The Trojan Women is a 1971 American-British-Greek historical drama film directed by Michael Cacoyannis and starring Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave, Geneviève Bujold and Irene Papas. The film was made with the minimum of changes to Edith Hamilton's translation of Euripides' original play, save for the omission of deities, as Cacoyannis said they were "hard to film and make realistic".

Plot

The Trojan Women was one of a trilogy of plays dealing with the suffering created by the Trojan Wars. Hecuba, Queen of the Trojans and mother of Hector, one of Troy's greatest warriors, looks upon the remains of her kingdom as she and the other women await the summons that will send them into slavery to different Greek masters. Cassandra, Hecuba's daughter and former priestess of Apollo who has been driven insane by the ravages of war, waits to see if King Agamemnon will take her into concubinage. Andromache, widow of the slain Hector and mother of his son Astyanax, believes that she must raise her son in the war's aftermath; however, Talthybius, the herald of the Greeks, comes to the ruined city and tells them that King Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus have decreed that Hector's son Astyanax - the last of the male royalty of Troy — must die to ensure the extinction of the line; and Helen of Troy waits to see if she will live or die at the hands of her former husband Menelaus.