Movies like The Smashing Machine

“The Smashing Machine (2025) is a United States 2020s martial-arts biopic that frames a fighter's ascent against the centrifugal pull of opioid dependence. It stages the protagonist's addiction and a fraught intimate relationship as formal tensions, rendered through high-contrast chiaroscuro, tight gym interiors, and tactile close-ups that make pain legible. The film earns cultural attention by converting athletic spectacle into a measured inquiry into bodily cost and masculine identity.”