Ben-Hur (2016) on Netflix
PG-1320162h 5mActionAdventureDramaHistory
Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince in Jerusalem, and Messala, his adopted Roman brother, are best friends. A Zealot's attack on the arriving governor puts Judah's household under Roman arrest.
- Netflix2.1/5
- IMDb5.7/1050,566 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes25%
Trailer
Plot summary
Judah and Messala are brothers raised together in Jerusalem, Judah a Jewish prince and Messala Roman by birth and adopted into the family. When Naomi, the mother of Judah's sister Tirzah, rebuffs Messala's interest in her daughter, Messala joins the Roman army. Judah marries Esther, a slave in his household. Messala comes back three years later as a decorated officer, while Zealots opposed to Roman rule grow bolder. Judah takes in Dismas, a young Zealot, and urges him to give up the fight. With the new governor, Pontius Pilate, due in Jerusalem, Messala asks Judah to work as an informant among the locals.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ben-Hur (2016)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producers had planned to film the 10-minute chariot race in Rome's Circus Maximus arena, but Italy's national cultural authorities denied access, fearing the stunts would damage the fragile historic site, which was then under restoration.
- To re-create the race, producers and horse race track experts built a 1,000-foot-long arena called Circus Tiberius at Cinecittà World, a film-themed amusement park south of Rome, with a 250-meter by 50-meter track, partly on the back lot of producer Dino De Laurentiis's former studio complex.
- Horse master Steve Dent supplied 86 horses, with back-up animals, trained for several months to race at 40 miles per hour; 60 handlers worked the shoot and 12 horses were rotated for every four-horse carriage so the animals could rest.
- Art director Massimo Pauletto's team had to reinvent a forgotten skill to build the chariots; bolts holding them together kept breaking under the horses' immense strength and the bar attaching the horses bent, so the crew learned to build replacements week after week.
- The crew attached microphones to the horses to record the pounding of their hooves, buried GoPro cameras in the sand, and placed one camera on a soccer ball in the middle of the track while the horses ran over it.
- During filming, one stuntman was thrown off from his chariot and suffered only mild injuries; another was thrown from a chariot and run over by the wheel of another, and was later hospitalized and treated for bruised ribs.
- Tom Hiddleston was originally considered for the title role of Judah Ben-Hur, but Jack Huston was cast instead.
- Malaysia's release drew controversy when some viewers complained that scenes depicting Jesus Christ had been cut from the theatrical version; censorship board chairman Datuk Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said the Malaysian censors had not made the cuts and suggested the producers had, to suit the sensitivities of certain markets.
