The magic of movies lies in their ability to transport you to any world, real or imaginary, for a brief window of time. With our desires as a voyeuristic audience, it’s fascinating to see ancient lands and people replicated to the best of artistic and filmmaking ability on screen and in different genres. While these films may not always be historically accurate representations (many films in ancient worlds feature the fantasy and mythology of the era), and they often take great artistic liberties, it’s still interesting to see artists blend fact and fiction to render time periods such as ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, prehistoric eras, and biblical times. Eras otherwise lost to the sands of time can be resurrected to the big screen.
For this list, Stacker dove into film history and compiled data on 50 films set in ancient times, which spans from the beginning of human history to the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century. The films run the gamut from Oscar-winning dramas to goofy comedies to the first wave of B horror flicks and span countries and decades. To qualify, the movie had to have at least 1,000 votes on IMDb. The list is ordered chronologically. Check out these films if you want to get a (mostly fictionalized) taste of what it was like to live in ancient times.
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