The 1959 epic 'Ben-Hur' featured the most ambitious stunt sequence in Hollywood history: the nine-minute chariot race. To film it, MGM built the largest film set ever constructed at the time—an 18-acre arena in Rome that required 40,000 tons of sand imported from the Mediterranean. The sequence took 10 weeks to film and cost $1 million, which was nearly 1/15th of the entire film's budget. Over 1,000 extras were used, and 78 horses were trained specifically for the scene. No CGI existed, so the crashes and high-speed maneuvers were real. The intensity of the sequence paid off; 'Ben-Hur' became the first film to win 11 Academy Awards, a record it held alone for 38 years until 'Titanic' matched it. The chariot race remains a benchmark for practical action choreography.