Director Stanley Kubrick's much-lauded historical epic, starring Kirk Douglas as the slave-turned-gladiator who leads a revolt against the might of the Romans, has come to be regarded as a classic of its genre. Despite the film's length and overemphasis in the latter half on wordy speeches from Douglas (the film's executive producer), the action leading up to the revolt of the gladiators is brilliantly re-created, with Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton and Laurence Olivier (as the Romans) addictively greedy scene-stealers. The early sequences, set in the Libyan desert, were directed by Anthony Mann, who was fired by Douglas and replaced by the 31-year-old Kubrick. Sadly, Kubrick later disowned the picture because he regarded himself as a hired hand. For several years Spartacus held the record as the most expensive picture ever made in America; it also made history as one of two films that finally broke the Hollywood communist blacklist by giving Dalton Trumbo credit as the screenwriter. In 1991, a restored version was released that contained cuts made from the original, including more lingering death agonies of Kirk Douglas on the cross and a risible bath scene with Olivier and Tony Curtis, which was originally removed because of its alleged homosexual innuendo.

The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.