The Most Historically Inaccurate MoviesⅠ

10 000 B.C.

Director Roland Emmerich is usually a stickler for realism. So we hate to inform him that woolly mammoths were not, in fact, used to build pyramids. Woolly mammoths weren't even found in the desert. They wouldn't need to be woolly if that were the case. And there weren't any pyramids in Egypt until 2 500 B.C. or so.

Gladiator

Emperor Commodus was not the sniveling sister-obsessed creep portrayed in the movie. A violent alcoholic, sure, but not so whiny. He ruled ably for over a decade rather than ineptly for a couple months. He also didn't kill his father, Marcus Aurelius, who actually died of chickenpox. And instead of being killed in the gladiatorial arena, he was murdered in his bathtub.

300

Though this paean to ancient moral codes and modern physical training is based on the real Battle of Thermopylae, the film takes many stylistic liberties. The most obvious one being Persian king Xerxes was not an 8-foot-tall leader. The Spartan council, was made up of men over the age of 60, with no one as young as Theron (played by 37-year-old Dominic West). And the warriors of Sparta went into battle wearing bronze armor, not just leather Speedos.

The Last Samurai

The Japanese in the late 19th century did hire foreign advisers to modernize their army, but they were mostly French, not American. Ken Watanabe's character was based on the real Saigo Takamori who committed ritual suicide, in defeat rather than in a volley of Gatling gun fire. Also, it's doubtful that a 40-something alcoholic Civil War veteran, even one with great hair, would master the chopsticks much less the samurai sword.

Apocalypto

This one movie has given entire anthropology departments migraines. Sure the Maya did have the odd human sacrifice but not to the Sun God, and only high-ranking captives taken in battle were killed. The conquistadors arriving at the end of the film made for unlikely saviors:an estimated 90% of indigenous American population was killed by smallpox from their infected livestock.