To my knowledge there has never been a truly satisfactory depiction of the Greek hoplite phalanx in modern media. Total War: Rome 2 came close, but then muddied the waters by introducing its "Hoplite Wall" function - I'll get to this later. The phalanx of 300 is utterly removed from reality and the worst attempt by far.

The main reason for this sad state of affairs is the fact that we're just not certain what a Greek phalanx was and what made it special. Different theories will lead to radically different depictions. Scholars are divided over whether hoplites deployed in loose or very tight formations, whether they charged into battle like infantry lancers or fought in a largely defensive shieldwall, and whether they were highly disciplined and well-drilled troops or loosely coherent mobs of ill-trained militia. The result is depictions as varied as the chaotic tumbling charge in Troy (2004) and the well-oiled mechanical shieldwall of Hercules (2014). There are interesting discussions to be had about the details if you're interested, but the fundamental point is that there's never going to be a single gold standard that we can all agree with.

The only thing we can definitely rule out is the ridiculous kneel-and-shove operation found in 300, which has no basis in any ancient evidence and is physically extremely ineffective. While there is a century-long scholarly debate over whether hoplites used massed physical shoving as a combat method (and if so, how), the assumption has always been that they did their fighting from a standing position. Unfortunately there is room for confusion because Medieval pike formations (and of course musket formations) would sometimes have a kneeling front rank; another serious problem with modern interpretations of the hoplite phalanx is the irresponsible admixture of evidence from completely unrelated and different types of heavy infantry.

(As an aside, the bizarre single-line formation and flying wedge of its predecessor The 300 Spartans (1962) are similarly baseless and silly.)

To make matters worse, most pop culture writers seem to be under the mistaken impression that the phalanx is a particular tactic that hoplites can perform, rather than simply a name for a bunch of heavy infantry lined up in battle order. The result is an absurd situation in which hoplites can deploy for battle - what ancient sources might call "draw up a phalanx" - and then do whatever the game or movie has arbitrarily decided "form phalanx" actually means. Games like the original Rome: Total War is a major offender here, intepreting the order to "form phalanx" as the equivalent of "lower spears". In reality, the guys you drag and drop onto your battlefield, by virtue of being hoplites in regular rank-and-file formations, are already a phalanx. The phalanx is something hoplites are, not something hoplites do.

This is why I singled out the "Hoplite Wall" function from Rome 2. Before they introduced this feature, the game had the phalanx essentially right: hoplites were simply heavy spearmen, and lining them up for battle was all there was to their use. But then they introduced the "Hoplite Wall" special ability for hoplite units, which turns them into tight, slow-moving shieldwalls. Many players will think of this as "forming a phalanx", but it's not. Rather it seems to be a reasonably accurate depiction of the synaspismos ("shields together"), a tighter formation that hoplites would sometimes adopt in a crisis to increase the durability of their line.

The Macedonian pike phalanx is described in more detail in the sources, and is therefore easier to reconstruct. Unquestionably the best depiction is in the movie Alexander (2005), thanks to the direct involvement of its historical advisor, the Oxford ancient historian Robin Lane Fox. It has correct equipment, organisation, formations and manoeuvres. The only problem with this depiction is the use of drums to keep the marching rhythm, which no ancient army ever did. Interestingly, though, the movie also has the pikemen keeping the pace through the rhythmic invocation of the war god Enyalios (you can hear them shouting "En-yi-a-lios" over and over), which is at least based on real practices.