77th Academy Awards · 2005
Million Dollar Baby
Directed by Clint Eastwood
“Beyond his silence, there is a past. Beyond her dreams, there is a feeling. Beyond hope, there is a memory. Beyond their journey, there is a love.”
The story
Despondent over a painful estrangement from his daughter, trainer Frankie Dunn isn't prepared for boxer Maggie Fitzgerald to enter his life. But Maggie's determined to go pro and to convince Dunn and his cohort to help her.
What critics & audiences say
Tomatometer90%Fresh#57 of 98 winnersFamous lines
Girlie, tough ain't enough.
If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.
Frankie Dunn: You forgot the rule. Now, what is the rule?
Maggie Fitzgerald: Keep my left up?
Frankie: Is to protect yourself at all times.
Maggie: I've got nobody but you, Frankie.
Frankie: Then you've got me.
Maggie: Working the bag, boss.
Frankie: I'm not your boss and that bag's working you.
Problem is, this the only thing I ever felt good doing. If I'm too old for this then I got nothing.
Frankie likes to say that boxing is an unnatural act, that everything in boxing is backwards: sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step back... But step back too far and you ain't fighting at all.
Frankie: How many eyes do you need to finish this fight?
Maggie: One's enough.
To make a fighter you gotta strip them down to bare wood … Then you gotta show 'em all over again. Over and over and over... till they think they're born that way.
Frankie: Is it sort of like Snap Crackle and Pop, all rolled into one big box?
Father Horvak: You're standing outside my church, comparing God to Rice Krispies?
Quotes via Wikiquote
Fun facts
- Hilary Swank trained nearly five hours a day and gained 19 pounds of muscle for the role, developing a potentially life-threatening staph infection from blisters on her foot. She did not tell Clint Eastwood, feeling it would be out of character for Maggie.Wikipedia · Development and production
- The title phrase "million dollar baby" was used as an insult by Sonny Liston against Muhammad Ali in pre-fight publicity, when Ali was the underdog.Wikipedia · Development and production
- Several studios rejected the project even with Clint Eastwood attached, and even Warner Bros., his longtime home, would not agree to a $30 million budget; Lakeshore Entertainment put up half the money.Wikipedia · Development and production
- Clint Eastwood not only directed and starred in Million Dollar Baby but also co-produced it and composed its score, and he won his second Best Director Oscar for it.Wikipedia · Introduction
- The film is based on stories from Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner by F.X. Toole, the pen name of real-life fight manager and cutman Jerry Boyd.Wikipedia · Introduction
- Disability rights activists protested the film's ending in several cities. Clint Eastwood responded by distancing himself from his characters: "I've gone around in movies blowing people away with a .44 Magnum. But that doesn't mean I think that's a proper thing to do."Wikipedia · Critical response
- Maggie's Gaelic nickname comes from the phrase a chuisle mo chroí, meaning "O pulse of my heart," and one critic noted that the film sparked some interest in the Gaelic language and the phrase.Wikipedia · Critical response
- Paul Haggis wrote the script on spec after being fired from the TV series Family Law, and it took him four years to sell it. Clint Eastwood then shot the film in fewer than 40 days in June and July 2004.Wikipedia · Development and production
- Clint Eastwood's daughter Morgan Colette has a cameo as the little girl who waves at Hilary Swank's character at a gas station.Wikipedia · Development and production
- Michael Medved objected to marketing that sold the film as a female Rocky, while critic Andrew Sarris declared that "no movie in my memory has depressed me more than Million Dollar Baby."Wikipedia · Critical response