In the 2000 film "Gladiator," Marcus Aurelius is the aging emperor who is Commodus’s father. Played by Richard Harris, he is shown as a thoughtful Roman ruler who distrusts his son’s ambition and considers Maximus as a possible successor.
The film dramatizes Marcus Aurelius’s final days and depicts Commodus murdering him after learning that the emperor intends to pass power to Maximus. That scene drives the central conflict: Commodus becomes emperor, while Maximus is betrayed, enslaved, and eventually forced to fight as a gladiator.
The movie takes major liberties with history. Marcus Aurelius did not die at his son’s hands; he died in 180 AD, probably during the Antonine Plague, at Vindobona, near modern Vienna. Commodus had also shared imperial power with him for several years before becoming sole emperor. Quintus and Gracchus are characters in the film, not Commodus’s father.