'Gladiator' Quietly Added to Streaming Years After Box Office Success

Ridley Scott's critically acclaimed Gladiator will be making its way to Hulu in the United States on June 1, 2026.

The film, which took home the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2001, stars Russell Crowe as a Roman soldier who is thrown into exile and forced to fight as a gladiator in order to return to Italy and enact his revenge on the young emperor who killed his family.

Gladiator was an enormous success upon release, pulling in $465 million worldwide against a sizable budget of $103 million (via Box Office Mojo). Audiences quickly fell head over heels for its large-scale, grandiose storytelling and brutal action sequences, which also received attention for their impressive historical accuracy.

Gladiator also stars Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, and Oliver Reed in supporting roles, with many characters drawn from real-life figures from this period of Roman history. The story is loosely inspired by the death of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the last of the so-called "Five Good Emperors".

In the years since its release, Gladiator has become an undisputed classic of the genre and is widely recognized among Ridley Scott's very best movies. The film has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 80%, with a critics' consensus that reads: "While not everyone will be entertained by Gladiator's glum revenge story, Russell Crowe thunderously wins the crowd with a star-making turn that provides Ridley Scott's opulent resurrection of Rome its bruised heart."

The film was so popular, in fact, that Ridley Scott released a long-awaited sequel in 2024, with Paul Mescal playing the child of Russell Crowe's Maximus. While the second movie was still popular with general audiences, it ended up being a financial disappointment due to its staggering $250 million production budget.

Currently, there are plenty of places to watch Gladiator on streaming: Philo, Kanopy, and Paramount+ all have the film in their catalogs, but it will open itself up to a huge new audience when it hits Hulu on June 1. Alternatively, those without a valid subscription can purchase or rent the film through any major VOD service, such as Apple TV or Amazon Prime Video.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 30, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published May 30, 2026 at 9:29 AM.