Sydney Sweeney plays the boxer Christy Martin in David Michôd’s biopic Christy, which she brought to the BFI London Film Festival for its UK premiere.
Sydney Sweeney, star and producer of Christy, presented David Michôd’s boxing biopic at the Royal Festival Hall on Friday 17 October 2025, one of the BFI London Film Festival’s evening galas, with Ben Foster beside her.
Sweeney was born in Spokane, Washington, in 1997 and grew up on a lakeside property in the Idaho panhandle that her family has held for five generations. She talked her parents into letting her act by presenting them with a five-year business plan, worked in commercials in Seattle and Portland, moved to Los Angeles at thirteen and graduated as valedictorian of her school. Everything Sucks!, The Handmaid’s Tale and Sharp Objects came in 2018, and Euphoria and the first season of The White Lotus each brought her an Emmy nomination.
Christy tells the story of Christy Martin, who rose to become the best-known female boxer in America in the 1990s, and of the attempted murder she survived in 2010 at the hands of her husband and former coach, James Martin, played by Foster. Michôd wrote the screenplay with Mirrah Foulkes, and Merritt Wever and Katy O’Brian complete the principal cast. Sweeney also produced the film.
Christy had its world premiere at Toronto on 5 September. Black Bear, which also distributes it in Britain and Ireland, made it the first release of its new American distribution arm on 7 November.