Released in 2006, this all-action adventure casts historical accuracy aside, preferring instead the fictitious battlefield devised by comic writer and artist Frank Miller. Directed by Zack Snyder, it stars Gerard Butler as Spartan King Leonidas, who leads 300 of his fiercely loyal men into battle against the mammoth, all-conquering Persian army in 480BC.
This is a war where masked monsters and cyclops fight alongside muscle men in unapologetic slash-and-stab combat. The result is a relentlessly bloody and refreshingly stylish action movie: a gold and bronze work of art, splashed with claret.
300 is a Film programme that first aired in 2006 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
