YMMV / The Fall of the Roman Empire

• Awesome Music: The film's soundtrack is this in general (hence why it was nominated an Oscar for best music), but especially the overture.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Out of the three main characters, it is ultimately Commodus who stands out the most, helped by Christopher Plummer giving out a far superior performance than Stephen Boyd and Sophia Loren and the fact that he is overall a very-well done tragic villain, while Livius and Lucilla are the fairly standard romantic leads of epic films. It doesn't help that despite being outstanding movie stars of the highest calibre of acting skill, Loren lacked chemistry with Boyd in the movie's enactment which is a massive detriment enough to be a fatal killer to the movie since the script revolves so much around the Livius-Lucilla romance.
  • Likewise, Commodus' adoptive father Marcus Aurelius and his biological father Verullus, played by Alec Guinness and Anthony Quayle respectively, are infinitely memorable, the former as one of the greatest philosophers and leaders the world has ever known and the latter as an Old Soldier gladiator with Undying Loyalty to his son.
  • Likewise, Timonides, a slave who long earned his freedom, a Greek among Romans, a secret Christian, a philosopher, a peacemaker, all played by Marcus Junius Brutus himself: James Mason.
  • Eric Porter as Didius Julianus, the future short-lived Emperor of Rome, gives a more traditionally evil performance compared to Commodus' tragic villain, but is still infinitely memorable due to how slimy he is. It ultimately makes you wish there had been a sequel featuring Julianus' two month and four day long reign.
• Genius Bonus: Timonides after his death is revealed to have a necklace with a Staurogram or tau-rou, symbol indicating his alliance as a secret Christian. Fitting for a peacemaker.
• Ho Yay: Livius and Commodus' tragically doomed friendship has arguably more intimate chemistry than the actual romance Livius has with Lucilla.
• One-Scene Wonder: Finlay Currie as an old Senator who convinces the rest of the Senate to back Livius' proposal.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The film takes up 2/3 to show Commodus as the Big Bad with half of it being around his consolidation as emperor and another quarter about his corrupt hedonistic reign. It practically takes too long for the conflict to envelope.
• Tear Jerker: The death of Timonedes, speared by Commodus' soldiers. Seeing a hardened soldier like Livius break down upon seeing his friend's corpse is heartbreaking.
• Vindicated by History: The movie was such a box office flop it destroyed producer Samuel Bronston's producing career and led his company into bankruptcy and contemporary reviews were lukewarm. Gladiator brought some renewed attention to the film, which is now looked upon as a classic historical epic and modern reviews are more favorable with much praise towards its historical accuracy, production values, and story.

---