The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) is a sweeping Hollywood historical epic you can watch online on iFILM. Director Anthony Mann assembled an extraordinary cast — Alec Guinness, Sophia Loren, Christopher Plummer, James Mason and Omar Sharif — for a story set at the empire's turning point. Runtime: three hours and eight minutes.

The year is 180 A.D. Emperor Marcus Aurelius, played by Guinness in his final days, intends to name the loyal general Gaius Livius his successor rather than his own son Commodus. Commodus finds out and takes power anyway. Everything the old emperor spent decades building — the northern alliances, the policy of tribal integration — unravels quickly under his son's rule, and the Germanic wars resume.

Producer Samuel Bronston built full-scale Roman sets in Spain, pouring an enormous budget into the production. The film flopped at the box office, but Ridley Scott later named it a direct visual reference for Gladiator. Stream The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) online on iFILM.