5 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Ben-Hur’

1959’s Ben-Hur isn’t just one of the most popular religious films of all time. The three-plus hour epic starring Charlton Heston as the titular Jewish-prince-turned-Roman-slave-turned-chariot champion who crosses paths with Jesus Christ is one of the most popular films of all time, period. The highest-grossing film of 1959, it also won a record-busting 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Heston, and today remains an Easter classic for families around the world.

But before it was a beloved classic, it was an overbudget, overschedule production disaster that was subject to public legal disputes before it was even released — and, with a budget of $15 million, was the costliest film ever produced at the time. It turns out like, much like its hero, Ben-Hur overcame the odds stacked against it.