Leonidas (2025)

The film opens with a veteran Spartan hoplite, Dilios, speaking directly to camera and beginning the account of Leonidas of Sparta. The narrative then moves back to Leonidas' youth, showing his upbringing within Sparta's harsh agoge system: boys are taken from their families, trained relentlessly in combat and endurance, and taught to subordinate individual desire to the state. Leonidas rises through this system, distinguished by a combination of intelligence, physical prowess, and an independent streak that brings him into conflict with elements of the Spartan political establishment. As he grows, he becomes king and marries Queen Gorgo; their relationship is shown as close and mutually respectful, with Gorgo advising Leonidas on domestic and political matters while he performs his duties on the battlefield.

One day a Persian herald arrives at Sparta bearing Xerxes' demand for submission: the offering of "earth and water." The envoy also speaks ill of Queen Gorgo, and Leonidas, enraged, drives the herald and his attached envoy into a deep chasm outside the city by physically tossing them into the pit. Leonidas then seeks the sanction of Sparta's ephors and council for a military response. He argues that the Greek forces should take a stand at Thermopylae, the narrow coastal pass known as the Hot Gates, where the Persians' great numbers can be nullified by the Greeks' heavy infantry. The ephors respond by telling him that war during the sacred festival of the Carneia would be sacrilegious; they send him away and consult the Delphic Oracle, which echoes the ephors' warning. As he leaves the sanctuary furious, Leonidas notices a Persian agent with a Spartan politician, Theron, and learns that Theron has accepted bribes from Xerxes to keep the ephors inclined toward inaction.

Denied permission to mobilize the full Spartan army, Leonidas prepares to go anyway. He selects three hundred of his best hoplites and quietly calls for volunteers from other Greek city-states. Many of the selected Spartan men leave behind their heirs; the film shows fathers placing their infant sons into the arms of relatives and friends in Sparta so their lines can continue. Leonidas and his 300 depart, passing through the city and confronting the ephors and Theron; the council accuses Leonidas of defiance, but he insists he is only going to take a small detachment on maneuvers. Theron presses the issue before the citizens, but Leonidas and his men leave for the Hot Gates.

On the march toward Thermopylae, the Spartans rendezvous with allied contingents. A force of Arcadians under Daxos and a smattering of other Greek contingents join them, bringing their combined numbers to several thousand, though far fewer than the Persian host. The allied commanders and Leonidas quarrel over strategy, but they agree to hold the pass. As the armies converge, a violent storm strikes the Persian fleet in the Aegean, and multiple Persian triremes founder and sink as waves smash into their masts and hulls; the Spartans watch from the cliffs as the sea reclaims many Persian ships.

At Thermopylae the Greeks fortify the narrow defile. Scouts sent forward are intercepted and killed; the Spartans and their allies use the dead Persian scouts as part of the construction, stacking their bodies and rubble to buttress a hastily built wall along the pass. While preparing the defenses, Leonidas meets Ephialtes, a deformed Spartiate who was hidden at birth by parents who fled the city to avoid exposing him to Sparta's rule that might have ended his life. Ephialtes pleads for a place among Leonidas' men and tells Leonidas of a winding goat-track that climbs the mountains and could allow an attacking force to outflank the defenders. Leonidas, sympathetic to the young man but aware that Ephialtes' disability would compromise the tight phalanx formation, refuses to include him among the front-rank soldiers.

The Persians demand surrender and are refused. Xerxes, seeking to avoid unnecessary loss, sends wave after wave of men down the narrow corridor. The first assaults consist largely of light infantry and poorly armored troops who cannot penetrate the phalanx; the Greeks hold the line and suffer no deaths in these initial engagements, cutting down attackers as they emerge singly from the pass. Xerxes then sends his herald again to offer Leonidas gold and a place by his side if he will submit. Leonidas answers with contempt, mocking the quality of Xerxes' troops and insisting he will not yield.

Xerxes escalates his response by committing his elite Immortals and the monstrous Über Immortal--heavily armed shock troops accompanied by massive, armored warriors. These forces charge the pass, but the narrow terrain prevents them from swarming the hoplites. In close quarters the Spartans and their allies kill many of the elite attackers; the Immortals fall under spear and sword, and the Über Immortal is driven back and cut down by coordinated Spartan effort, though a few Greek fighters are wounded and killed in the hand-to-hand fighting.

On the second day Xerxes loosens fresh waves that include war elephants pushing along parallel terrain, bombarding engines and lighter siege troops, and even an armored rhinoceros contraption intended to trample defenders. The Spartans hold again, adapting their tactics to the new threats and hacking at the beasts' harnesses and mounts to disable them. During the second day's fighting, Ephialtes defects: he slips away from the Greek camp and seeks out the Persians, promising to show them the goat-path in return for rewards--women, wealth, and the uniform of a Persian officer. Xerxes accepts Ephialtes' offer and sends forces to climb the mountain path under his guidance.

In the chaos of the second day's assaults, Leonidas' captain Artemis witnesses a personal tragedy. Artemis watches his eldest son, Astinos, fighting in the rear guard. A Persian swordsman or cavalryman strikes a killing blow, severing Astinos' head; the film depicts the decapitation in graphic detail. Artemis breaks rank in a burst of grief and rage, abandoning his assigned position and charging into a group of Persians. He slaughters several attackers in brutal vengeance, cutting them down with his spear and sword, and returns bloodied but alive to the remaining Spartans.

