The steps are real, they are free, and thousands of people run up them every week. They form the east entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, at the top of Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and before 1976 they were simply the way into one of America's great art collections. Then a broke actor named Sylvester Stallone wrote a boxing script in three days, sold it on condition he could star in it, and ran up them at dawn with a film crew.
What makes the location unusual is that the film changed the place rather than the other way round. Most filming locations are borrowed and handed back. This one acquired a nickname, a statue, a permanent tourist ritual and a line in the city's own visitor literature. Philadelphia now markets the climb as an attraction in its own right.
The scene: a montage assembled across the whole city
The steps close the training montage, but they are the last twenty seconds of a sequence that criss-crosses Philadelphia. Rocky runs through the Italian Market on 9th Street, where a grocer throws him an orange; past the docks and rail yards of the working city; over the Schuylkill; and finally up the Parkway to the museum. Bill Conti's "Gonna Fly Now" carries the whole thing, and the geography is deliberately impossible — no runner covers that route in one morning.
The famous arms-raised shot at the summit was captured on a Steadicam, then a brand-new invention. Its designer, Garrett Brown, operated it himself, and the Rocky montage became one of the first widely seen demonstrations of what the device could do: a smooth, floating climb up a staircase that a dolly could never have managed.
The film was made for roughly a million dollars, which meant shooting fast and in public. Much of Rocky was filmed on real Philadelphia streets with a small crew, sometimes without the elaborate permits a studio production would have secured — a scrappiness that shows up on screen as texture.
The statue that spent forty years arguing about where to stand
There is a bronze Rocky by the steps, and its history is stranger than the film's. Stallone commissioned the sculpture from A. Thomas Schomberg for Rocky III (1982), where it appears at the top of the staircase, and afterwards offered it to the city.
That triggered a genuine civic argument: was it public art or an abandoned movie prop? The Art Commission's view was that the museum steps were not the place for it, and the statue was moved to the Spectrum sports arena in South Philadelphia. It returned to the museum temporarily for filming on several occasions, went into storage during the demolition of Veterans Stadium, and in September 2006 the Art Commission finally voted — 6–2 — to install it on a street-level pedestal in the grass beside the bottom of the steps.
It stayed there for nearly twenty years. Then, in March 2026, the original was moved inside the museum for an exhibition, 'Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments', which ran from April to early August 2026. A second cast, on loan from Stallone, stood at the top of the steps in the meantime.
The plan announced with the move is that the original will be permanently installed at the top of the steps — set slightly back — once the exhibition work is complete, with the loaned replica returned to Stallone. After four decades of the city insisting the statue did not belong at the summit, it is ending up there anyway. Because this is an active, in-progress relocation, check the museum's current information before visiting if seeing the statue in a specific spot matters to you.
What the steps look like now
Almost unchanged. The Parkway approach, the fountain at Eakins Oval and the Greek Revival museum façade are all as they were in 1976, and the view back over the city from the top is the shot in the film. Two bronze footprints are set into the paving at the summit, marking where Stallone stood.
The statue is the one moving part — see above; as of 2026 it is mid-relocation from the foot of the steps to the top.
The one thing that has changed is the crowd. On a fine morning you will not be the only person running up, and at the top there is usually a small queue of people photographing each other with their arms in the air. This is not a location you discover — it is one you join.
Visiting the location
- Where
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- Getting there
- About a 25-minute walk from Philadelphia City Hall straight up the Parkway. SEPTA buses run along the Parkway, and there is paid parking around Eakins Oval.
- Access
- The steps are outdoors, public and free at any hour. Admission is only needed for the museum itself, which is well worth the ticket independent of the film.
- Go early. Before about 9am the steps are quiet and the light comes up the Parkway behind you, which is roughly the film's lighting.
- Check where the statue currently is before you go — it was moved off its long-standing pedestal at the foot of the steps in March 2026 and is being relocated to the top.
- Run the last stretch of the Parkway rather than starting at the base if you want the montage's actual approach.
- The Italian Market on 9th Street, also in the montage, is a 30-minute ride south and still a working market.
Frequently asked questions
How many steps are there at the Rocky Steps?
Seventy-two, forming the east entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The count is often quoted as part of the film's mythology, and it is accurate.
Where is the Rocky statue now?
It is moving. From 2006 it stood on a pedestal beside the foot of the staircase; in March 2026 it was taken inside the museum for an exhibition, with the announced plan to reinstall it permanently at the top of the steps. Check the museum's current information before visiting.
Can you visit the Rocky Steps for free?
Yes. The steps are a public outdoor staircase, open at all times and free to climb. Only entry to the museum's galleries requires a ticket.
Was all of Rocky filmed in Philadelphia?
The location work was, including the Italian Market, the docks and the museum steps. Some interiors, including parts of the fight sequences, were completed in Los Angeles.