Looking at the Mel Gibson Passion movie from the viewpoint of history raises questions (and answers) on the Ancient/Classical History Forum.

From RomaHost: "Not much is known about Pontius Pilatus aside from Josephus and Philo of Alexandria (and the gospels). The OCD treats him in one paragraph. From the summary there it seems that he was a poor administrator, antagonized the Jews to the point where he set up iconic shields in the palace and was ordered by Tiberius to remove them. He finally was removed by Vitellius after his murderous actions against the Samaritans. It mentions that the gospel information about the trial of Jesus is too conflicting to create a reliable account....

Of course, the scarcity of historical information and the conflicting gospel passages allowed Gibson to create his own interpretation and imagination of the events for the movie.

The Passion of the Christ in the Ancient/Classical History Forum