Gladiator (2000 film) Gladiator (2000 film) Gladiator is a 2000 epic historical drama film directed by Ridley Scott and written by David Franzoni, John Logan, and William Nicholson. The film was jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Universal Pictures. It stars Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Möller, Oliver Reed (in his final role), Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel, and Richard Harris. Crowe portrays Hispano-Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed when Commodus, the ambitious son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, murders his father and seizes the throne. Reduced to slavery, Maximus rises through the ranks of the gladiatorial
The Sky Is Falling (1979 film) British and American expatriates, some of whom were featured in this movie. One of the extras, a young boy who was trampled at the end of the movie, looking towards the sky, was an American living in Spain whose parents ran a local saloon (El Saloon) and had befriended the director and many of the cast members. Both Carroll Baker and Dennis Hopper, who had starred together in "Giant" (1956), had been out of major Hollywood pictures for some time when they were cast in the film; Baker had been living in Europe and making giallo and horror films in