20 Best Sword-and-Sandal Films, From ‘The Odyssey’ to ‘Gladiator’

Christopher Nolan was all set to replace Wolfgang Petersen as director of this adaptation of Homer’s “Iliad,” from a screenplay by David Benioff, but when Petersen’s “Batman vs. Superman” project blew up, Petersen went back to “Troy” and Warner Bros. offered Nolan “Batman Begins” as consolation. Anyway, Benioff’s screenplay completely bastardizes Homer’s tale, even killing off Agamemnon (!), though the Achilles/Hector showdown is thrilling and the casting is pretty spot-on, including Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector, Sean Bean as Odysseus and Bryan Cox as Agamemnon. At least it planted the seed for Benioff and Bean’s reunion on “Game of Thrones.”

Darren Aronofsky’s biblical epic retelling the story of Noah’s Ark caused quite the stir, with the filmmaker warring with Paramount over final cut and the company adding a disclaimer to the film’s promos to appease Christian groups since it departs from the source material. Plus, it was banned in China and a number of majority-Muslim countries for religious reasons. Despite all the hullabaloo, Aronofsky’s film is beautifully shot by acclaimed DP Matthew Libatique (“Black Swan,” “A Star Is Born”), boasts a powerful lead performance from Russell Crowe in the title role and promotes an urgent environmentalist message.

Helen Mirren, who plays the courtesan turned wife to deviant Roman Emperor Caligula, once described Tinto Brass’ sex-and-sandal period farce as an “irresistible mix of art and genitals,” and far be it from me to question the queen. Brass infamously had the film ripped away from him and recut by producer Bob Guccione, founder of Penthouse, who edited out much of the comedy/politics and added in a number of hardcore pornographic sex scenes. As it stands, this portrait of the third Roman emperor’s brief reign, written by Gore Vidal, has reached cult-classic status for its amusing medley of sex, Roman politics and an all-star cast of British thespians — Mirren, Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’Toole and John Gielgud among them — hamming it up.

From acclaimed screenwriter John Milius, the man who not only co-wrote “Apocalypse Now” but performed rewrites on “Dirty Harry” and “Jaws,” comes this fantasy extravaganza about the barbarian son of a blacksmith, Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who is out for revenge against the evil cult leader Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) after he murders his parents. It is, more than anything, a fun film for kids with a game cast clad in eye-catching costumes that served as a coming-out party for former bodybuilder Schwarzenegger, who proved a capable and convincing leading man.

Nathan Juran’s 1958 swashbuckling fantasy is the first of three films chronicling the adventures of Sinbad, heir to the Caliph of Baghdad, who sails the high seas and crosses paths with cyclops, a Medusa and, in a memorable climactic showdown, a skeleton warrior, all rendered via eye-catching stop-motion animation. On top of the fun special effects and action sequences, “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” also features an outstanding score from legendary composer Bernard Herrmann, who also crafted the scores to “Citizen Kane,” “Vertigo,” “Psycho,” “Taxi Driver,” and a number of other cinema classics.

From celebrated British comedy filmmaker Richard Lester, who helmed the Beatles’ films “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!”, comes this musical-comedy inspired by the work of Roman playwright Plautus and adapted from the Sondheim stage musical. It stars Zero Mostel as Pseudolus, a slave during the tyrannical reign of Emperor Nero who tries to gain his freedom by setting up his slave master’s son, Hero (Michael Crawford), with the apple of his eye, Philia (Annette Andre). With the jokes and gags coming a mile-a-minute, many of them landing, it’s a bawdy, gay ol’ time that also contains the final screen performance of Buster Keaton.

More known for its production problems (newly-installed Fox chief Daryl Zanuck demanded the original cut be trimmed from four hours to 184 minutes), ballooning costs (production and marketing ran $44 million, or $481.8 million in 2026 dollars) and a torrid on-set affair between stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, filmmaker Joseph Mankiewicz’s epic depicting queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt clashing with Mark Antony, Julius Caesar and the Romans, is a triumph of spectacle and production design, with some of the most extraordinary sets and costumes you’ll ever see. It was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Special Effects.

As the story goes, Christopher Nolan was such a fan of Zack Snyder’s “300” and “Watchmen” that he convinced Warner Bros. to hire him to direct the Superman flick “Man of Steel,” even coming onboard as an executive producer. Based on Frank Miller’s comics, this CGI-heavy spectacle illustrating the Battle of Thermopylae in the Greco-Persian Wars, as 300 Spartans square off against Persian ruler Xerxes and his army of 300,000 soldiers, is heavy on testosterone and light on historical accuracy, featuring a ripped-and-roaring cast of warriors that includes Gerard Butler, David Wenham, Rodrigo Santoro and a young Michael Fassbender.

When you think of a “sword-and-sandal film,” the first name that comes to mind is Cecil B. DeMille, the directorial maestro behind period epics “The King of Kings,” 1934’s “Cleopatra,” “The Ten Commandments,” and this drama about the biblical story of Samson (Victor Mature), an Israelite imbued with superhuman strength via his hair, and Delilah (Hedy Lamarr, fantastic), the woman hired by the Philistines to seduce him and uncover the source of his power. Here, DeMille has staged a sumptuous and pleasurable adaptation of Samson and Delilah bursting with colorful costumes and impressive scale that became the highest-grossing movie of 1950.

Only two of the five chapters of Mel Brooks’ historical anthology-comedy qualify as “sword and sandal,” but they’re so damn funny that they had to be included on this list. There’s Mel Brooks as Moses (one of the five roles he plays in the film) carrying several stone tablets down from Mount Sinai, only to accidentally drop one of them and trim his Commandments from 15 to 10; and later, Brooks as Comicus, a stand-up comic in the Roman Empire who gets mixed up with Emperor Nero (Dom DeLuise), Empress Nympho (Madeline Kahn, brilliant) and Jesus (John Hurt). This is historical comedy at its finest whose reputation has only improved with age.

