Wonder Woman (2017) is a superhero film adapted from DC Comics, directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot and Chris Pine. The film is part of the DCEU and was released by Warner Bros.. Runtime: 2h 21m. Rated PG-13. Audience rating: 7.4/10.
What is Wonder Woman (2017) about?
Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained to be an unconquerable warrior, leaves her island home after an Allied spy crash-lands on their shores and tells of a great war in the outside world.
Released in 2017, Wonder Woman was directed by Patty Jenkins and produced under the Warner Bros. banner. The film occupies a significant place within the DCEU — contributing to the ongoing narrative and mythology of that cinematic universe.
The film features lead performances from Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, among others, anchoring a story that adapts characters first brought to life in DC Comics. Its source material gives the film a foundation rooted in decades of published storytelling, which Jenkins and the creative team interpret through a cinematic lens.
Its 7.4 rating reflects a film that divided audiences — appreciated for its ambition and spectacle by some, criticized for pacing and execution by others. Its place in the genre remains a frequent discussion point.
What happens in Wonder Woman (2017)? — Full Plot
We open in present-day Paris. Diana Prince — now working at the Louvre Museum as Diana of Themyscira — receives a delivered photograph from Bruce Wayne. The photo is from World War I. The film flashes back to Diana's childhood on Themyscira, a hidden Amazon island populated entirely by warrior women created by Zeus.
Diana grows up on Themyscira as Princess Diana, daughter of Queen Hippolyta. She is trained in combat by her aunt General Antiope (Robin Wright). Themyscira is a paradise. Until 1918, when American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes his stolen German plane through the island's invisible barrier. Trevor is being pursued by German naval forces. The Amazons fight the Germans on the beach in a sequence widely cited as one of the best action set-pieces of the DCEU.
Trevor reveals to Diana the existence of World War I — a global war Diana has known nothing about. Diana, believing the war must be the work of the Amazon god of war Ares (banished by Zeus centuries earlier), insists on leaving the island to hunt Ares and end the war. Hippolyta forbids it. Diana goes anyway, taking the sword and shield of the Godkiller.
Diana and Steve travel to London and assemble a small team: marksman Charlie, smuggler Sameer, and Native American tracker the Chief. They head to the Western Front to investigate a Nazi general named Erich Ludendorff and a chemical-weapons scientist named Dr. Maru ('Doctor Poison'). Diana believes Ludendorff is Ares in disguise.
The film's most-celebrated sequence is the 'No Man's Land' scene. Diana, dressed in full Amazonian armor for the first time, walks into open battlefield no-man's-land toward a German trench. The British soldiers warn her she'll die. She doesn't believe them. She walks into machine-gun fire and absorbs the bullets with her shield, then her bracelets, then her sword. She breaches the trench. The Allied soldiers, watching her, advance behind her. The town beyond is liberated.
Diana confronts Ludendorff at a glamorous ball. She kills him with the Godkiller sword. The war does not end — proving Ludendorff was not Ares. Sir Patrick Morgan (David Thewlis), a British peacenik politician who has been advising Steve's team, reveals he is the real Ares. Ares has been the silent puppeteer of the war, manipulating both sides into deeper destruction. Diana fights Ares across a German airbase.
Steve sacrifices himself to destroy a plane carrying enough Dr. Maru poison to kill London. Diana, in grief, finally accesses her true Amazonian-divine power — Wonder Woman, the literal goddess of war herself. She defeats Ares. World War I ends shortly thereafter. The film closes back in the present day. Diana finishes the email to Bruce Wayne. She steps onto a Paris rooftop, takes flight, and looks out across the city skyline.
Wonder Woman grossed $821 million globally — the highest-grossing DCEU film at the time of release. Critics widely cited it as the moment the DCEU recovered from Batman v Superman's mixed reception. The film's commercial and critical success greenlit Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman 1984 (2020). Gal Gadot has reprised the role in multiple subsequent DCEU films.
Who stars in Wonder Woman (2017)?
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What are some facts about Wonder Woman (2017)?
Wonder Woman released in 2017, placing it within the 2010s era of comic book cinema — a decade that saw superhero films become the dominant force at the global box office.
Directed by Patty Jenkins, the film was produced by Warner Bros. and adapts source material from DC Comics.
The principal cast features Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, with key supporting roles played by Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright.
The film belongs to DCEU — the DC Extended Universe, Warner Bros' connected superhero continuity.
Wonder Woman carries an audience rating of 7.4 — putting it in the solid-to-excellent tier of the genre.
The DC Comics source material for Wonder Woman has been in continuous publication for decades, giving filmmakers a rich well of storylines, character arcs, and iconography to draw upon.
Modern superhero films like this one use a mix of practical effects and digital VFX, with entire sequences often shot against volume walls or LED stages pioneered by shows like The Mandalorian.
Wonder Woman is catalogued on Movies on Comics among our collection of 162 comic book films spanning 48 years of cinema — from Richard Donner's 1978 Superman to the present day.
