Judah Ben Hur and Messala are best friends, growing up together in Roman-occupied Jerusalem. Messala is torn from the Hur family by his estranged father and taken to Rome for military training but returns to Jerusalem years later in charge of the Roman garrison. When Ben Hur's family is blamed for an uprising during Pontius Pilate's arrival, Messala makes an example of them, sending Ben Hur to the galleys and his sister and mother to prison. After three years in the torturous galleys as a slave rower, his desire for revenge growing by the day, Ben Hur returns to Jerusalem to settle the score between him and Messala in a tense and exhilarating chariot race that tests their characters to the maximum.