Pompeii

If you want action that respects the story underneath it, Pompeii is available in Australia on Stan, and in the US on Netflix and Starz Apple TV Channel right now. It says what it needs to say in one sitting, no filler. 3,408 people have weighed in on TMDB, and the verdict leans heavily positive. No filler scenes, no spinning wheels between the action. Available now on Stan — press play and find out why people keep recommending it.

Pompeii arrived without much fanfare and built its audience the hard way — through word of mouth. Pompeii moves fast and earns its action sequences rather than just delivering them. In 79 A.D., Milo, a slave turned gladiator, finds himself in a race against time to save his true love Cassia, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who has been unwillingly betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator. As Mount Vesuvius erupts in a torrent of blazing lava, Milo must fight his way out of the arena in order to save his beloved as the once magnificent Pompeii crumbles around him. Kit Harington and Emily Browning lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It was released in 2014. The geography of every set piece in Pompeii is legible, which is rarer in the genre than it should be. It knows exactly what it is, and does not try to be anything else.

Pompeii is the kind of thing you put on to unwind and find yourself sitting forward twenty minutes in. It has built its own audience without needing a direct comparison. The complete film is available and best experienced without too much prior knowledge of where it goes. Kit Harington's performance is the throughline that holds the bigger action elements together. Give it twenty minutes and decide — most viewers do not stop there.