Fun fact, maggots were actually used as treatment for bad wounds and the best part is, they still are. In developed countries as well. Sterilized maggots are insanely good at eating dead tissue while leaving the alive parts untouched, they clean the wound so healing can begin.

Him dying is the happy ending, he is exactly where he wants to be.

After 26 years this is still in my top 5 movies.

6:23 Every emperor was called Cesar (Augustus) after Julio Cesar. He is Marcus Aurelius. Cesar is the equivalent of emperor.

This movie always makes even a grown man cry.  Saw in it the theaters in 2000 and still is one of my favorites of all time.

The old emperor at the start of this film is Marcus Aurelius. Caesar was his title.

One little subtle act of defiance from Maximus that I love is that he never calls Commodus by his title of "Caesar". He always calls him "Highness".

Oliver Reed (Proximo) was a legendary party animal and great actor. This was his last movie and he passed away before principle photography was concluded. His final scenes were completed with body doubles, unused footage and face replacement.

19:16 The legendary Ralf Moeller, former bodybuilder, actor (Cyborg, Universal Soldier, Batman & Robin, etc.), a close friend of Arnold Schwarzenegger since decades.

I think this movie is actually quite short, even the extended version. Personally, I think it could be twice as long and still be amazing.

Those slow parts are there so you can get to know the characters, become invested in them, and understand their motivations. Without those parts, you wouldn't care about them. And there's nothing worse than watching a movie when you don't care about the characters.

A remake of The Fall Of The Roman Empire from '64. Julius died in 44BC, Marcus in 180AD. As usual, liberties were taken with the story. Commodus was already fighting in the arena, until he was slain by a random wrestler. The following year saw five emperors come and go, and as the empire limped on, there would occasionally be two emperors at once. Needless to say, the empire never returned to a republic.

Caesar was a family name it gradually became a title that was still in use by rulers upto the 20th century Kaiser & Tsar

56:40 The ‘lower res’ scenes you mention are intentional and not due to technological limitations. Including blurred or slightly out of focus footage in the battle in Germania and arena scenes was a stylistic choice to represent the chaos of fighting and war.

@15:08—"He's Good"

And mind you, those were Praetorian Guards—Rome's elite of the elite soldiers and personal bodyguards to the Roman Emperor.

If you look closely at Proximo's last scene, where he frees Maximus and just before he's executed,you can see that his movements and facial expressions aren't quite right. That's because Oliver Reed died in the middle of filming, so they had to use CGI and body doubles to finish his scenes.

The music in this film is so awesome

Hans Zimmer did the music for this. He reused the melody during the first battle as the theme for Pirates of the Caribbean.

Caesar became a title because of Julius Caesar, and also became the root of the Germanic Kaisar and Russian Tsar (Czar in the old spelling).

I was about 14 when this movie came out, my brother is 13 years older than me, so he was in his mid 20s. I had just gone through my first ever break up, and he was going through a divorce, so he said "Hey lets go see some awesome action flick to cheer us up" and he took me to see this in the theater. We both walked out of there in complete silence and the ride home was silent, until about halfway through when we eventually talked about the fact it was depressing, but hopeful, and that the action was incredible, the acting was great. It didn't cheer us up, but I'll never forget that. I love this movie, and now as a man nearly 40, I understand Maximus so much better, and this movie makes me cry every time.