The Peplum (or pepla plural), also known as Sword-and-Sandal, is a genre of largely Italian-made Historical or Biblical Epics (costume dramas) that dominated the Italian film industry from 1958 to 1965, eventually being replaced in 1965 by the "Spaghetti Western". The pepla attempted to emulate, or compete with, the big-budget Hollywood Historical Epics of the time, such as Spartacus, Samson and Delilah and The Ten Commandments (just as the Spaghetti westerns were imitations of the Hollywood Western). The terms "peplum" (referring to the togas or robes which the ancient Romans wore) and "sword-and-sandal" were used in a condescending way by film critics. Italian director Vittorio Cottafavi called the genre "Neo-Mythology".

While Hollywood filmmakers, such as D. W. Griffith with his 1916 Intolerance, peopled their historical epics with dramatic conflicts and realistic protagonists, many of the Pepla merely took a real historical or Biblical event and used it as a backdrop for a simplistic (albeit engrossing), comic book-like heroic adventure tale. The pepla are a specific class of Italian adventure or fantasy films that have subjects set in Biblical, medieval or classical antiquity, often with contrived plots based very loosely on mythology, legendary Greco-Roman history, or the other contemporary cultures of the time, such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, Etruscans, etc.