Tessa Thompson

Henrik Ibsen's renowned stage drama from 1891 is reimagined in an epic and emotional way.

After dominating the boxing world, Adonis Creed has been thriving in both his career and family life. When a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian (Jonathan Majors), resurfaces after serving a long sentence in prison, he is eager to prove that he deserves his shot in the ring. The face-off between former friends is more than just a fight. To settle the score, Adonis must put his future on the line to battle Damian - a fighter who has nothing to lose.

Trained under the tutelage of the famed boxer and former champion, Rocky Balboa, the new light-heavyweight champion, Adonis Creed takes on the Viktor Drago, the son of Ivan Drago.

Lena, a biologist signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition into a mysterious zone where the laws of nature don`t apply.

Three years after his loss to "Pretty" Ricky Conlan, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) scores a string of victories, culminating in a victory over Danny "Stuntman" Wheeler (Andre Ward) to win the WBC World Heavyweight Championship. Now a worldwide star, Adonis proposes to his girlfriend, Bianca Taylor (Tessa Thompson), who agrees to marry him. When Bianca suggests starting a new life together in Los Angeles, Adonis is reluctant to leave his life in Philadelphia behind. Meanwhile, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), a former Soviet boxer who killed Adonis' father, Apollo Creed, in the ring thirty-three years earlier, sees an opportunity to regain the glory that was taken from him as a result of his loss to Rocky Balboa in Moscow later that same year by pitting his son, Viktor Drago (Florian "Big Nasty" Munteanu) (with the assistance of Buddy Marcelle (Russell Hornsby), a promoter who has followed Viktor's career closely), against Adonis. When Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) refuses to support Adonis's decision to accept Viktor's challenge, Adonis, feeling betrayed, decides to leave for Los Angeles. Adonis and Bianca settle down in a luxurious apartment in Los Angeles close to Adonis's adoptive mother, and Apollo's widow, Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad). As Adonis and Bianca adjust to their new life on the West Coast and prepare for the upcoming match with Viktor, Bianca learns that she is pregnant. Adonis recruits Tony "Little Duke" Evers (Wood Harris), son of his father's trainer and later Rocky's trainer as Mickey's replacement. Overwhelmed with all the recent developments in his life, Adonis rushes into the match, getting himself badly injured. Viktor is disqualified for hitting Adonis while he is down allowing Adonis to retain the World Heavyweight Championship. Viktor becomes extremely popular in Russia and wins a series of fights given top billing. His body and ego shattered, Adonis becomes increasingly disconnected from Bianca. Mary Anne reaches out to Rocky in hopes of having him come to help Adonis out of his slump; Rocky arrives, he and Adonis make up, and Rocky agrees to train Adonis (with Little Duke) properly for a rematch against Viktor, who is suffering near-torturous levels of physical tests by his father. Bianca gives birth to a baby girl, and they name her Amara. Adonis and Bianca's fears are realized when their child is born deaf, inherited from her mother's progressive degenerative hearing disorder. While Viktor continues to taunt Adonis publicly, he is constantly pressured by his father to regain their honor. Ivan appears to be enjoying the attentions of the media and various Russian delegates, with which Viktor appears uncomfortable. At a State Dinner, he and Ivan meet Ludmilla (Brigitte Nielsen), his mother, and Ivan's ex-wife, for the first time in several years after she abandoned both of them after the loss to Rocky. Viktor is immediately enraged at the sight of his mother and chastises Ivan for his interactions with the people who outcast them. Back in America, Rocky and Little Duke take Adonis to a decrepit location in the California desert to retrain, describing it as a place where fighters are reborn. Adonis undergoes a rigorous and brutal training regimen with Rocky and Little Duke, focusing on fighting from the inside and training his body to repeatedly absorb the heavy impact he knows he will receive from Viktor in the ring. The rematch in Moscow is considerably more balanced as a more controlled and focused Adonis exchanges equal blows with Viktor. Since Viktor is accustomed to winning all of his fights by knockout, his fights have never lasted beyond the fourth round, something that Adonis uses to his advantage as he endures Viktor's punishment deeper into the match, even after his ribs break again. In the tenth round after being knocked down again, Adonis unleashes a furious rage, managing to land sequence after sequence of effective blows, knocking Viktor down twice. Ludmilla, who had been sitting ringside with some of Viktor's supporters, departs when the tide of the fight shifts in Adonis' favor, knocking Viktor off-balance emotionally. Ivan notes this as well, coming to terms with Viktor's earlier statements on the fair-weathered nature of the same supporters who had run Ivan out of Russia. With Viktor cornered and receiving multiple strikes without defending himself, but unwilling to go down, Ivan throws in the towel, conceding the fight to Adonis to ensure his son isn't seriously injured or killed. Though Viktor is ashamed, Ivan assures Viktor it is okay that he lost, and embraces him. As Bianca enters the ring to celebrate with Adonis and Little Duke, Rocky rescues himself from joining them, telling Adonis "it's your time", and takes a seat to watch them from outside the ring. Viktor and Ivan are later training together back in Ukraine. Rocky travels to Vancouver to make peace with his own estranged son, Robert (Milo Ventimiglia), and meets his grandson Logan for the first time, noting how much he looks like Adrian. Adonis visits Apollo's grave where he makes peace with his deceased father and the burden of carrying on his legacy, as he and Bianca introduce him to his granddaughter, who is sporting a new hearing aid.

Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) never knew his famous father, boxing champion Apollo Creed, who died before Adonis was born. However, boxing is in his blood, so he seeks out Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) and asks the retired champ to be his trainer. Rocky sees much of Apollo in Adonis, and agrees to mentor him, even as he battles an opponent deadlier than any in the ring. With Rocky's help, Adonis soon gets a title shot, but whether he has the true heart of a fighter remains to be seen.

The Central Park Effect reveals the extraordinary array of wild birds who grace Manhattans celebrated patch of green and the equally colorful, full-of-attitude New Yorkers who schedule their lives around the rhythms of migration. The film focuses on seven main characters who regularly visit the Park and have found a profound connection with this hidden natural world. Movie-star handsome Chris Cooper dodges the morning rush hour traffic on bustling Central Park West, his binoculars knocking against his leather bomber jacket as he ducks into the Park. My friends mock me for what I do in the spring because they know from experience. From April 15 until Memorial Day, they wont see me. Because Im birding! Anya Auerbach, a radiant fashion-averse teenager, admits that I take my binoculars pretty much everywhere except school. Acclaimed author Jonathan Franzen recalls that he walked through Central Park almost daily for seven years, noticing only the pigeons and sparrows. Then one day, friends invited him to come along with them on a tour of the Parks famous Ramble section and handed him a pair of binoculars. It was like the trees were hung with ornaments. It was one of those rare times in an adults life where the world suddenly seems more magical rather than less. One poignant narrative revolves around Central Park doyenne Starr Saphir, the bird walk leader whos recorded every sighting shes made since the 1940s. After discovering several years ago that she has terminal breast cancer, she says that time has a different meaning for her now. I have a great deal more enjoyment. I always loved what I did, but its heightened even more, because I know not only is it not going to last forever its not going to last all that much longer. Featuring spectacular wildlife footage capturing the changing seasons, the film reveals that Central Park acts as a magnet for the millions and millions of birds migrating along the Eastern Seaboard twice every year. Desperate for a rest-stop, the tiny birds funnel in to this oasis of nature amid a sea of steel and concrete a phenomenon known as the Central Park Effect. Tiny hummingbirds, tall herons and egrets, majestic owls, hawks, orioles, kingfishers, flycatchers and a vast array of wood warblers - the jewels of the Eastern forests - all have starring roles in the documentary. Filmmaker Jeffrey Kimballs lyrical film transports the viewer to a dazzling world that goes all but unnoticed by most of the 38 million who people Americas most famous park each year.