Gladiator

11 of 11 places · 21 of 21 Moments

• Bourne Wood

  Tilford Road, near Farnham, Surrey

  • Not Slovakia

    The opening was first planned for Slovakia. The British Forestry Commission offered a forest near Farnham instead, one that was due to be replanted anyway.

  • Germania, in Surrey

    The opening sequence is shot in Bourne Wood in 1999, during an English winter of short days.

  • The emperor’s tent

    Beside the battleground the crew builds a Roman camp round the emperor’s great tent, lit from the floor, with bulbs in the eaves so it never goes to black.

• Shepperton Studios

  Studios Road, Shepperton, Surrey

  • A Colosseum on a table

    A small model of the Colosseum set is lit by a single lamp placed far away, standing in for the sun.

  • Following the shadow

    Engineers at Buro Happold design a Roman velarium for the arena, and an old heliostat shows how its shadows will move through the day.

• Ouarzazate

  Ouarzazate, south of the High Atlas

  • Two casbahs

    Filming begins in two casbahs outside Ouarzazate, where Arthur Max builds a small mud-brick arena.

  • Red frames in the dye market

    In an alley hung with loops of raw wool, the crew stretch red frames, 12 feet by 4, overhead so the sun comes through them.

• Aït Benhaddou

  Ksar of Aït Benhaddou, about 25 km north-west of Ouarzazate

  • The African village

    Aït Benhaddou plays the African village; little more is needed than an arena set up beside its adobe houses.

• Fort Ricasoli

  Kalkara, at the mouth of the Grand Harbour

  • A fort found on a break

    In Malta to make White Squall, Ridley Scott roams round in a break and finds the big fort at Kalkara.

  • A J, not a ring

    Only the lower part of the Colosseum is built at the fort, in the shape of a J.

  • The rest, by computer

    The rest of the arena and its upper deck are added by computer at Mill Film in London.

  • Rome’s palace district

    Through a severe winter, the designers build Rome’s palace district in Malta, with an old British military fort as the backdrop; the camera crew follow close behind the builders.

  • The director on the camera

    On the Colosseum set in Malta, Ridley Scott sometimes operates a camera himself.

  • Baptism of fire

    Malta Film Studios calls Gladiator the fort’s baptism of fire: the film that put it on the map for the spectacles that followed.

  • Eighteen weeks

    The whole film is shot on location, in 18 weeks.

• The road to Terrapille

  Strada di Terrapille, below Pienza

  • The road home

    At the end of the film Maximus travels the road between Terrapille and the Pieve di Corsignano.

• Pieve di Corsignano

  Piazza Dante Alighieri 29, Pienza

  • Visions of home

    Maximus’s recurring visions of home are coloured by the wheat fields of the Val d’Orcia.

• The Colosseum

  Piazza del Colosseo, Rome

  • The real arena

    The real Colosseum, built by the Flavian emperors, held animal hunts and gladiatorial games until the games were abolished in 438.

• The Ludus Magnus

  Via Labicana, east of the Colosseum

  • The real school

    Next door, the Ludus Magnus trained gladiators round a small elliptical arena with seats for 3,000.

• The Palatine

  Via di San Gregorio, beside the Forum

  • The word palace

    The emperors lived on the Palatine, and its name, Palatium, became the word for a palace.

• The Shrine Auditorium

  665 West Jefferson Boulevard, Los Angeles

  • Five Oscars

    On 25 March 2001, at the Shrine Auditorium, Gladiator wins five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor for Russell Crowe, Costume Design, Sound and Visual Effects.