The Gladiators

aka The Peace Game or Gladiatorena

Bruised by the hysteria surrounding The War Game, as the swinging decade drew to its entrenched, pessimistic conclusion, Peter Watkins took aim at the entire media system with this fake reality TV show.

  • Director

    Peter Watkins

  • With

    Arthur Pentelow, Frederick Danner, Hans Benderick

  • Sweden 1968. 105min

  • Digital

  • Certificate

    18

  • Some English subtitles

An international gladiator competition, designed to suppress viewers’ critical faculties and channel violent emotions, is broadcast around the world. One group of fighters mounts a resistance, determined to find the centres of control. But can they override the entire system? Foreshadowing The Hunger Games, Watkins adopts a reality TV show framing while channelling absurdist 1960s satire.

William Fowler