The Fighter is a 2010 American biographical sports drama film directed by David O. Russell, and stars Mark Wahlberg (who also produced), Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and Melissa Leo.

The film was inspired by the 1995 documentary featuring the Eklund-Ward family titled High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell.

Managed by his mother, Alice Ward, and trained by his older half-brother, Dicky Eklund, Micky became a "stepping stone" for other boxers to defeat on their way up.

Dicky, a former boxer whose peak of success was going the distance with Sugar Ray Leonard in 1978, has become addicted to crack cocaine.

Micky retreats from the world and forms a relationship with Charlene Fleming, a former college athlete who dropped out and became a bartender.

Micky is lured back into boxing by his father, who believes Alice and his stepson Dicky are bad influences and did more damage to his career than good.

The other members of his training team and a new manager, Sal Lanano, persuade Micky to return to boxing with the explicit understanding that his mother and brother will no longer be involved.

During the actual match, Micky is nearly overwhelmed, but then implements his brother's advice and triumphs; he earns the title shot for which his opponent was being groomed.

Scout Productions acquired the life rights of boxer Micky Ward and his brother, Dick Eklund, in July 2003.

[6][25] Paramount Pictures, the United States distributor of the film, hired Paul Attanasio to rewrite Collick's draft in February 2007 in an attempt to emphasize the themes of brotherhood and redemption.

"Damon signed on to play Dick Eklund, but he later dropped out due to commitments to other projects and was replaced with Brad Pitt.

[32] In April 2009, Relativity Media stepped up to entirely finance the film,[35] selling the international distribution rights to the Weinstein Company (TWC) a month later.

[15][39] The boxing-match footage was created "in big, choreographed sections that were taken directly from [video of] Micky's actual fights", said Russell.

[They were] a sort of Beta [video-format] camera that gave a very certain look, and we actually hired the director from HBO and his crew who had done those fights"[15] to replicate them shot-for-shot.

[5][11] To promote the film, Wahlberg appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Men's Fitness, and Bale on Esquire,[14] in November 2010.

An advanced charity premiere took place in Lowell, Massachusetts, the setting of The Fighter, on December 9, a day before the film's scheduled national release.

The site's critical consensus reads: "Led by a trio of captivating performances from Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, and Amy Adams, The Fighter is a solidly entertaining, albeit predictable, entry in the boxing drama genre.

"[48] Peter Debruge of Variety wrote, "If 'The Fighter' feels like kind of a mess, lurching from one scene to the next as if the film itself has taken a few hits to the head, that's not entirely a bad thing.

"[49][50] In a mixed review, Eric Kohn of IndieWire commented the film plays "as if Russell and screenwriters Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson couldn’t decide if they wanted to go the 'Rocky' route and emphasize the sport's brutal nature or play up the family's larger relationship issues".

In 2011, Wahlberg was involved in developing a sequel, The Fighter 2, which would focus on the legendary fight trilogy between Ward and Arturo Gatti.