Apart from the "Rocky" movies, Stallone did many other movies in the late 1970s and early 1980s which were critically acclaimed but were not successful at the box office. He received critical praise for movies such as "F.I.S.T." (1978), a social, narrative styled drama where he plays a warehouse worker who becomes involved in the labor union leadership. In "Paradise Alley" (1978), 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 in a movie with the British veteran Michael Caine in "Escape to Victory" (1981), a sports drama where he plays a prisoner of war involved in a Nazi propaganda fußball (soccer) tournament. Stallone then created the action thriller movie "Nighthawks" (1981), in which he plays a New York city cop who plays a cat and mouse game with a foreign terrorist.
Stallone had another major success when he played as a Vietnam veteran named John Rambo in the action adventure movie "First Blood" (1982). The first chapter of Rambo was both a critical and box office success. The critics praised Stallone's performance, saying he made Rambo seem human despite the way he is described in the book of the same name, "First Blood" and in the other movies. Two other Rambo movies "" (1985) and "Rambo III" (1988) followed (and another, Rambo, in 2008). Although box office hits, the movies were given much less critical praise than the original. He also continued his box office success with the "Rocky" franchise and wrote, directed and starred in two more movies to the series: "Rocky III" (1982) and "Rocky IV" (1985).
Stallone also unsuccessfully attempted roles in different genres. He wrote and starred in the comedy movie "Rhinestone" (1984) where he played a wannabe country music singer and the drama movie "Over the Top" (1987) where he played a truck driver who enters an arm wrestling competition to impress his estranged son. For the Rhinestone soundtrack, he performed a song. These movies did not do well at the box office and were not well received by critics. It was around 1985 that Stallone was signed to a remake of the 1939 James Cagney classic Angels With Dirty Faces. The movie would form part of his multi-picture deal with Cannon Pictures and he was to co-star with Christopher Reeve. It was going to be directed by Menahem Golan. The re-making of such a very much liked classic was given disapproval by Variety Magazine and horror by top critic Roger Ebert. So, Cannon decided to make Cobra instead. "Cobra" (1986) and "Tango and Cash" (1989) did solid business domestically but overseas they did blockbuster business making over $100 million in foreign markets and over $160 million worldwide. The Rocky and Rambo franchises at the end of the decade were billion dollar franchises internationally.
With the recent success of "Lock Up" and "Tango & Cash", at the start of the 1990s Stallone starred in the fifth installment of the Rocky series "Rocky V" which was considered a box office disappointment and was also disliked by fans because it seemed like an unnecessary movie to the series. It was supposed to have been the last installment in the franchise at the time.
After starring in poorly received "Oscar" (1991) and "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" (1992) during the early 90s, he made a big comeback in 1993 with the movie "Cliffhanger" which became an really successful movie making over US$255 million worldwide. Later that year he enjoyed another hit with the futuristic action movie "Demolition Man" which made over $158 million worldwide. His come back success continued with 1994's "The Specialist" (over $170 million worldwide).
In 1995, he played the comic book based character Judge Dredd who was taken from the well known British comic book 2000 AD in the movie of the same name. The money he made from foregin countries saved the domestic box office disappointment of "Judge Dredd" with a worldwide tally of $113 million. He also appeared in the thriller "Assassins" (1995) with the other stars Julianne Moore and Antonio Banderas. In 1996, he starred in the disaster movie "Daylight" which made only $33 million in the U.S but was a major hit overseas making $126 million, totaling $159,212,469 worldwide.
That same year Stallone, along with an all-star cast of celebrities, appeared in the Trey Parker and Matt Stone short comedy movie "Your Studio and You" commissioned by the Seagram Company for a party celebrating their earning of Universal Studios and the MCA Corporation. Stallone speaks in his Rocky Balboa voice with subtitles translating what he was saying. At one point, Stallone starts yelling about how can they use his Balboa character, that he left it in the past; the narrator calms him with a wine cooler and calls him a "brainiac". In response, Stallone says, "Thank you very much." He then looks at the wine cooler and exclaims, "Fucking cheap studio!"
Following his amazing performance in "Rocky", critic Roger Ebert had once said Stallone could become the next Marlon Brando, although he never received the same critical praise achieved with "Rocky". Stallone did, however, go on to receive much approval for his role in the crime drama "Cop Land" (1997) in which he starred alongside Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta. The movie was only a small success at the box office. His performance led him to win the Stockholm International movie Festival Best Actor Award. In 1998 he did voice-over work for the computer-animated movie "Antz," which made over $90 million domestically.
Stallone starred in the thriller "Get Carter" — a remake of the 1971 British Michael Caine movie of the same name—but the movie was not very well received by both critics and audiences. Stallone's career declined a lot after the movies "Driven" (2001), "Avenging Angelo" (2002) and "D-Tox" (2002).
In 2000, Stallone received a "Worst Actor of the Century" Razzie award, citing "95% of Everything He's Ever Done" rather than one movie. By 2000, Stallone had been awarded four Worst Actor Razzie awards for individual movies. These include a "Worst Screen Couple" Razzie, and a "Worst Actor of the Decade" Razzie for the 1980s. He had been nominated for the Worst Actor award for nine different years from 1984 to 1992.
In 2003, he played as a villain in the third movie of the Spy Kids trilogy "" which was a huge box office success (almost $200 million worldwide). Stallone also had a small appearance in the 2003 French movie "Taxi 3" as a passenger.
Following several poorly reviewed box office flops, Stallone started to regain fame for his role in the crime drama "Shade" (2003) which was a box office failure but was praised by critics. He was also supposed to star and direct a movie about the murder of rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, entitled "Notorious", but the movie was not made due to legal issues presented by the 2009 movie of the same name.
In 2005, he was the co-presenter alongside Sugar Ray Leonard of the NBC Reality television boxing series "The Contender". That same year he also made a guest appearance in two episodes of the television series "Las Vegas". In 2005, Stallone also inducted wrestling icon Hulk Hogan, who appeared in "Rocky III" as a wrestler named Thunderlips, into the WWE Hall of Fame; Stallone was also the person who offered Hogan the small part in Rocky "III".
After taking a break from making movies, Stallone made a comeback 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 movie "Rocky V", Stallone had decided to end the series with a sixth movie which would be a more appropriate ending to the series. The total domestic box office came to $70.3 million (and $155.3 million worldwide). The budget of the movie was only $24 million. His performance in "Rocky Balboa" has been praised by mostly positive reviews.