Ridley Scott's revival of the Hollywood epic. Russell Crowe's career-defining Maximus, and the film that won Best Picture in 2001.
180 AD. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, dying after a campaign on the Germanic frontier, tells his most-trusted general Maximus Decimus Meridius that he wants Maximus to succeed him and restore the Roman Republic. Marcus's son Commodus, on learning of his father's intention, smothers his father, declares himself emperor, and orders Maximus and Maximus's family executed. Maximus's family is killed; Maximus escapes the executioners and is sold into slavery as a gladiator.
The film tracks Maximus across roughly two years. He becomes a celebrated gladiator under the trainer Proximo, eventually fighting in the Colosseum in Rome itself. He reveals his identity to Commodus during a Colosseum bout. The film closes with a private duel between Maximus and Commodus in the Colosseum arena — Commodus having mortally wounded Maximus before the fight begins — and with Maximus killing Commodus and dying as the Roman Republic is briefly restored under his orchestration.
Gladiator is the film that revived the Hollywood historical epic. The genre had been dormant since the commercial failures of the late-1960s and early-1970s 70mm epics (Cleopatra in 1963 had nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox). Gladiator's commercial success — $460m worldwide on a $103m budget — and its Best Picture win re-established the form as a viable studio category.
What followed was a wave of 2000s historical epics: Troy (2004), Kingdom of Heaven (2005, also Scott), 300 (2006), Alexander (2004), Master and Commander (2003). Almost none of them performed at Gladiator's level commercially or critically. The film is, in retrospect, a one-off achievement rather than the start of a sustained genre revival.
Russell Crowe won Best Actor for Maximus, becoming, at 36, one of the youngest Best Actor winners of recent decades. The performance is built on Crowe's specific physical and vocal qualities — the contained strength, the ability to deliver Latinate dialogue without sounding theatrical, the visible interior grief Maximus carries throughout the film. Crowe was not previously a star at this level; Scott and the studio's casting was a real risk.
The performance has aged into one of the canonical lead performances of early 2000s American cinema. Crowe's subsequent career did not consistently reach this level (LA Confidential in 1997 had been the previous peak), but Gladiator confirmed him as a serious dramatic lead. The famous 'Are you not entertained?' Colosseum monologue, delivered by Crowe in a single take with no rehearsal, has become one of the most-quoted lines of 2000s cinema.
Gladiator's plot is straightforward — a revenge narrative on the model of countless prior films. What the film does that distinguishes it is the historical seriousness of its framing. The film takes the question of Roman politics — the conflict between imperial power and senatorial republicanism — as actual subject matter rather than as backdrop. The character of Commodus is, in the film, an actual political figure with positions; the senators have constituencies; the praetorian guard has institutional interests.
This is the achievement that separates Gladiator from most of its 2000s imitators. The film is interested in Rome as a working political system, not just as scenery. Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus — Best Supporting Actor nominee — is a complete portrait of imperial pathology in a way that no contemporary historical-epic villain has matched. The film is, in retrospect, less of an action movie and more of a political tragedy that happens to include large-scale combat sequences.