Gladiator, by Ridley Scott

Who doesn’t love a movie where the protagonist is off on a quest for revenge in numerous action sequences for his taste of sweet, sweet revenge? When breaking films into this type of category, one film that stands out among the rest has to be Gladiator. Gladiator can be argued as one of the greatest action movies of all time, and for good reasons. The soundtrack, dialogue, and characters have no equal in the revenge action category of film, and can be considered tops of pure action films. Gladiator is a perfectly well rounded movie that adds the best of all worlds to create the masterpiece seen today.

Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, Gladiator, was released to the public in 2000. Received with initial success and regarded as one of the best movies of the year, during its release in 2000, Gladiator had received numerous awards. The film was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, winning five including Best Picture, twelve BAFTA Awards, and five Golden Globe Awards, winning two including Best Original Score. AFI’s 100 Heroes and Villains, which rates the one hundred best heroes and villains in films in the past one hundred years, rated Maximus Decimus Meredius, played by Russell Crowe, as the fiftieth best hero character in the past one hundred years, also Empire Magazine rated Maximus as the thirty-fifth greatest movie character of all time. Gladiator was a very influential movie that sparked curiosity in Roman and classical history in viewers of the United States, in what is now called the “Gladiator Effect.” This renewed interest in history has influenced many movie writers to create a film that will live up to Gladiator’s name as the predecessor to a renewed interest.

Some may say that Hans Zimmer is the greatest film composer of ...

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...ting role. Now while he did not win the award, Phoenix did an excellent job as the incestuous, murderer Commodus so well that the audience could see into the very psyche of Commodus and feel that Commodus was not the sane emperor he thought he was. These two actors did an excellent job creating one of the best protagonist and antagonist rivalry an action movie has ever seen.

Gladiator was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, action films of all time. A fantastic soundtrack composed by the great Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard. Many memorable quotes and scenes that leave a permanent imprint on the brain like the dialogue between Commodus and Maximus during Maximus’s reveal. Great actors, like Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix, playing well-developed characters. Gladiator does not disappoint and is considered, and should be, the greatest action movie of all time.