It stars Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou, and Richard Harris.

Crowe portrays Maximus Decimus Meridius, a Roman general who is betrayed when Commodus, the ambitious son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, murders his father and seizes the throne.

He is found by slave traders, who take him to Zuccabar in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis and sell him to the gladiator trainer Proximo.

Upon hearing this, Proximo reveals to Maximus that he was once a gladiator who was freed by Marcus Aurelius, and advises him to "win the crowd" to gain his freedom.

They agree to help Maximus escape Rome to join his legions in Ostia, oust Commodus by force, and hand power back to the Roman Senate.

Though Amistad was only a moderate commercial success, DreamWorks was impressed with Franzoni's screenplay and gave him a three-picture deal as writer and co-producer.

[5] Remembering his 1972 trip, Franzoni pitched his gladiator story idea to Spielberg, who immediately told him to write the script.

[5] DreamWorks producers Walter F. Parkes and Douglas Wick felt that Ridley Scott would be the ideal director to bring Franzoni's story to life.

[6] They showed him a copy of Jean-Léon Gérôme's 1872 painting Pollice Verso, which Scott said portrays the Roman Empire "in all its glory and wickedness".

[8] Once Scott was on board, he and Franzoni discussed films that could influence Gladiator, such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, La Dolce Vita, and The Conformist.

[10] Before Russell Crowe was cast as Maximus, several other actors were considered for the role, including Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson, and Tom Cruise.

The scenes set in Rome were shot in Malta, where the crew built a replica of about one-third of the Colosseum to a height of 52 feet (16 meters).

Although Franzoni and Logan completed a second draft of the screenplay in October 1998, Crowe has claimed that the script was "substantially underdone" when filming began three months later.

[12] Crowe invented the phrase "Strength and Honor", which is a modified version of the Latin motto of his high school, "Veritate et Virtute", which translates as "Truth and Virtue".

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgensten said that Crowe "doesn't use tricks in this role to court our approval.

Manohla Dargis of LA Weekly commended Scott's state of the art filmmaking and expressed admiration for the film's "breathtaking, brutal lyricism".

[54] Entertainment Weekly called the opening battle sequence "extraordinary", and described Scott as a "visual artist at his most deluxe.

[48] In addition to Crowe's acting and Scott's directing, reviewers also applauded John Mathieson's cinematography, Arthur Max's production design, and the musical score composed by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard.

[56] Roger Ebert said the script "employs depression as a substitute for personality, and believes that if characters are bitter and morose enough, we won't notice how dull they are.

[54] In his 2004 book The Assassination of Julius Caesar, the political scientist Michael Parenti described Gladiator as "unencumbered by any trace of artistic merit".

[58] Brandon Zachary of the entertainment website ScreenRant has claimed that the plot of Gladiator borrows heavily from the 1964 film The Fall of the Roman Empire, which is also about the transition from Marcus Aurelius to Commodus and the latter's downfall.

[59] Audiences polled on Gladiator's opening day by the market research firm CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

The website's consensus reads: "While not everyone will be entertained by Gladiator's glum revenge story, Russell Crowe thunderously wins the crowd with a star-making turn that provides Ridley Scott's opulent resurrection of Rome its bruised heart.

Nevertheless, multiple deviations from historical accuracy were made to increase interest, maintain narrative continuity, and for practical or safety reasons.

Scott later stated that public perception of ancient Rome, due to the influence of previous films, made some historical facts "too unbelievable" to include.

For instance, in an early version of the script, gladiators endorsed products in the arena; while this would have been historically accurate, there was concern that audiences would think it anachronistic.

Allen Ward, a historian at the University of Connecticut, believed that a higher level of historical accuracy would not have made Gladiator less interesting or exciting.

[82] According to the classical scholar Martin Winkler, catapults and ballistae would not have been used in a forest, as they were reserved primarily for sieges and were rarely used in open battles.

It stars Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, and Derek Jacobi, the last two reprising their roles from Gladiator.

In addition to directing the film, Scott serves as a producer alongside Michael Pruss, Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher.