ROCKY: THE COMPLETE FILMS

Half of this heavyweight volume reads like a medical report, whether it’s Stallone busting a knuckle on Rocky, bruising kidneys and tearing chest muscles on Rocky II, or underestimating Rocky III’s Hulk Hogan (“I thought, ‘How athletic can this guy be?’ But he crushed me”). Truly, Sly has suffered for his art – but his sense of humour’s stayed in one piece, as evinced by the archive interviews dotted throughout this visually lavish chronicle of all six movies (and the first Creed).

As well as celebrating every hook and haymaker, there’s insight into what might have been, from the dark (Mickey as a blatant racist) to the daft (talk of getting The Pope into one of the sequels). It’s mostly the Stallone show, though there’s a great fact/fiction showdown in which Muhammad Ali critique-watches Rocky II. A poster gallery, meanwhile, offers some cracking oddities: Rocky with a telescopic neck? Must have been some uppercut… Matthew Leyland