Gladiator

“What we do in life echoes in eternity.”

The emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) is dead, and his son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) has taken the throne. Maximus (Russell Crowe), the general Marcus favored, is stripped of his rank and sold into the arena, where Proximo (Oliver Reed) trains men to fight and die for paying crowds. Ridley Scott stages the combat close and loud, so the roar of the crowd carries the story's grief and rage.