One of my favorite movies of all time, a must watch for anyone!

When they say: "they don't make movies like this anymore" - this is the kind of movie they are talking about. It costs a whooping 12m USD - about 126.5m USD in todays money. However, even for that amount you couldn't make it today like they used to. Over 10000 people were involved. The battle at the end had 8000 people in it. People, not CGI generated objects. The sheer logistics of that is mind blowing. Everything you wanted in the picture had to be build or sought out. The closest to SFX you get is matte-painting. This is why it's called an epic - a monumental movie. The story ? It's a classic in the truest sense of the word. You can call it cheesy, predictable, flawed if you like. I could understand all that. But that's true for many movies today equally. The movie is on of the classics you have to watch if you consider yourself an enthusiast in my opinion. I recommend reading the section with all the background infos over on imdb. It's very interesting.

I was impressed, a great 60s picture and definitely a rememberble one too and Kirk Douglas with a super performance. A different ending would of been nice but still good though. I definitely need to get more of his movies watched.

Some of the best visuals you will ever see in a movie. Everything else is, in my opinion, bad.

I really love the first hour of this (long) movie. Seeing the training and change of the slave gladiators is what I find interesting. Also, you get a lot of time with the owner Lentulus Batiatus, which is simply fantastic. He is so funny and entertaining, that every time he's on screen I am having a great time. However, this movie is too long. They could cut a good amount from the middle and it would be a lot better. It feels like we skip the battles themselves a lot until the end. This does really knock an otherwise great movie down for me. But hey, Laurence Olivier is in it too. The great overcomes the minor bad in this one.