The Boxer

Where to watch The Boxer (US)

Checked 23 Oct 2026 · Streaming availability information provided by Streaming Availability API by Movie of the Night

Years in the ring before the cameras rolled

Before making The Boxer, Daniel Day-Lewis trained for years under former world champion Barry McGuigan. He sparred hundreds of rounds, took black eyes and a bloodied nose, and McGuigan said he could have fought professionally. He plays Danny Flynn, a former IRA man walking out of a Belfast prison after 14 years. All he wants is to box again and stay out of the war. He reopens his old gym and lets Catholics and Protestants train side by side, which in that city is close to a provocation.

Buried by Titanic

The woman he left behind, played by Emily Watson, is now married to an IRA prisoner, and in that neighborhood a prisoner's wife is watched by everyone. Her father, played by Brian Cox, runs the local IRA and is trying to steer it toward peace while hardliners around him want blood. Cox plays him as a tired man holding a lit fuse. It reached American cinemas a few months before the Good Friday Agreement and got lost in Titanic's shadow. It's one of Day-Lewis's least talked about films, and one of the finest boxing films of the 90s.

Cast and crew

Director: Jim Sheridan

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Daragh Donnelly