuine feeling, Paradise Alley might have been an engaging throwback to the true B pictures of yesteryear.

You feel he'd reach out from the screen and grab you by the throat if he could ... As a writer, he's a primitive mining the mass media, without any apparent awareness of how stale his ideas are.

Stallone has a distinctive, funny presence and a flair for spontaneous slapstick and sentiment, but he appears to be a miserable coordinator and ringmaster.

"[9] Writing in New York, David Denby found the film to have "some moments of warmth in its portrait of gaudy neighborhood bars and dance halls, gangsters, bimbos, and hangers-on, but the movie is so hyperbolic and synthetic you don't believe a minute of it.

"[10] John Gault of Maclean's wrote: "The climactic wrestling sequence is so derivative of Rocky you almost start humming 'Gonna Fly Now'.

It's an upbeat, funny, nostalgic film populated by colorful characters, memorable more for their individual moments than for their parts in the larger story."

"[14] Quentin Tarantino, writing in 2022, said "This film is Stallone's vision and aesthetic, unfiltered, undiluted, and delivered full bore in your face.