Historical Accuracy of Movies Set In the Classical Period

I’ve been listening to a podcast with a bunch of classical historian and they’ve been doing movie rewatches for historical accuracy.

They’ve done a few but the most recent ones were 300, Gladiator, and Alexander.

Needless to say, they were just slightly critical.

300: The only thing they give the movie credit for is including some of the famous witty dialogue from the battle. Otherwise, as you can guess, they said everything was wrong.Some of them did find it stupidly entertaining

Gladiator: they hated gladiator (most of them at least). They said it it just barely was more realistic than 300. They said the only accurate things in the movie was proper nouns of places and they even got that wrong at times. They said the costumes were just simply insulting for a movie that has any integrity. Supposedly the historical consultant has had their reputation damaged for this movie. They did appreciate that it did interest more people in ancient history even if just for a short bit. They said most people left when they’re told there is nothing factual about the movie but some stayed on.

Alexander: This they said was incredibly accurate from a cinemographic standpoint. The costumes, the architecture, the weapons are all extremely well done. They just thought the narrative does not do its subject matter justice. Why is reading a historical account from 2500 years ago more moving than watching it on screen. The movie had a lot of historical characters who mean nothing