Gladiator

A film set in Rome. Maximus is a general. He wins the campaign on the German frontier and the old emperor offers him not the army but the state. The emperor's son hears this. The throne changes hands that night, Maximus's family is killed, and he is sold into slavery. From there the film is a rise. He fights in provincial arenas, gains a reputation under a slave trader, and is finally brought to Rome and the Colosseum. In the arena, in front of the crowd, he says who he is, and from that moment the emperor cannot kill him; killing him would cost him the people. What the narrative is interested in is not revenge but legitimacy: both men are trying to be right in the eyes of the crowd, and the arena is used like a court. The senate line stays thin and the relation to history is loose; the film has no interest in how the real Commodus ended. The Colosseum was not built whole. The lower tiers were built at full scale in Malta and the upper part was completed digitally. The screenplay was still being written during shooting; actors went into some scenes with lines written that morning. Oliver Reed died before filming was finished. His remaining scenes were completed digitally, an expensive and unusual solution at the time. The music is by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard, whose wordless vocal became the film's signature. Russell Crowe won an Academy Award for the part and the film won Best Picture. Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Richard Harris and Djimon Hounsou are in the cast. Ridley Scott directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants large-scale historical action. Who it is not for: anyone looking for history; the film uses Rome as a set and rearranges events freely.