Stallone made his film debut with the lead in a 1970 pornagraphic film, Party at Kitty and Stud's. He was paid US$200 for two days work. Stallone's other first few film roles were minor, and included brief uncredited appearances in Woody Allen's Bananas (1971) as a subway thug, in the psychological thriller Klute (1971) as an extra dancing in a club, and in the Jack Lemmon vehicle Prisoner of 2nd Avenue (1975) as a youth. In the Lemmon film, Jack Lemmon chases and tackles Stallone, thinking he is a pickpocket. He had his first starring role in the cult hit The Lords of Flatbush (1974). In 1975 he played supporting roles in Farewell my lovely, Capone and, another cult hit, Death Race 2000. He also made guest appearances on the TV series Kojac.

Stallone did not gain world-wide fame until his starring role in the smash hit Rocky (1976). In 1975, Stallone saw the Ali-Chuck Wepner fight which inspired the foundation idea of Rocky. That night Stallone went home, and in three days he had written the script for Rocky. After that, he tried to sell the script with the intention of playing the lead role. Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler in particular liked the script, and planned on courting a star like Burt Reynolds or James Caan for the lead role. The final result was an unequalled success; Rocky was nominated for ten Academy Awards in all, including Best Actor for Stallone himself.

The sequel Rocky II which Stallone had also written and directed was released in 1979 and also became a major success, grossing US$200 million worldwide.

Apart from the Rocky films, Stallone did many other films in the late 1970s and early 1980s which were critically acclaimed but were not successful at the box office. He received critical praise for films such as F.I.S.T (1978), a social drama in which he plays a warehouse worker who becomes involved in the union leadership and Paradise Alley (1978), a family drama in which he plays one of three brothers who is a con artist and who helps his other brother who is involved in wrestling.

In the early 1980s he starred alongside British veteran Caine in Escape to Victory (1981), a sports drama in which he plays a POW involved in a football tournament. Stallone then made the action thriller film Nighthawks (1981), in which he plays a New York city cop who plays a cat and mouse game with a foreign terrorist, played by Rutger Haur.

Stallone had another major franchise success as Vietnam veteran John Rambo in the action adventure film First Blood (1982). The first installment of Rambo was both a critical and box office success. Two Rambo sequels Part II (1985) and Rambo III (1988) followed. Although box office hits, they met with much less critical praise than the original. He also continued his box office success with the Rocky franchise and wrote, directed and starred in more sequels to the series: Rocky III (1982) and Rocky IV (1985). He also attempted roles in different genres when he wrote and starred in the comedy film Rhinestone (1984) where he played a wannabe country music singer and the drama film Overthe Top (1987) where he played a truck driver who enters an arm wrestling competition to impress his estranged son. But these films did not do well at the box office and were poorly received by critics. The action films Cobra (1986) and Tango and Cash (1989) however were sucesses.

At the start of the 1990s, Stallone starred in the fifth installment of the Rocky franchise which was considered a box office disappointment and was also disliked by fans as an unworthy entry in the series. It was intended to have been the last installment in the franchise at the time.....but we know that this was not the case.

After starring in the critical and commercial failures Oscar (1991) and Stop! or my mom will shoot (1992) during the early 90s, he made a major comeback in 1993 with the blockbuster hit Cliffhanger which became an enormously successful film grossing over US$255 million worldwide. Later that year he enjoyed another hit with the action film Demolition Man which grossed in excess of $158 million worldwide. His string of hits continued with The Specialist (1994) (over $170 million worldwide gross). In 1995 he played the comic book based title character Judge Dredd who was taken from the popular British comic book 2000AD. His overseas box office appeal even saved the domestic box office disappointment of Judge Dredd with a worldwide tally of $113 million. In 1996 he starred in the disaster movie Daylight which made only $33 million in the U.S but was a major hit overseas taking in over $126 million, totaling $159,212,469 worldwide. Originally "Daylight" had been penned as "Cliff Hanger II".

Stallone went on to receive much acclaim for his role in the crime drama CopLand (1997) in which he starred alongside Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta, but the film was only a minor success at the box office. In 1998 he did the voice over work for the CGI film Antz, which grossed over 90 million domestically.

As 2000 dawned, Stallone starred the thriller Get Carter, which was poorly received by both critics and audiences and was a box office failure. Stallone career declined considerably after his subsequent films Driven (2001), Avenging Angelo (2002) and D-Tox (2002) also failed to do well at the box office and were poorly received by critics. He also appeared in film "Assasins (1995)".

Following several poorly reviewed box office flops, Stallone started to regain prominence for his supporting role in the neo-noir crime drama Shade (2003) which was a box office failure but was praised by critics.

After three years since his last film appearance in Shade, Stallone made a comeback to films in 2006 with the sixth and final installment of his successful Rocky series; Rocky Balboa, which was both a critical and commercial hit. After the critical and box office failure of the previous and presumed last installment Rocky V, Stallone had decided that he should end the series with a sixth installment which would be a much more appropriate climax to the series. The total domestic box office gross came to a close with US$70.2 million (US$155.3 million worldwide), almost three times its production budget. His performance in Rocky Balboa has been praised and garnered mostly positive reviews. He has also completed the fourth installment of Rambo, which was released in 2008, and again received praise from the critics.

Rambo Quadrology

Rocky series

Cobra

Over The Top

Lock Up

Demolition Man

Judge Dredd

Copland

Escape To Victory

Nighthawks

Tango & Cash

Cliffhanger

Assassins

Daylight

Get Carter

Driven

Avenging Angelo

D-Tox

The Expendables