Warrior (2011)

Most people think so. 75% of audiences gave it a thumbs up, by Google's archived audience score. Critics agree, scoring it 78%.

The youngest son of an alcoholic former boxer returns home, where he's trained by his father for competition in a mixed martial arts tournament – a path that puts the fighter on a collision course with his estranged, older brother. Wikipedia ↗

Warrior is a 2011 American sports drama directed by Gavin O'Connor. Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy star as Brendan and Tommy Conlon, two estranged brothers with a painful family history who both enter Sparta, a prestigious mixed martial arts tournament, for different desperate reasons — Brendan, a high school physics teacher, needs the prize money to save his family's home from foreclosure, while Tommy, a former Marine haunted by wartime trauma, fights for reasons he keeps to himself. Nick Nolte plays their father Paddy, a recovering alcoholic whose past abuse drove the family apart and who now desperately seeks reconciliation.

Warrior was one of the finest sports films of its decade, with MMA fight sequences choreographed and filmed with visceral authenticity, but its true power came from the family drama — Nick Nolte's raw, Oscar-nominated performance as a man trying to atone for irreparable damage was devastating. Tom Hardy's physical transformation and brooding intensity established him as a formidable screen presence. Warrior earned $23 million worldwide on a $25 million budget but found a devoted audience on home video.