Sydney Sweeney is currently in the middle of a rough box-office streak, with the back-to-back flops of Eden and Americana, and now Christy is facing similar problems. However, despite mixed critical reviews for the Sweeney-led Christy Martin biopic, directed by David Michôd and also starring Ben Foster, Merritt Wever, and Katy O’Brian, the audiences who have seen it are embracing it.
Following the early career of the groundbreaking boxer and particularly focusing on her abusive relationship with her then-coach and husband, Christy debuted to a decent critical Rotten Tomatoes score of 70% (now a 67%). However, this was still middling enough to pull Christy and Sweeney out of the serious awards conversation, with criticisms of its basic approach and chosen central story elements.
However, despite even ScreenRant‘s own negative review of Christy, the sports drama now has a 99% Popcornmeter score from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. Christy was released theatrically this past weekend, starting on November 7, allowing more audiences to weigh in on the film’s merits. Christy saw a shocking box office turnout, making its near-perfect audience score even more impressive.
Christy‘s opening weekend box office totaled a dismal $1.3 million worldwide, making it the third movie in a row for the Euphoria star to earn less than $2 million in its first weekend. Given what a busy year this has been for Sweeney, one might have expected this streak of movie stories to cement her stardom, but the mounting failures could spell trouble for her career going forward.
However, after also dividing critics and flopping at the box office, Eden became a digital hit. The period piece thriller also starring Ana de Armas and Vanessa Kirby provoked enough interest to amass audiences at home, even if it wasn’t appealing enough to bring people to theaters. This, combined with the audience score for Christy, indicates that Sweeney is still a popular star.
Sweeney has had a couple of significant hits in the last few years to bolster her rising stardom, namely the major success of rom-com Anyone But You and the more niche but well-received horror Immaculate. Christy‘s reviews largely don’t say it is bad, exactly; more so, that its flaws are going to prevent it from being the next leap forward in Sweeney’s career that her team probably hoped for.
But for general audiences, Christy is an intense and important story with a talented, popular star in the lead role, another strong entry into the sports biopic genre. Sweeney has several more projects coming up, including the thriller The Housemaid in December, making this her most prolific year yet. Despite Christy‘s problems, having at least one success will help people see it as another worthwhile title on her resume.
- Release Date
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November 7, 2025
- Runtime
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135 minutes
- Director
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David Michôd
- Writers
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Mirrah Foulkes, David Michôd
- Producers
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Brent Stiefel, Kerry Kohansky-Roberts, Sydney Sweeney, Teddy Schwarzman, John Friedberg, Michael Heimler, Justin Lothrop, Brad Zimmerman, David Levine