🎬 5 picks
Which emperors film actually gets right, and which it happily reinvents. From the definitive BBC I, Claudius to Gladiator’s Commodus, the screen versions worth your evening — and what to take with a grain of salt.
The definitive Julio-Claudian drama: the whole poisonous family from Augustus to Nero, adapted from Robert Graves. Still unmatched.
The fall of the Republic and rise of Augustus, seen from the street up. Lavish, brutal, and closer to the texture of Roman life than most.
Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, freely fictionalized — the film that put Roman emperors back in the multiplex. Great drama, loose history.
Not about an emperor but about their late empire: Christian Alexandria, the philosopher Hypatia, and a world turning intolerant.
The grand old epic Gladiator borrowed from — the same Marcus-to-Commodus turn, staged on a colossal scale.