News that Ephialtes has betrayed the Greeks reaches Daxos and the Arcadians. Faced with the reality of imminent encirclement, many of the allied contingents decide to withdraw during the night, slipping away to preserve their forces. Leonidas receives word of the betrayal but refuses to abandon the pass. He chooses to stay with the three hundred Spartans and a small number of committed allies, instructing an injured but capable Dilios to return to Sparta and deliver a full account of events and the tale of their stand. Leonidas' orders include a request that Spartan citizens continue the war against Persia and use the account to rally the Greeks; he charges Dilios with this task and sends him away.

Back in Sparta, while Leonidas fights, Queen Gorgo faces court politics. She approaches Theron, who has long taken bribes and acted on Xerxes' behalf, pleading for reinforcement to aid the Spartans at Thermopylae. Theron demands sexual favors in return for his support; he rapes Gorgo in exchange for promising to present her plea to the Council. The following day Theron appears before the ephors and the citizen assembly and accuses Gorgo of adultery, attempting to defame her character and neutralize her influence. Gorgo confronts Theron privately after he leaves the council chambers. During the confrontation she produces a hidden blade and stabs Theron, killing him by plunging the dagger into his chest and leaving him to bleed out. Searching his clothing she finds a satchel of Persian gold concealed in his robe; she takes this evidence of his bribery into the council. With the incriminating bag revealed, the ephors and council members withdraw their earlier opposition and agree to dispatch reinforcements to the pass.

On the third day, the Persians execute the envelopment. Guided by Ephialtes, a host of Persian troops and allied forces climb the goat-path and emerge behind the Greek line, cutting off retreat and surrounding Leonidas' position. Xerxes' herald and his generals again demand the Spartans' surrender; Leonidas and his men refuse. A Persian commander--Xerxes' general--advances to lead an assault and taunt the defenders. Stelios, a young and fiery Spartan spear-bearer, rushes out and confronts that general; in hand-to-hand combat Stelios thrusts his spear through the general's torso, killing him instantly. Stelios then slashes across the dead commander's neck with his sword to ensure the kill. This act provokes Xerxes to order an all-out attack.

The Greeks fight back with desperate valor. Leonidas steps forward into the open and hurls his spear directly at Xerxes, who stands upon a raised platform. The spear finds its mark, cutting into Xerxes' face and shredding his flesh, demonstrating the monarch's physical vulnerability. Xerxes reels but does not fall; he orders a massive shower of arrows and missile fire. Persian archers, massed on the heights and in the surrounding plains, unleash a storm of arrows that darken the sky. The Spartans continue to fight in the teeth of the volley, but the sheer density of the volley overwhelms them. One by one the Spartans and their remaining allies are pierced by arrows and then finished by Persian swordsmen who close in. Leonidas is struck repeatedly by arrows and by spears as he presses forward; he collapses and is finally killed on the ground as the Persians press into the pass, his body pierced by dozens of arrows and matched by cuts from blades as the encirclement completes. The three hundred Spartans die where they stand or fall; their bodies are shown piled on the battlefield, pierced by arrows and impaled by spears. Artemis survives the immediate assault but is grievously wounded while avenging his son, and he falls mortally wounded later in the fighting as Persian soldiers cut him down after he is separated from the tight phalanx. Astinos is already dead from his earlier decapitation. Ephialtes remains alive in Xerxes' camp, rewarded for his treachery.

In the aftermath of Thermopylae, Dilios returns to Sparta carrying the story of Leonidas' defiance and the stubborn sacrifice of the three hundred and their allies. On the steps of the Spartan assembly he gives a stirring, graphic account, naming Leonidas and describing the manner of the defenders' deaths--the spearings, the arrows, the death of the Immortals at the hands of the hoplites. His testimony infuriates the Spartan Council and galvanizes the Greek city-states. With the ephors now convinced by the evidence--including the bag of Persian gold Gorgo unearthed from Theron's robe--they lift the constraints that had prevented mobilization. The Greeks gather a combined army, and Dilios is chosen among the leaders to carry Leonidas' story forward into battle.

The film closes by showing the combined Greek army at the plains of Plataea a year after Thermopylae. Dilios, now a hardened veteran and leader, stands before assembled Greek soldiers and recounts Leonidas' final words and the exact sequence of the Spartan last stand. The army then charges into combat against the Persian host at Plataea under Dilios' command. The film ends with the Greeks advancing to meet the Persians in pitched battle, driven by the narrative of Leonidas' sacrifice as told by Dilios, leaving viewers with the image of the assembled Greeks surging forward to engage Xerxes' forces on the open plain.

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No, the 2025 movie titled Leonidas does not have a post-credits scene.

Search results from comprehensive after-credits databases and film catalogs, including aftercredits.com which tracks stingers and codas for thousands of films, contain no mention of any post-credits content for Leonidas (2025). References to related Spartan-era films like 300 (2006) focus on iconic scenes such as "This is Sparta!" but confirm no post-credits in the original, with no updates indicating one for the 2025 production. Anticipatory articles about potential 2025 Spartan films discuss plot expectations but omit any post-credits details, aligning with the absence in authoritative trackers as of January 2026. If new home media releases emerge, this could change, but current data shows none.

No, Leonidas (2025) is not family-friendly due to its intense historical action sequences involving graphic combat and themes of war.

Potentially objectionable or upsetting scenes/aspects for children or sensitive viewers include: - Bloody hand-to-hand battles with swords and shields, showing wounds and fatalities. - Scenes of mass warfare with charging armies, impalements, and decapitations. - Emotional depictions of betrayal, loss, and rage-driven vengeance. - Perilous high-stakes fights atop cliffs and in narrow passes, with falls and crushing injuries. - Brief animal violence, such as horses being slain mid-charge.