6 Best & 6 Worst Historical Movie Epics Of The 2000s

20th Century FoxThe first trailer for Ridley Scott's upcoming Exodus: Gods and Kings landed earlier this week, and it certainly seems like a return to familiar territory for the veteran director, who has helmed several big-budget epics over the last decade. While the trailer itself was a little underwhelming, it did boast the stunning visuals we've come to expect from Ridley Scott movie and an impressive cast led by Christian Bale that also features Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, Ben Kingsley, Aaron Paul and Sigourney Weaver. Ever since the director resurrected the genre with Gladiator at the turn of the millennium, the historical epic has had a patchy track record at the box office to say the least, and it remains to be seen how his latest effort will fare. Exodus will need to be a great movie to stand any chance of commercial success, with a release date just weeks after Christopher Nolan's Interstellar and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, with the concluding chapter of the Hobbit trilogy hitting theaters just five days later. Scott recently said that it was the most expensive production he's ever worked on, which means that the budget is well over $150m, so there's a lot riding on the project. With that in mind, this article will take a look at how the historical blockbuster has fared since the turn of the 21st Century, featuring both the best and the worst that the genre has had to offer in chronological order. Set over thousands of years, some of these movies are based on historical figures or inspired by true events, while others are completely fictional and devised solely for the big screen. The common thread is that all of these historical epics have budgets of $80m and above, so read on to find out the verdict. We'll kick off with the best;