Queen of the Ring 2025 Movie Review Trailer

 Opening the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, the Ash Avildsen-directed drama tells the story of Mildred Burke, the first female athlete in history to earn a million dollars.

Wrestling movies are all the rage. Last year saw the release of the excellent, if unfairly overlooked, The Iron Claw, about the ill-fated Von Erich brothers. Now comes Ash Avildsen’s entertainingly dated biopic about Mildred Burke. If you don’t know who Burke is (and the vast majority probably don’t), this film aims to correct that. Burke, a pioneer of the sport who became the first female athlete in history to earn a million dollars, was a three-time women’s world champion between the 1930s and 1950s, a time when women’s wrestling wasn’t even legal in most of the country. Her story deserves to be told, and Queen of the Ring, which served as the opening film for the 39th annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, largely does it justice.

Director: Ash Avildsen
Writers: Ash Avildsen, Jeff Leen, Alston Ramsay
Stars: Emily Bett Rickards, Josh Lucas, Tyler Posey

Based on Jeff Leen's quirky 2009 book The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend (try putting that on a marquee), the film stars Emily Bett Rickards (Arrow) in a standout performance as Burke. We first see her as a single teenage mother working as a waitress at a Kansas diner under the watchful eye of her mother (Cara Buono). But Millie, who possesses formidable muscles, dreams of becoming an entertainer. And since she can't sing or dance, she thinks wrestling is her way out of poverty.

When promoter Billy Wolfe (a charismatic Josh Lucas) shows up with his traveling wrestling show, she seizes the opportunity to impress him and asks for a match with one of his male wrestlers. The skeptical Billy lets her compete for her own amusement, but becomes a believer when she conquers his much larger opponent. He takes her under his wing and she begins winning match after match against men at carnivals throughout the Midwest.

Along the way, she and Billy fall in love and marry. However, the relationship soon falls apart when he begins cheating on her with several of the other female wrestlers he has added to his roster. She agrees to remain married to him, but only as a business arrangement, and strikes up a romance with his longtime doting son G. Bill (Tyler Posey, Teen Wolf).

At a press conference during the festival, writer-director Avildsen ruefully commented that the story should have been told as a miniseries and that an hour had been cut from the film’s running time. The results are evident on screen, as Queen of the Ring suffers from an episodic quality that ironically makes it feel longer than it is.

As more and more characters are added — including female fighters like Mae Young (a striking Francesca Eastwood), Elvira Snodgrass (Marie Avgeropoulos), June Byers (real fighter Kailey Farmer, making an impressive screen debut), Nell Stewart (Kelli Berglund), Gladys Gillem (Deborah Ann Woll), and Babs Wingo (Damaris Lewis), one of a trio of black female fighters — the narrative unevenness becomes apparent. You’ll find yourself straining to follow the romantic and commercial plot developments that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere.

But ultimately it doesn't do too much harm, thanks to the inherently fascinating nature of the story and the cinematic quality with which it's been rendered (which isn't to say that considerable liberties haven't been taken). The fight sequences are particularly visceral, and the actors, particularly Rickards, exhibit such ferocious physical commitment that it's easy to imagine there must have been plenty of off-screen nursing. (The filmmaker might have inherited his flair for fight scenes, as his father John Avildsen's directorial credits include Rocky and three Karate Kid films. One of the stars of the latter series, Martin Kove, plays a colorful supporting role here.)

Despite its low budget, the film looks terrific and effectively conveys its ancient settings thanks to Andrew Strahorn's attractive sepia-tinted photography and Sofija Mesicek's period-perfect costumes. The performances are consistently strong, with lively supporting roles: Adam Demos as Mildred's loyal friend who would find fame and fortune as Gorgeous George; Walton Goggins as wily rival promoter Jack Pfefer; and young heartthrob Gavin Casalengo (The Summer I Turned Pretty) as Mildred's adult son. 

Watch Queen of the Ring 2025 Movie Trailer