Director Don Chaffey’s fantasy flick is a rite of passage for youngsters, boasting a number of awe-inspiring creature creations courtesy of stop-motion animation guru Ray Harryhausen as well as a rousing score from the great Bernard Herrmann. Who can forget Jason battling the Hydra, or the giant bronze statue of Talos that comes to life and throttles their ship, or the gigantic gods, or the climactic battle sequence between Jason and the skeletons (inspired by “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad”)? What a delightfully fun time this is.

Giovanni Pastrone’s Italian silent film epic was groundbreaking in its sense of grandiosity and its use of a moving camera, pushing cinema forward technologically, and made history as the first movie to ever be shown at the White House. It’s a series of five episodes chronicling the history of ancient Rome, adapted from Livy’s “Ab Urbe Condita,” told through the eyes of an aristocratic 8-year-old girl, Cabiria (Carolina Catena), who’s believed to be missing (and is subsequently abducted) after Mount Etna erupts. Martin Scorsese, an admirer of the film, screened a restored version at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival that prompted the late, great critic Roger Ebert to write, “The film was made with limitless scope and ambition, with towering sets and thousands of extras, with stunts that (because they were actually performed by stuntmen) have an impact lost in these days of visual effects.”

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, producer of “The Wizard of Oz,” this historical epic about the end of Roman Emperor Nero’s reign of terror and his persecution of Christians, and starring Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr and Peter Ustinov, is a triumph of sound and spectacle. Shot at Rome’s famed Cinecittà Studios, which “Ben-Hur” and “Cleopatra” later used, it was produced for $7 million by MGM — a record at the time — and grossed over $21 million, rescuing the studio from bankruptcy. It was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and features Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren and Christopher Lee in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it turns.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” offers excellent costuming and production design, but is most noteworthy for its outstanding performances, led by Marlon Brando’s riveting turn as Mark Antony, resulting in his third consecutive Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. James Mason (Brutus), John Gielgud (Cassius) and Deborah Kerr (Portia) also impress.  

Winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (for Russell Crowe) and Best Costume Design (Janty Yates), Ridley Scott’s historical epic tells the fictional tale of Maximus Decimus Meridius (Crowe), a Roman general who is set to succeed Emperor Marcus Aurelius when he is betrayed by Aurelius’ sleazy son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), who assassinates his own father, claims the throne and murders Maximus’ wife and child. Maximus is then sold into slavery, where he competes as a gladiator in the Roman arena, all the while plotting his revenge. Expertly directed by Scott, the film is carried to great heights by the acting brilliance of Crowe and Phoenix, who make perfect foils.

This DreamWorks animated musical about the life of Moses (voiced by Val Kilmer), who leads the enslaved Hebrews out of Egypt, offers an entrancing mix of stunning animated imagery, an excellent voice cast (Kilmer is joined by Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Patrick Stewart, Steve Martin and Martin Short), and memorable music, with songs written by Stephen Schwartz (“Enchanted,” “Wicked”) and a score from the inimitable Hans Zimmer. It spawned the hit single “When You Believe,” from Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

It’s one of the weaker films in director Stanley Kubrick’s celebrated canon (which says a lot about Kubrick), but still a thrilling slice of entertainment nevertheless. It centers on Spartacus (Kirk Douglas), a gladiator and slave who leads an army of fugitives and slaves against the corrupt leaders of the Roman Republic in the first century BC. On top of Kubrick’s direction and fantastic lensing by cinematographer Russell Metty, the performances from Douglas, Laurence Olivier (as the villainous/bisexual Roman senator Marcus Licinius Crassus), and Peter Ustinov as Spartacus’ gladiator mentor Batiatus are top-notch.

Though it deviates from Homer’s tale (often in compelling ways), Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” is an extraordinary cinematic spectacle — made to be viewed in Imax 70mm, though good luck getting tickets — that, with its transfixing practical effects and sense of scale, feels like a soothing balm amid all the AI slop being bandied about. Come for Nolan’s masterful staging and direction and stay for the riveting turns from Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Robert Pattinson as the scheming Antinous and Samantha Morton as the sorceress Circe.

There’s a reason why Cecil B. DeMille’s masterpiece has aired around Passover on primetime network television in the U.S. every year since 1973: it’s a magnificent retelling of the life of Moses (Charlton Heston), an adopted Egyptian prince who frees the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery, leads their Exodus to Mount Sinai, then receives the Ten Commandments from God. Shot on location in Egypt and on gigantic sound stages, you can’t avert your eyes from DeMille’s lavish production, which was the most expensive film ever made at the time ($13 million), and grossed $122.7 million (or $1.51 billion today), making it the second highest-grossing film of the decade. Heston is fantastic, as is Yul Brynner as the antagonist Rameses II, Anne Baxter as Nefretiri and Edward G. Robinson, who steals every scene he’s in (in hilarious fashion) as the treacherous Dathan. Though the effects are dated, the parting of the Red Sea sequence will still make your jaw drop.

With all due respect to DeMille, Nolan and Kubrick, the no. 1 spot on the list is reserved for William Wyler’s fictional tale of Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston, never better), an aristocratic Jewish prince who’s wrongly imprisoned by the Romans, sold into slavery where he becomes a champion charioteer, and then later witnesses the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Wyler employed 10,000 extras and used 2,500 horses and 200 camels for the mammoth production, whose nine-minute chariot-racing sequence ranks among the greatest sequences in the history of cinema. “Ben-Hur” is recognized as one of the finest films ever made, and took home a record 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.