San Francisco and Philadelphia aren't exactly big movie cities, but they are home to two of the best film badasses of all time-- Sylvester Stallone's Italian Stallion, Rocky Balboa, and Clint Eastwood's trigger happy detective, "Dirty" Harry Callahan. So, which city has a better action hero as a (fictional) native son? To find out, I compared how Dirty Harry and Rocky represented their respective hometowns on the screen.

Nemesis: Dirty Harry chases his arch enemy, the Scorpio killer, all over San Francisco. Their main confrontations occur at Mount Davidson Cross and in Kezar Stadium, which used to be the home of the 49'ers. Scorpio is clearly at least partially based on the real-life Zodiac Killer who terrorized California in the late 60's. Rocky's adversary is the boxer Apollo Creed. Their epic fifteen round bout is both literally and figuratively the movie's main event. The fight scene was filmed a The Los Angeles Sports Arena, which served as a stand-in for Philadelphia. Dirty Harry battles his enemies all over San Fran, but Rocky's big fight didn't really take place in Philly, so Harry clearly has the advantage here.

Catch Phrase: Rocky doesn't actually say the best line in his own movie. It's his trainer Mickey who tells Rocky that he's going to make him "eat lightning and crap thunder" to prepare for his big fight. Rocky's top quote comes at the end of his big fight when he shouts across the room to his girlfriend "Yo Adrian! I did it!" Dirty Harry utters a variation of his signature catch phrase "Do you feel lucky? Well do you punk?" once in the climactic chase scene with Scorpio and earlier during a bank robbery scene. Though the bank robbery appears to take place on Market Street in San Francisco, the scene was actually shot on the Universal Studios lot. Neither of these quotes were said in the cities where these movies take place, but San Francisco still gets the point for this one since Dirty Harry's line is just so much cooler.

Hangouts: The scenes at the police station where Dirty Harry works were all shot at the PG&E Building in San Francisco's Financial District. Rocky's apartment was at 1818 East Tusculum Street in North Philly and he was shown training all over the city. Interior shots for his gym and the meat locker where he pummeled cow carcasses were actually filmed in California, but Rocky jogged through Fairmount Park and, in one of the most famous scenes in movie history, up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. At the end of the movie, a statue was placed at the top of the steps to commemorate Rocky's success. In real life, the statue used for the movie actually remained in front of the museum, but it was eventually removed after Philly residents complained about a movie prop being in such a distinguished location. Even though, Rocky's statue ended up getting dissed, that moment is so iconic that there's no way Philly doesn't win here.

Verdict: Rocky Balboa may have a lot of heart, but Dirty Harry still wins this battle of urban action heroes for San Francisco. It makes sense since even the buffest boxer is no mach for a .44 magnum.