This Is Dwayne Johnson’s Highest Rated Live-Action Movie According to Rotten Tomatoes

Dwayne Johnson has starred in some of the most beloved action movies of the last two decades, yet his highest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes is an often-overlooked 2019 dramedy called Fighting with My Family. It may not have the brand recognition of Fast & Furious or Jumanji, but this wrestling film has inspired overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and fans. At the time of this writing, it has a 93-percent positive score with an average rating of 7.3 out of 10.

Fighting with My Family was written and directed by British comedian Stephen Merchant, and stars Florence Pugh as aspiring pro wrestler Paige. It has an all-star cast including Lena Headey, Nick Frost, Jack Lowden, Vince Vaughn and, of course, The Rock himself. It’s based on a 2012 documentary called The Wrestlers: Fighting with My Family, but it depicts a fictional story about wrestling fans rising to glory instead. The fans love this movie as well – it has an 86-percent positive score on the Popcornmeter with an average rating of 4.2 out of 5.

In fairness, Johnson has a few movies with higher ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, but this is the top film where he appears in live-action. The others either feature him as a producer or in voice-over, including Moana which has a 95-percent positive score at the time of this writing.

These kinds of scores could be affected by viewership as well, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. For example, if we compare Fighting with My Family to something with greater reach, like Furious 7, they have a comparable number of total reviews – 242 and 279, respectively. However, Furious 7 has an 82-percent positive score a 6.3 out of 10 average rating. Things are not so even in the audience scores. While Fighting with My Family has over 5,000 self-submitted user reviews, Furious 7 has over 100,000.

Another important factor here is the intensity of the wrestling fandom itself – especially the WWE. This movie depicts a fictionalized version of SmackDown, featuring many real-life wrestling stars and iconic settings like the O2 Arena. Wrestling fans turned out in force for this movie both in theaters and online, and it gave them a chance to get their children interested as well.

Fighting with My Family had a limited theatrical run, earning $41.5 million against an $11 million production budget. It was produced by MGM, but right now it is not actually included with a Prime Video subscription or on MGM+. You can rent or purchase the movie on PVOD stores, or find it on Blu-ray or DVD.